In 1999, the IRA admitted to killing nine of the disappeared and gave information on the location of these bodies, but only three bodies were recovered on that occasion, one of which had already been exhumed and placed in a coffin. The best-known case was that of Jean McConville, a Belfast mother of 10, widowed a few months before she disappeared, who the IRA claimed was an informer. The search for her remains was abandoned in 1999, but her body was discovered in 2003, a mile from where the IRA had indicated, by a family out on a walk.