The remains of murdered German student Inga Maria Hauser were, "sent like a parcel" to her grieving family, her sister has revealed.
Speaking for the first time, Friederike Hauser said "life was hard" after the 18 year was old was murdered in Co Antrim, while on a backpacking holiday through Europe.
"She was sent like a parcel, we got a ticket to collect her".
Friederike said it was two weeks before the post office would release the ashes to the family.
Inga went missing after arriving in Larne on a ferry from Scotland in April 1988.
The teenager's body was found two weeks later in a remote part of Ballypatrick Forest, near Ballycastle in Co Antrim. She had been sexually assaulted.
The investigation into Inga's murder was reopened on the 30th anniversary of her death and a man arrested and questioned.
A file has been sent to the Public Prosecution Service and a decision is expected in the case within weeks.
After Inga's murder the Hauser family broke up, consumed with grief Josef Hauser joined a religious sect.
Friederike and her mother Almut refused to join him.
The day the family got the call to say Inga's body had been found Friederike said her mother struggled to understand, neither parent spoke English and there was no translater for the call.
"My mom picked up the phone, she was lost, I tried to translate what was even possible, my speaking skills weren't good at this time", said Friederike.
"So from this time, I practiced hard with English.
"My mother adored Inga".
Friederike, who was a year older than Inga, said she believes her life would have been very different had her sister returned from her travels.
A conference that had been planned for earlier this year at Queen's University, to be attended by Inga's family, was cancelled due to the Covid crisis.
Claire McKeegan, of Phoenix Law, who took on the family's case two years ago, along with respected Prof Phil Scraton, will this week broadcast an online version of the Inga conference .
They are joined by Helena Dallat O'Driscoll, daughter of the late SDLP MLA John Dallat, who had campaigned for justice for Inga prior to his death earlier this year.
