20 years on, dig for body of missing girl
POLICE investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl 20 years ago yesterday began searching a former allotment for her body
Donna Keogh, 17, vanished in Middlesbrough in April 1998, and police believe she was murdered.
They recently launched a fresh investigation into her case and the murders of two other young women in the area, which they think could be linked.
Yesterday officers began the job of clearing a patch of wasteland at Troon Close, Middlesbrough, in the hunt for the care home worker’s body. Detectives said a review of the old inquiry had identified the site, along with several others, as a place of interest. At the time Donna vanished, the land was being used as allotments. She was last seen two miles away.
Detective Chief Superintendent Jon Green of Cleveland Police said the ‘painstaking’ search was expected to take five days. He said it was one of a number of sites likely to be searched, but added: ‘Yes, there’s a possibility we might find Donna.’ Last year Cleveland Police secured £3.77million of funding from the Home Office for a Historic Investigations Unit to launch a fresh inquiry into Donna’s unsolved murder and those of Vicky Glass, 21, and Rachel Wilson, 19, who vanished in 2000 and 2002 respectively.
Unlike Donna, both their bodies were later found.
All three came from the Middlesbrough area, but as yet there is no specific evidence to link their murders. A 59-year-old man has been on police bail for four years in connection with Miss Wilson’s death.