NOTORIOUS child killer Robert Black’s sudden death has denied justice to the family of Genette Tate, who vanished almost 40 years ago.
It has emerged that detectives in Devon were close to charging him with the murder of the 13-year-old papergirl, who vanished while making deliveries in Aylesbeare in 1978. Her body has never been found.
During taped interviews with the late sexual crimes expert, Ray Wyre, Black disclosed detailed knowledge of the scene from which Genette was snatched.
It has emerged, following news of Black’s death earlier today, that detectives working on the case believed they were close to persuading the Crown Prosecution Service that there was enough evidence to bring charges against the prisoner.
Sheila Cook, Genette’s mother, was said to be distraught that he had died before he could be tried. Her husband, Bob, said: “She’s devastated.”
Black died of natural causes at Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland.
A predatory paedophile, originally from Grangemouth, he was imprisoned over a string of abductions and murders carried while he was working as a lorry driver in the 1980s and was considered by police to be one of the most dangerous men in British criminal history.
Although only convicted of the murder of four schoolgirls, detectives believe he took the lives at least four more youngsters across the UK - including Genette - and that his bloodlust is likely to have extended to the Continent, which he visited for driving jobs. He was known to have had a caravan in France and to have collected child pornography in Holland.
Retired Detective Chief Supt Roger Orr, who was pivotal in bringing Black to justice, tonight described him as "a monster, and an enigma, a highly unusual, highly dangerous man".
He added: "I don’t think for a moment that he only killed four times, so there is a great sense of frustration that he has gone to his death without giving up the secrets he still carried.”
Black's reign of terror was brought to a halt in 1990 when he was seen snatching a six-year-old girl - the daughter of a policeman - from the roadside in Stow in the Scottish Borders.
He made off with the child bundled in the rear of his Ford Transit van but was pursued by the girl's father, who discovered his daughter tied up, gagged and stuffed inside a sleeping bag.
He was subsequently jailed for abduction and the case caught the attention of detectives who would subsequently trawl through thousands of petrol station receipts to pinpoint Black's whereabouts at the time of other unsolved child abductions and murders across the UK.
In 1994, their efforts resulted in Black's conviction and life imprisonment over the killings of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from Northumberland, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds - as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988.
Susan Maxwell - known as Susie - vanished in 1982 after going to play tennis in the village of Cornhill-on-Tweed, close to the border between Scotland and England, on July 30, 1982.
Black snatched her as she crossed Coldstream Bridge on her way home. She was sexually assaulted, murdered and dumped in a lay-by near Loxley, Uttoxeter, hundreds of miles south of where she had vanished.
Tonight, Susie's parents, Liz and Fordyce Maxwell, said it was typical of the impact that Black had had on their lives that he would be back in the news at a time when the family had something to celebrate, coming just weeks after the birth of their granddaughter.
Mrs Maxwell said: “He was evil through and through and we’d rather not have to think about him at such times.”
In a statement the couple prepared together, they added: “It’s a great relief to know that he will never be released from prison.
“He has been fortunate enough to die of natural causes, which is more than he deserved.
“All his innocent victims, including our beloved daughter Susan died in horrific and terrifying circumstances.
“He brought us and the parents of the other children a lifetime of misery and will be mourned by no one.”
In 1983, Caroline Hogg disappeared in Portobello, Edinburgh after going outside to play on the swings near her home on July 8. Witnesses later reported seeing the five-year-old riding a double-decker bus on a roundabout at the popular Fun City fairground, before being led away from the ride hand-in-hand with a "scruffy looking man".
Ten days later, she was found dead in a ditch in Twycross, Leicestershire.
In 1986, Black abducted and murdered 10-year-old Sarah Harper as she walked from a corner shop near her home in Morley, Leeds.
In 2011, Black was also convicted of abducting and murdering nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, who had vanished as she cycled to a friend's house near her home in Ballinderry, Northern Ireland, on August 12 1981.
It emerged during the trial that Black had been a suspect in the original investigation decades before, but police found no reason to arrest him.
Black has also been linked to the disappearance of April Fabb, 13, who vanished in 1969 while cycling in her home village of Metton in Norfolk, a county Black visited regularly, as well as the abduction and murder of 14-year-old Patricia Morris in June, 1980. He was also a suspect in the kidnapping of Christine Markham, who was nine when she vanished in Scunthorpe in May 1973 and was never found.
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