Police to use DNA tests to track down sectarian killers

ADVANCED forensic tests are being used as part of a massive new inquiry into more than 20 loyalist and republican murders.

A team of detectives has been established to re-examine unsolved killings going back nearly a decade. DNA analysis is being applied to items recovered from the murder scenes in the Newtownabbey area, outside Belfast. Detective Inspector James Templeton said the initiative was his number one priority: “We have to keep trying because if you only turn up one piece of gold 10 years on it’s worth it.”

A total of 24 high-profile murders, nearly all sectarian, will be examined by the seven-strong team. They include the 1997 killing of Raymond McCord, 22, whose head was smashed in by a concrete block at Ballyduff Quarry. Although a Protestant, the Ulster Volunteer Force has been blamed for killing him in a loyalist dispute.

Earlier that year the Rev David Templeton was clubbed to death by loyalist paramilitaries in the area in a punishment beating that went too far.`

Highly sensitive DNA tests will be run on any clothing, footwear or scene-of-crime taping still stored. Mr Templeton refused to reveal details of the examinations amid fears that criminals could be alerted to police techniques. In the past four years all outstanding category A murders in the area were committed by loyalists.

Earlier this year, Catholic postman Daniel McColgan, 20, was gunned down by an Ulster Defence Association gang, a shooting that sent a wave of revulsion through the community. In July last year, 18-year-old Gavin Brett was murdered by the same organisation in a drive-by killing as he chatted with friends Glengormley. The UDA also shot dead another Catholic workman, Gary Moore, 30, on a building site at Monkstown.

Other killers still at large include those who murdered 40-year-old Tommy English in front of his family on Halloween night 2000 and Mark Quail at the height of a loyalist shooting war between the UVF and UDA.

The new methods are also being used as the team completes its inquiries into all of these assassinations.