The Face of Evil

by Chris Clark

  New evidence shows he was in the right place, at the right time, to have murdered 11 more from 1969 to 1987.

  Driving a delivery van from 1972 to 1992, he had the opportunity to target kids, leaving little trace as he regularly crossed Britain and ventured into France, Germany and the Netherlands.

  The informant, named John, used to drink with Black when he lived in Stoke Newington, north London.

  He said the maniac reeled off ‘eight or nine’ names, including girls missing at the time.

  They included April Fabb, 13, who vanished near her home in Melton, Norfolk, in1969. Black was quizzed several times about her but would not co-operate.

  John said Black even told him about missing children who never made headlines, including Suzanne Lawrence, 14, of Harold Hill, Essex, missing since 1979.

  Another was Christine Markham, nine, who disappeared in Scunthorpe in 1973.

  Black was heavily linked to the disappearance of Mary Boyle, six, from her grandparents’ farm in Ballyshannon, Donegal in 1977. Another was the murder of Pamela Hastie, whose mutilated body was found in Johnstone, Renfrewshire in 1981.

  Mr Clark also unearthed evidence over more than five years of research linking Black to at least six murders in Germany, France and Holland.

  The killing of 10-year-old Silke Garben in Detmond, Germany appears most strongly to bear his hallmarks. Silke vanished near her home in 1985 at a time Black was working nearby delivering posters for London firm Poster Despatch and Storage.

  Her body was found days later. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled and left, by the side of a road [actually, face down, in a stream].

  Detectives also believed Black was responsible for the abduction and murder of seven-year-old Cheryl Morriën in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1986.

  UK and French police also wanted to examine Black’s involvement in the 1987 murders on the outskirts of Paris of Virginie Delmas, 10, Hemma Greedharry, 11, Sabine Dumont, nine, and Perrine Vigneron, seven. Mr Clark said ‘They bore the hallmarks … and he was in the country at the time.’

  Black was jailed in 1994 for the murders of Susan Maxwell, 11, from Cornhill-on-Tweed, in July 1982, Caroline Hogg, five, of Edinburgh, in July 1983, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds, in March 1986.

  In 2011, he was also convicted of the murder of Jennifer Cardy, nine, in Northern Ireland in August 1981. Det. Supt Paul Burgan, head of major crime in the Devon and Cornwall force, said a full file on the murder of Genette Tate was about to be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service and Black would have been charged. Genette’s father John, 73, said, ‘I still hope and pray that we will get to the bottom of it.’

  Black was finally caught bundling a six-year-old girl into his van. As many as 40 abductions, sex assaults and murders were examined as having possible connections to him.

  Ray Wyre, who interviewed Black for his book, Murder of Childhood, said he had hinted about other victims. Wyre said, ‘I have assessed many sex offenders and Robert Black is one of the worst that I have ever met.’

  For further reading and ten associated articles on Robert Black, please visit my website: www.armchairdetective.org.uk.

  PART THREE

  THE STORY NEVER REALLY ENDS

  19

  SECRETS TO THE GRAVE

  It was the evening of Tuesday, 12 January 2016 when the news broke that Robert Black had died in Maghaberry Prison, situated outside Lisburn in County Antrim. I was sitting in my living room watching television when the news flashed up on the screen. The details would eventually come through that Black had suddenly collapsed after suffering a massive heart attack and subsequently died. He was sixty-eight years of age. I was in shock at the news and the suddenness of it. I immediately telephoned my co-author on this book Chris Clark to tell him the news in case he had not heard.

  He wasn’t home but his wife Jeanne was. Jeanne who, along with Chris, retired Superintendent Andrew Watt and myself, believes that she was almost abducted by Black in the summer of 1971 when she was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. I broke the news to her and she told me that if it was Black who stalked her and attempted to abduct her on that day forty-five years ago, she felt relief that he was gone. Chris phoned me back shortly after and we talked at length about Black’s passing and how it meant that other families would never get to see him stand in the dock once again to be charged with other crimes.

