Vital clue in 1980 student’s killing is destroyed by police
AN art student whose death has been linked to serial killer Peter Tobin may have been tied to a tree with her bra by a sexual predator, an inquest heard yesterday.
Jessie Earl disappeared from a bedsit in Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 1980.
The 22-year-old’s naked body was only found nine years later hidden in undergrowth at nearby Beachy Head. Her clothing had vanished, save for her bra which had been used to bind her wrists and knotted in such a way that it could have been used as a ‘restraint, gag, weapon or ligature’, the inquest heard.
Despite potential evidence of restraint, police did not regard the death near the well-known suicide spot as a murder until a review in 2000 concluded she had been killed. Now a new inquest has heard that the key piece of evidence had been destroyed. Yesterday Miss Earl’s parents, John and Valerie, who are in their 90s, told of their anger at the flawed 1989 investigation. And a detective who worked on the original case suggested their daughter had been tied to a tree and sexually assaulted.
The bra was destroyed by Sussex Police as per their routine ‘disposal policy’, to the fury of her family who had hoped DNA testing could link the clothing to Tobin, 75. He was said to be living nearby in Brighton at the time of her disappearance. The killer is serving a whole life sentence in Edinburgh for the murders of three other women.
Miss Earl had described meeting a middle-aged Scottish man at Beachy Head to her mother shortly before her disappearance.
Yesterday retired Sussex detective sergeant Anne Capon told the inquest at Eastbourne Town Hall: ‘We had a view that she had been restrained in some way by her bra, and because it was found near a tree.’ But it was impossible to verify whether a sex
‘Restrained in some way’
assault took place due to the time gap before she was found. Miss Capon added: ‘It had always been my opinion Jessie had been murdered.’
Despite her testimony to the 1989 inquest, the coroner recorded an open verdict. A second probe was ordered by the High Court in December after the victim’s parents argued the original investigation as ‘woefully inadequate’.
Stephen Kamlish, QC, for the family, called for original police documents in the case to be released.
No arrests have ever been made and the case remains open. Sussex Police argued that releasing certain information from reports could tip off the killer.
The inquest continues.