Bachelor star Annabella Lovas discovered useless half bare on Gran Canaria island
Detectives identified the reality TV star by dental records through a tooth sent to Interpol after a months-long investigation into the unexplained Gran Canaria death
Annabella Lovas was found dead(Image: TV2)
The body of a semi-naked woman discovered on a Spanish holiday island is that of a reality TV star turned influencer. Detectives identified 32-year-old Hungarian, Annabella Lovas through dental records, using a tooth they sent to Interpol.
Their painstaking investigation into the mysterious death in Gran Canaria has yielded a positive ID, although officers admit they are still uncertain about the exact cause of her death. Annabella had made a name for herself on the 2021 Hungarian version of the Bachelor UK, a spin-off of an American dating and relationship reality TV series which last aired in Britain in 2019 and featured the likes of Gavin Henson and Spencer Matthews as the eligible bachelor.
She leveraged her newfound fame to amass a legion of followers on social media. Annabella was previously the subject of a missing persons appeal in November 2024, which was resolved days later when police located her at an apartment in the Gran Canaria resort of Playa del Ingles and she confirmed she was safe.
Detectives didn’t immediately link this when a body was found in a natural pool in the nearby Berriel Ravine inland from the coast on 6 March last year following storms the previous month. The deceased woman was naked from the waist down.
Forensic experts were unable to determine the precise cause of death or extract definitive DNA. The victim had tattoos on her shoulder and back but no fingerprints because her fingertips had been destroyed during the estimated three weeks she had been lying lifeless in the water.
The woman had been in the water for an estimated three weeks, causing her belongings to be destroyed. Despite using drones and helicopters to search the hard-to-reach area, no trace of the woman’s possessions was found.
The missing persons alert from November 2024 had already been deactivated, but Annabella’s family raised the alarm again shortly before she was discovered deceased, leading investigators to consider the possibility that she could be the unidentified woman.
The poor condition of the DNA forensic experts were able to extract made it impossible to positively match with samples tested against relatives, despite two successive attempts.
However, a tooth sent to Interpol provided the solution. While the exact cause of her death remains unknown, police who have now publicly disclosed their months-long investigation, say they have ruled out a violent death and are not treating it as a crime.
Annabella had relocated to Gran Canaria from her native country following a battle with cancer which resulted in psychological after-effects.
She was labelled as a “vulnerable person” after she was reported missing the first time before being located.
Reports overnight suggest that police have concluded she ran out of money and ended up on the streets, likely dying elsewhere in Gran Canaria before storm flash floods transported her body to the remote location where it was discovered.
Police chief Pablo Fernandez Sala described the efforts to identify the deceased woman as “hard and intense.”
He spoke to island daily La Provincia said: “Colleagues tried to reach the natural pool to reconstruct her last steps and carry out a visible inspection on the ground but it was impossible.
“You would have needed to be a professional climber, not just any hiker, to reach the spot. All we had to go on initially were some strange tattoos she had on her shoulder and back.”
Describing the dead end investigators faced when attempting to secure a positive DNA match, he continued: “The mould of the tooth was sent though Interpol and provided conclusive data.
“Once you have a name, it’s easier to find out because most people have a dental record. A set of teeth is like a fingerprint; it has its characteristic points. The dentition is the safe of the human body and what lasts the most at high temperatures.”
