When Janina Wojcik left her Altona home on Christmas Eve 1962, she told her husband she was going on a holiday. He never saw her again.

Thus began one of the most intriguing mysteries and longest-running police investigations in Victorian history.

A man has died after being involved in a freak car crash north west of Melbourne. Credit:Scott Barbour

After 54 years missing, on Saturday police revealed they had solved the case. Janina had remarried, changed her name and created a new life for herself as a public servant in Canberra. She died from a medical condition in 2010, aged 87.

The drive to crack the long-running mystery came from Hobsons Bay Detective Senior Constable Luke Dalli, who took over the investigation in 2013.