More than 20 police officers are hunting the killer of Diane Sindall, 21. Crimestoppers has a £20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction for the 1986 murder.
A cold case team of more than 20 police officers is hunting the real ‘Beast of Birkenhead’. Merseyside Police detectives hope to solve the 1986 case using new DNA profiling techniques. They are issuing a full description of the killer for the first time. Crimestoppers has a £20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible for the death of Diane Sindall, 21. She finished her shift at the Wellington pub just before midnight on August 1, 1986 when her blue van ran out of petrol. She began walking along Borough Road in Birkenhead and the next day was found in an alley, stripped half naked and beaten to death.
READ MORE: Epstein victims’ fury as THREE MILLION files remain unpublishedREAD MORE: ‘At night we sit in our houses just waiting for the kicking and screaming to start’
The brutality of the attack led to her killer being known as the “Beast of Birkenhead” Peter Sullivan, now 68, was convicted of her murder in 1987. But modern forensic science showed that the killer’s DNA found on Sindall’s body did not match Sullivan’s and he was released in May after 38 years in prison.
“In terms of modus operandi, I don’t think this would be his first offence,” said Det Supt Rachel Wilson, who is leading the hunt from Merseyside Police’s major investigation team.
“Now we’ve got a full male DNA profile we can work to, we are really keen to look at how we can eliminate people from the inquiry and we can do that through voluntary samples. He might have passed away, but we have to work on the assumption he is still alive.”
Shortly after midnight, a taxi driver saw Sindall arguing with a man on the main road, thought to be the last time she was seen alive.
Sindall was arguing with the man as he walked backwards, in view of the driver. Police say he was white, 5ft 10in, of slim build and aged in his early twenties, with dark and tidy hair, wearing a dark brown leather jacket and jeans. They believe he was probably the killer.
“That is a main line of inquiry for us,” Wilson told the Sunday Times, adding that her team had been through 10,000 documents relating to the original investigation.
So far 500 men have been eliminated from the inquiry and 43 further samples are being tested.
Officers have taken DNA samples from a person in Leeds, while others have travelled to London, Scotland and as far afield as Australia. Detectives are working through the list to obtain samples for testing.
The DNA sample of the killer shows only the Y chromosome, which is passed down almost unchanged from father to son, meaning the samples must be taken from a close male relative. All samples provided to police would only be used as part of this investigation, the officers said, and would be destroyed afterwards. Ryland Headley, 92, was jailed for life last year for the rape and murder of Louisa Dunne in a case that took 58 years to solve.
Officers from Avon & Somerset submitted a DNA sample from a semen stain on Dunne’s dress. It resulted in a hit on the national DNA database from a swab taken from Headley following an arrest for a minor assault.
Last week a plaque in memory of Sindall on Borough Road, by the alleyway where she was murdered, was covered in fresh flowers. It reads: “Diane Sindall, murdered 2.8.1986, because she was a woman. In memory of all our sisters who have been raped and murdered. We will never let it be forgotten.”
