Public appeal brings new clues to murder
Detectives probing 1998 killing follow nine new leads
Police yesterday renewed their plea to the public to come forward with information that could help them crack a 20year-old Westcountry murder mystery. They said that after revealing on Monday they had a partial DNA profile of the likely killer they were now pursuing nine new lines of inquiry.
Lyn Bryant, 40, was stabbed in her back, neck and chest as she walked her dog in her home village of Ruan High Lanes, near Truro, in October 1998. The attack is believed to have been sexually motivated.
Her family have appealed for help to bring the killer to justice.
Police investigating the murder of a Cornish mother-oftwo 20 years ago are now pursuing nine new lines of inquiry after making a public appeal.
Linda Bryant, 40, was stabbed in her back, neck and chest as she walked her dog in her home village of Ruan High Lanes, near Truro in October 1998.
The attack is believed to have been sexually motivated, as Mrs Bryant’s clothing had been disturbed when her body was discovered.
Several reviews of the case have taken place, with one in 2015 resulting in the discovery of new forensic evidence.
Earlier this week retired Detective Inspector Stuart Ellis, the senior investigating officer, made a new public appeal and said his team now had a partial DNA profile of the killer.
In the first 24 hours of the appeal around 50 calls and messages were received, which has generated nine new potential lines of inquiry.
“The response from the public in the first 24 hours of the appeal has been extremely positive and encouraging,” Mr Ellis said.
“We now have at least nine new potential lines of inquiry which are being progressed, six of which relate to people who may well now be asked to provide a DNA sample.
“We are however still appealing to the public to cast their minds back to 1998 and keep the information coming in to us. We have the scientific evid- ence and all we need now from the public is a name.
“We would urge anyone who has any information, however small, to pick up the phone and call us. That one piece of information could make all the difference.”
Following the murder, DNA samples were taken from 6,000 people but these had to be destroyed in 2013 due to changes in legislation.
Police are now in the process of re-taking DNA samples and comparing them to the partial profile. So far, hundreds of samples have been taken from across the UK.
The partial DNA profile has
‘We have at least nine new potential lines of inquiry’
Retired Det Insp Stuart Ellis
also been searched on the National DNA Database but there have not been any matches.
Mrs Bryant was local to the remote part of Cornwall where she lived with her husband Peter, who she had been married to for about 19 years.
They had two children, Lee, then aged 21, and Erin, then aged 19. Lee’s son Keelan was aged ten months at the time.
On the day of her murder, October 20, Mrs Bryant took the family’s lurcher dog, Jay, for a walk. A holidaymaker discovered Mrs Bryant’s body, lying in the gateway to a field near the chapel. She had been attacked with a small knife.