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                 Copyright 2002 Western Mail and Echo Ltd
                              South Wales Echo

                          November 4, 2002, Monday

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 18,19

LENGTH: 531 words

HEADLINE: GERALDINE PALK TRIAL: HOW DNA SOLVED MURDER OF GIRLS

BYLINE: Alison Walker

BODY:

THERE are estimated to be 600 people in Britain who are at risk of
prosecution for murder as DNA profiles are obtained from old cases.

As more sensitive techniques are being developed to extract DNA from items
like cigarette ends and chewed pen tops, more arrests for old murders are
likely.

The ever-increasing number of criminals whose DNA profiles are being put on
to the national database is also increasing the chance of previously
unsolved murders being cleared up. One of the oldest cases to be solved in
South Wales due to advances in DNA techniques was the 1973 killings in Neath
of 16-year-olds Pauline Floyd, Geraldine Hughes and Sandra Newton. For the
first time ever the National DNA Database was checked to see if it contained
someone who could be related to the man who had killed the three women.

The initial search drew a blank but it did produce a list of more than 100
men who could be related to the offender due to similarities in their DNA
profiles.

This intelligence was combined with existing evidence held by South Wales
Police to identify one local man as a strong suspect.

Because the suspect was dead, relatives volunteered their DNA to police and
that led to the exhumation of the suspect's body in May this year.

Tests on the remains of the deceased using the latest in cutting-edge
technology showed a match with samples obtained from the bodies of the three
dead girls.

Dr Colin Dark, Forensic Science Service adviser, said: "After nearly 30
years of questions, suppositions and heartache, the intelligence information
provided by the NDNAD, in partnership with a dedicated and thorough police
investigation, has provided the key to unlocking the secrets that surrounded
these murders. "This achievement heralds a new chapter in investigative
techniques and highlights the NDNAD as an invaluable weapon for police in
the fight against crime in this country."

It is hoped that new DNA methods will bring progress in many other notorious
unsolved cases.

Nationally, police hope that advances in DNA may hold the key to the killing
of Pc Keith Blakelock in London's Broadwater Farm riots and the murder of
Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1993.

New DNA methods are also playing a part in contemporary rapes and murders.
Craig Gustar was jailed for manslaughter in Bristol last year when his DNA
was found on a chewed pen top left under the body of his victim, Andrew
Karanicola.

The advances in DNA are also being used in appeals and fresh DNA tests are
behind the decision to grant an appeal to Jeremy Bamber.

Bamber was jailed for life in 1986 for killing his adoptive parents, his
sister and her six-year-old twin sons.

Tests suggest that blood found on the silencer of the rifle did not belong
to his sister as originally thought, but to one of the victims.

It was said at the original trial that the blood did belong to her, and that
if the silencer had been in place the rifle would have been too long for her
to shoot herself with it.

The new DNA evidence reopens the possibility that it was she who killed the
others before removing the silencer from the rifle and shooting herself.

GRAPHIC: NO HIDING PLACE DNA evidence led to the conviction of Brian Lunn;
Field, above, for the 1968 murder of 14-year-old Roy Tutill, pictured right
in a police poster of the time.

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2002