Evita's Odyssey

When Eva Peron - Argentina's most famous First Lady died in 1952 - her body was embalmed.

Three years later in 1955, her widower, Juan Peron, was deposed in a coup.

Evita was the most potent symbol of Peronism, and military officers feared her corpse could become a rallying point of protest against the new government.

So they stole it. It probably spent time in a van parked in Buenos Aires, the city's waterworks, behind a cinema screen, and in the offices of Military Intelligence. But wherever it stayed, it is said that candles and flowers appeared. Clearly a more long-term solution was required...

Linda Pressly tells the stranger-than-fiction tale of what happened to her body over the next two decades - in Argentina and Europe.

It's an extraordinary story - one that takes in more grave-robbing, kidnap, murder, a revolutionary guerrilla group, and the occult.

Through interviews with key players - like the man who repaired the damage to Evita's body when it finally returned to Argentina in 1974 - this is a fascinating glimpse of Argentina before it descended into its darkest and bloodiest days of military dictatorship in the 1970s.

It is a story that will stay with you.

Producer: Linda Pressly

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2012.