  The next morning I appeared on the Shaun Doherty show on Highland Radio alongside Andy Cardy, Jennifer Cardy’s father. Later on that day I appeared on BBC Radio Foyle. Both programmes focused on Black and the crimes he committed and just like the aftermath in 2011, after Black’s latest murder conviction, there were many unanswered questions surrounding Robert Black. Patricia Cardy, Jennifer’s mother, reacting to his death told the Daily Mirror on 13 January 2016 how it was ‘sad he’s gone without so many other families getting a trial and a verdict like we did.’ It was a sentiment shared by many, not least John Tate, the father of Genette Tate. Black had always been the prime suspect in her abduction and disappearance. ‘I would have liked to have seen Robert Black go on trial charged with Genette’s kidnap and murder but now that has been denied us,’ John Tate said.

  His words were even more heart-breaking when it was revealed that Devon and Cornwall Police were only a few weeks away from charging Black with Genette’s murder: a fresh file had been sent to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) seeking permission to charge him; a decision was meant to be reached the autumn before but had been delayed and put back until the beginning of March. Police had traced two new witnesses one of whom made a statement regarding Black’s exhibiting strange behaviour back in August 1978 around the time Genette went missing. This, along with the added similar fact evidence stemming from the Jennifer Cardy conviction and the strong similarities between Jennifer’s abduction and murder and Genette’s disappearance, meant Devon and Cornwall police were increasingly confident Black would be convicted of Genette’s killing. Sadly, and frustratingly, however, Black’s death saw a long investigation fall at the last hurdle.

  Devon and Cornwall Police had asked the Northern Ireland prison authorities to alert them if Black ever became seriously ill in the hope that a death-bed type confession to his other possible crimes might come from him, but his sudden collapse and quick death meant that did not happen. In all likelihood however, Black was never going to confess to anything even when faced with the prospect of imminent death – he would more than likely have kept his superior knowledge to himself in both a two-fingered salute to the authorities trying to charge him and in a perverse game of controlling the suffering of the families of all the suspected victims.

  It was known within the prison service that his health was deteriorating; it was said that he had coughed up blood whilst playing a game of pool in prison but there was no indication that he was about to die or was even near to dying and he had been playing a game of cards with fellow prisoners shortly before he died. Black it seems had taken his secrets to the grave – even though it was not a grave he went into; instead he was cremated in a short ceremony which lasted just over five minutes in Belfast attended only by crematorium staff and a minister. His ashes it is believed were scattered at sea. The undertakers that handled the funeral arrangements had their premises vandalised shortly afterwards.

  An interesting development arose after Black’s death where a fellow prisoner in Maghaberry told authorities that Black had divulged information to him about other child murders. The fellow prisoner who himself is a convicted child killer became close to Black and was quizzed by police over what Black may have told him. There has been no further information released as of yet, however, to validate the prisoner’s claims. So the same question continued to come up: how many more children did Robert Black kill?

  In the early 1990s police looked at forty potential cases in which Robert Black could have been involved. That figure by 1994 had been brought down to under half that number with a possible list of seventeen de
aths across the British Isles and European continent linked with him. Fast forward to 2011 following his conviction of killing Jennifer Cardy, the number was revisited and brought down again, this time to around eight other cases in which he remains a viable suspect. Somewhat irritatingly, certain sections of the media both in 2011 and after Black’s death in 2016 continued to link his name with the murders of young girls in which Black had been ruled out as a suspect many years before.

  After Black’s conviction in 2011 retired Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Orr commented: ‘He’s not done them all, that’s the thing. He’s not a three-headed monster – he’s a very dangerous guy – but he’s not done them all. That’s the reality because some of them that were originally referred are now solved, quite properly solved.’ (The Sun, Friday, 28 October 2011.)

