Serial killer Black died from a heart attack, inquest jury finds
SERIAL child killer Robert Black died from a heart attack, an inquest jury has concluded.
The former delivery driver from Falkirk, Scotland, who preyed on victims as young as five, was at serious risk after a lifetime of little exercise and heavy smoking.
Black was found dead in his cell in Maghaberry prison in January 2016, aged 68.
He murdered four schoolgirls between 1981 and 1986.
Jurors found he had died from a cardiac arrest.
Degeneration of the walls of the coronary artery was a secondary cause.
They confirmed underlying factors included his age, his smoking and diet, high blood
pressure, a previous stroke and diabetes.
The jurors said there were no defects in his treatment by the health authorities or in the systems used by the Northern Ire- land Prison Service which contributed to his death.
Black used tobacco up until his death despite complaining of chest pains, doctors told the inquest.
High blood cholesterol caused narrowed arteries, a GP and a pathologist previously told the inquest hearing in Armagh.
For 51 years, Black regularly smoked 25g of hand-rolled tobacco. He suffered a stroke 20 years before his death.
The killer was convicted in the same Armagh courtroom in 2011 of sexually assaulting and murdering nine-year-old Co Antrim schoolgirl Jennifer Cardy in 1981 and dumping her body in a dam.
Jennifer, from Ballinderry, was abducted while she cycled to a friend’s house near her home.
None of Black’s family members could be traced by the Coro- ner’s Service and were not at the inquest, coroner Paddy McGurgan said.
His victims’ relatives were also not in attendance.
Black was serving a number of life sentences when he passed away.
In May 1994, he was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering three of his victims.
Susan Maxwell was 11 when abducted in 1982 near the border between Scotland and England.
Her body was gagged and bound and she was found 250 miles away in England.
His next victim was a girl aged five, Caroline Hogg, who was abducted from Portobello in Edinburgh in 1983 and her body was found 300 miles away.
Sarah Harper (10) was abducted in 1986 and found dead in the River Trent near Nottingham.