Detectives hunt killer after body of young girl is found 240 miles from her home

“Detectives hunting the killer of Susan Maxwell yesterday appealed for help from half of England,” read The Post on August 15, 1982.

“Mr Kenneth Gibson, Assistant Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police, said they wanted to hear from anyone who may have seen the 11-year-old girl since her disappearance on July 30.

“This means anyone along the 241 miles between Susan’s home at

Cornhill, Northumberland, and the spot where her body was found two miles outside Uttoxeter. Susan disappeared on her way home after playing tennis.”

A full eight years later, on July 14, 1990, serial killer and paedophile Robert Black was arrested after David Herkes, a 53-yearold retired postmaster, saw him abduct a child in Stow in the Borders.

Black kidnapped the girl and drove off with her in his van. Thanks to Herkes,

who took the licence plate of the van Black was driving, police were able to stop and arrest him. By a quirk of fate, one of the arresting officers was the father of the kidnapped girl, who he found tied up inside a sleeping back in the back of the van.

Police linked Black to the brutal murders of at least four children aged between five and 11. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in jail in 2016.