  My co-author Chris Clark has – as seen in the last chapters – excellently covered the eight cases that he believes Robert Black was involved in over a twenty-year period from 1969 to 1989, and has detailed three attempted abductions where the victims were lucky to get away. In the next chapter, I am going to recap these cases as well as add some of my own observations – inevitably, this will mean some repetition of facts and circumstances, but covering the same ground over and over is part of the detective work necessary for piecing together what happened.

  20

  FILLING IN THE GAPS

  The first case discussed was the disappearance of thirteen-year-old April Fabb on Tuesday, 8 April 1969. As Chris says, Black could have been in Cromer over the preceding holiday weekend; perhaps he visited an Easter funfair (he abducted Caroline Hogg from a funfair in 1983), which would have attracted visitors from as far away as London, the capital city, where Black had been resident for over a year at this point.

  Perhaps he was working cash in hand making deliveries or perhaps he was visiting beaches along the east coast of Norfolk. There would have been opportunities to photograph and stalk children and he would later, in interviews with the RUC officers investigating the murder of Jennifer Cardy, talk about the pleasure he took in looking at little girls as they changed their clothes on the beach, while he maybe pretended to be enjoying a walk or some fresh air.

  As Chris remarks, there is evidence that he was driving and had access to vehicles prior to 1976; as said previously in this book he had his first delivery driving job aged seventeen in 1964, dropping off newspapers and magazines for the company John Menzies, amongst others. As Chris also mentions, Black was convicted of being involved in stealing cars and going equipped with a bunch of keys on 22 September 1972, three years after April’s disappearance, and we also know he had access to a number of vehicles prior to passing his driving test in 1976.

  So the lack of a driving licence in 1969 means practically nothing – Robert Black had the ability to drive and had access to vehicles in the course of a variety of odd and casual jobs, delivery work probably amongst them. Another clue to Black’s involvement is the distance that April’s bicycle was thrown into the field where it was found. Whoever abducted April would had to have had considerable upper body strength to have thrown the bicycle that far from the roadside edge. As a young man Black was a keen and active swimmer and footballer and also lifted weights in his room so it is highly likely that he had considerable strength.

  The circumstances of the disappearance of April Fabb are almost identical to those of Jennifer Cardy over twelve years later. A young girl on a bicycle abducted while cycling to visit someone along a country road near her home. No witnesses, no screams heard and both bicycles thrown into the nearest field from the point of abduction. Both were taken away in a vehicle. Both were abducted on a sunny day during the school holidays, and on a weekday, April on a Tuesday, Jennifer on a Wednesday, at around the same time in the afternoon.

  Metton and Ballinderry are two very similar villages in profile; they are, however, in separate countries that are considerably far apart – so if the same man was responsible for both crimes we have to be looking at an offender with geographical mobility and knowledge. and Robert Black certainly had both, even in 1969.

  The reality is that girls being abducted from rural surroundings on bicycles was and remains a rare crime even today and Robert Black is one of the few individuals to have been convicted of such a crime. The problem is, though, that there is no actual evidence of Black being in Cromer or Metton or anywhere in Norfolk on that particular day – yet that does not mean that such evidence is not in existence. By the same token, there is no evidence that he was anywhere else on 8 April 1969, and until we know he was elsewhere, he cannot be ruled out either and for that reason he should remain a strong suspect for involvement in the disappearance of April Fabb.

  * * *

  The next case, that of the disappearance of Christine Markham on Monday, 21 May 1973, is the only case on our list that Chris and I disagree on. We talked about Christine’s disappearance at length and in the end we mutually and respectfully agreed to disagree with each other. Whilst respecting and taking on board each other’s viewpoints on the case we both ultimately had different theories and opinions on what happened to Christine. Chris has outlined his reasons for thinking Christine was a potential victim of Robert Black such as:

  Christine was a young pre-pubescent girl who went missing from a public place in an urban area not far from her home. In this regard her disappearance is similar in detail to the abduction and murder of Sarah Harper in 1986 and the attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill in 1988 in Nottingham.

