The thickly wooded hills around Medjugorje hold few surprises for Vidan Kozina, but he had never seen something like this, writes Dan McLaughlin.
As he was hunting wild boar last Sunday behind Apparition Hill, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to six local children in 1981, Mr Kozina's three dogs suddenly darted into the dense undergrowth.
"They all charged to the same place and I saw something lying there," Mr Kozina said yesterday, suppressing a slight shudder at the memory.
"I thought it was perhaps a dead animal, but as I got closer, about three or four metres away, I realised it was a human body," he said, shaking his head and taking another sip of strong coffee.
"Then I called the police."
No formal identification has been made, but Mr Kozina is sure that he found Winnie Brady.
Like hundreds of local people, Mr Kozina (50) helped to scour the hills for her when she disappeared in September.
"I looked for her for 10 days back then, but it is no surprise that we found nothing. The vegetation is so thick in summer that you could be a few metres from a body and never know," he said. "I wouldn't have found it now if the dogs hadn't led me there."
Mr Kozina said the body was lying face down, with its head on its hands.
"It looked like she had not fallen down, but just wanted to have a rest. It would have been a nice place to lie down and rest on a hot day," he said.
"Most pilgrims come here from towns and cities, and many of them are elderly," Mr Kozina reflected, glancing towards hills where wolves and boar still roam.
"People can get into trouble up there - it is still a wild place."