Devon and Cornwall Police have submitted a report to the Crown Prosecution Service in England linking serial child killer Robert Black to the murder 13-year-old Genette Tate, a newspaper delivery girl who vanished from a lane in Aylesbeare, Devon, in August 1978.
Her bicycle, along with a number of scattered newspapers were recovered at the scene however to date her body has never been found.
Black died in non-suspicious circumstances in Maghaberry high security jail in Northern Ireland in January, where he was serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murders of schoolgirls Susan Maxwell from Cornhill on Tweed, Caroline Hogg from Portobello, Sarah Jayne Harper from Leeds and Jennifer Cardy from Northern Ireland plus the attempted abduction of Theresa Thornhill from Nottingham.
In 1990 he was arrested in the Scottish Borders after abducting another schoolgirl and received a life sentence for that crime as well.
He has long been suspected of the murder of Genette Tate and it is understood that he would have been charged with her murder had he not died.
A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: “The major part of a file concerning this matter has now been sent to the CPS for a charging decision.
“This has been a long and complex inquiry and we have kept the family of Genette Tate informed throughout.
“We now await further direction from the CPS on how this may progress in the coming weeks.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