  It is widely accepted that Christine was abducted. We can presume she was abducted for a sexual purpose. There is a possibility a vehicle was involved.

  The geographical routes involved out of Scunthorpe as outlined by Chris and their links to London where Black resided at the time.

  The conversation Black had with ‘John’ in the pub in 1983 – in which Christine Markham was one of the names that John, seven years before Black’s capture, eventually remembered Black alluding to when talking about the unsolved murders of children. Christine Markham’s disappearance did not make the national newspapers.

  Was Black in the general Scunthorpe area doing a cash-in-hand delivery job?

  My own view, however, is that Christine Markham was not a victim of Robert Black. There is no evidence at present to settle beyond doubt where he was on 21 May 1973; which means he could have been in Scunthorpe and then again he might not have been, we just don’t know. It is widely accepted that Christine was more than likely a victim of abduction and whilst still classified as a missing person is sadly presumed to be dead.

  The absence of a ransom note suggests a sexual motive, however, and whilst I accept Black could still be a possible suspect in her disappearance for the reasons put forth by Chris, and while I accept the possibility that she was the victim of a random and quick abduction by someone from outside the area and a stranger to the child (Robert Black would come into this category), I believe on the other hand the answer to her disappearance lies within the Scunthorpe area itself. Christine was described as a streetwise child who had played truant from school previously. Streetwise or not, the child was still vulnerable and I believe that someone that day took advantage of that vulnerability.

  A vehicle may have been used at some point in her disappearance. It is impossible to know if she was taken away forcibly or if she was enticed away. Christine may have known her abductor and put her trust in them and that trust may have been betrayed. Then again, her abductor could have been a local but a stranger to Christine. The case is a frustrating mystery because although there were a number of sightings of Christine that day (as outlined by Chris in Chapter 14), there were no reported sightings of her in the company of a potential abductor or near any kind of vehicle. Despite 2,000 witness statements and 5,000 homes in Scunthorpe being thoroughly searched, Christine was never found and despite numerous arrests of an array of different suspects nobody has ever been charged in connection to her disappearance.

  In 1983, on
the tenth anniversary of Christine’s disappearance her family switched off the light outside her home at night. It had been left on every night in case she came home. Robert Black was officially ruled out by Humberside police in 2004 and in May 2006 a cold-case review was launched.

  After a renewed appeal for information, police received an anonymous letter which provided some new clues as to what perhaps happened to Christine and would point to a more local connection being behind her going missing. ‘I would like to thank the person for the letter they have sent to me but it is really important that I speak to them personally,’ Detective Sergeant Craig Scott from Humberside Police said on receiving the letter, quoted on the BBC News website in October 2006.

  On the fortieth anniversary of Christine’s disappearance – 21 May 2013 – it was revealed that the letter-writer claimed a relative had helped to dispose of evidence relating to Christine going missing but that anyone who could help confirm this was no longer alive. The letter specified that the evidence was buried at woodland near Metheringham, Lincolnshire.

  Humberside Police at one point in 2012 considered digging up the area at that location but after a scoping exercise carried out by thirty police officers and teams of army staff, archaeologists and expert search investigators, the plan was abandoned for a number of reasons such as environmental factors and physical changes that would have taken place in the area over the forty years since Christine’s disappearance meaning that it was unlikely anything would have been found.

  ‘When people bury a body,’ explained Detective Superintendent Christine Wilson in the Scunthorpe Telegraph, on 29 May 2013 ‘they generally dig where it is easy, but where it was easy thirty years ago it wouldn’t be the same today. If Christine was buried in those woods, the area now has trees growing that were not there thirty years ago and ground levels will have changed. Given the time delay and the environmental factors, it would be highly unlikely to find any remains of Christine after all this time. However, that does not mean that we will give up. This file will continue to be reassessed and we would act immediately on any new information that came in as a result of this publicity.’