Caroline murder DNA samples arriving in France

DNA samples from a leading suspect in the murder of Caroline Dickinson are expected to arrive in France today.

French investigators flew to the US to collect DNA samples taken from Spanish-born suspect Francisco Montez on Thursday.

Yves Boiven, Assistant Public Prosecutor in Rennes, said the samples would be analysed in French laboratories as a matter of urgency.

He said the samples would be tested at labs in Paris and Bordeaux .

He added: "When the samples are brought back and taken to the laboratory we can expect results very quickly. We have to be patient and not get too excited."

Montez was arrested in Florida last month but his possible link to the crime was only realised by an immigration officer who had read about the schoolgirl's murder while on holiday in Britain.

Caroline, 13, from Bodmin in Cornwall, was raped and suffocated as she slept with friends in a hostel in Pleine-Fougeres in Brittany while on a school trip to France in July 1996.

Montez, 51, was named by police in France as one of their suspects and the Spanish-born restaurant worker is wanted in connection with a series of assaults on teenage girls in hostels in the Loire Valley, 200 miles from where Caroline was killed.

The judge in France investigating Caroline's murder has asked for the sample because US genetic-fingerprinting methods differ from French ones.

US DNA tests have so far shown "a close match" between Montez and samples taken at the scene of Caroline's murder.