FRENCH police today said they had not ruled out suicide as the cause of death of a person suspected to be missing Darwen woman Evelyn Lund.

Public prosecutor Daniele Drouy-Ayral also revealed that the clothes the body was found in did not match the description given to police by her husband shortly after her disappearance. Jewellery on the body, however, has been confirmed as Mrs Lund's.

Tests are still being carried out to establish the identity of the body which was dragged from a lake 15 miles from the remote farmhouse shared by Mrs Lund and her second husband Robert.

DNA tests should reveal the identity and results are expected to be announced on Monday but to establish the cause of death could take a further two weeks.

Mrs Lund went missing on December 29, 1999, after failing to make the short journey home from a friend's house.

The red Toyota Landcruiser, Mrs Lund was driving when she went missing, was discovered in lake Bancalie after water levels had dropped by more than 15 metres following a period of dry weather.

Mrs Drouy-Ayral said it was a "strong possibility" that the body, which is badly decomposed, was that of Mrs Lund.

Mrs Lund's daughter, Patricia Taylor, who lives in Franklin Road, Witton, in Blackburn, has long accused her mother's second husband of foul play -- an allegation strongly denied by Robert Lund.

But today Ms Drouy-Ayral said suicide could not be ruled out.

She said: "We are not putting forward any theory at the moment and not ruling out any."

The body was found on the back seat of the car with its hand stretching through a smashed window.

Because of the decomposition it is difficult to make out any marks on the body.