Was April the first victim?

NINE years before Genette Tate vanished in 1978 in baffling circumstances (Mail) the headlines were full of the equally mysterious disappearance of April Fabb.

Genette’s loss has remained a highprofile mystery, her name almost as familiar as Madeleine McCann’s who vanished in 2004, but that of April is seldom mentioned.

The circumstances have sharp similarities. Both girls were aged 13, both vanished from country lanes — April in Norfolk, Genette in Devon — and both were riding bikes when they were snatched. April was cycling to her sister’s home at Roughton, near Cromer, in April 1969.

She was seen on the road at 2pm. Fifteen minutes later two Ordnance Survey workers spotted her blue-andwhite bike lying in a field close to where she vanished.

April’s disappearance nearly 47 years ago poses the question: could she have been convicted killer Robert Black’s first victim? GRAHAM ANDREWS,

Bideford, Devon.