Searching for a Serial Killer [2023] – Murder Documentary Ireland

For over two decades, the case of Jennifer Cardy’s abduction while cycling to a nearby friend’s house in 1981 remained unsolved. Then, in 2002, it was reopened and Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray led the investigation.

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Jennifer cardi had been abducted on the 12th of August 1981 the 99-year-old child disappeared as she rode her bicycle to a friend’s house there’s no words that I have that I could tell you what it feels like until have a child Missing when the case was passed to me it was already 21 years old which of course present a lot of challenges we had an excess of 20 tons of colled material 187,000 people that we’d spoken to in a community that had seen so much violence Jennifer’s Cas still had the capability to Shock we might see a girl on our own some place could I should I will I have I had have known who had taken my daughter and killed her I would have killed Them Andy cardi ti ti I’m Andy cardi and Jennifer was my daughter I certainly remember coming home on the 12th of August and when I drove into the yard uh Pat was standing at the back door and I could tell by looking at her that there was something

Troubling her and when I got out of the car and asked her what was wrong she says Jennifer hasn’t come home earlier that day Jennifer had taken her bike and cycle to her friend’s house went to the house she was supposed to go to she never arrived There and then we went around other houses and Farms that we knew that she knew and possibly she went to one of them instead and we’ve drew a Blank my name is r maray in 2002 I had just been promoted for inspector to the rank of detective Chief Inspector and that’s when the case first came to my attention on that day 12th of August 1981 it was a Wednesday Jennifer had had her lunch she had a bicycle which had been

Bought at a local shop a few months before she was allowed to cycle from her house to her friend’s house which is about a mile and a half away she had left at about 1 1:40 p.m. and we know that because her mother uh Pat Uh had wared her watch just before

She left so that Jennifer would know to be home for halfast 4 which was the Arrangement and Jennifer set off on her Bicycle some neighbors believe that they did spot Jennifer on the bicycle a short time later and then she literally just [Applause] Disappeared Jennifer had left from the family home in balander County Anum where she lived with her parents and and Pat and three siblings she was great she was like me really happy all the time just a typical we girl loved her friends loved her family loved family outings everything she did she

Sparkled uh like children do she just really was a lovely child the bake that Jennifer was on was July I bought that bik the end of July and I says to Pat you know all the we girls are coming to this house on their bikes and Jennifer’s out growing her we bike

He says I’m going to take her down to hickland tonight and buy a bik and Pat says to me oh no don’t be buying it keep it for a Christmas present I says no there’s a we bit of Summer left and she could use the bag

So that night Jennifer and I walked hand in hand to Hickman’s basical shop and we looked at the bikes and she couldn’t pick which color she wanted and I say well I got to go in here with Barry and pay Barry while you pick the color and

I’ll never forget her walking around the corner with start Bake the bag was found out night very wet night and Rain very heavy a friend of mine during the room he had a very big pickup truck and uh he had lights on a bar across the top he sha the lights Over the Hedge not very far from that last point

Where you was seen the reflectors of her bike was picked up in the lights that’s the moment it pivoted then from being a missing person’s investigation and two this was an abduction that night we didn’t get any sleep what it does to you uh mentally and what it does to you

Physically is just beyond any description that I can give you it’s almost 24 hours night since the girl went missing and we have fears of vter safety uh particularly since we find the bicycle in the field and of course at that stage in Northern Ireland the Army had a huge footprint and even

Though this had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism they diverted resources foot resources Vehicles even helicopters to search for Jennifer this is um a document which would have been provided to all senior police commanders which just says Jennifer cardi 9 years result search carried out by police and local residents um at ow

100 hours in the 13th of August 1981 the girl’s bicycle was found in a field about 1 mile from her home search continues my mother lived in luron at the time she remembered a police car going through her local housing estate with a poster on the back and a

Loudspeaker asking have you seen Jennifer cardi Robert Jes take one my name is Robert Jiles I am a criminologist author and researcher the police search initially concentrated within a 5 mile radius of the cardi household and it didn’t just involve the police it also involved members of theal

Community family friends and a lot of volunteers you almost had like an army of people who had gathered in the area who the police were coordinating to go over fields down the roads to go anywhere we searched we had asked so many people all of a sudden within a

Couple of hours there was thousands of people looking for Jennifer all the neighbors the farmers and whatnot every minute that they could get they were out searching plumbers who subcontracted to me shut their business for them days and other businesses people just stopped this was a little girl who had been

Abducted who was missing and people wanted to come out and help they wanted to help the cardies they wanted to help find Jennifer my name is Chris Mo in 1981 I was a news reporter with BBC Northern Ireland I was dispatched from the news desk to go out to baland and I remember

It was a very sunny warm day I have sort of a visual memory of large numbers of people turning up to take part in searches large numbers of policemen soldiers were involved in the searches as well and they were searching the fields and the small streams and rivers

Around the area the search for the girl was the important thing and the Hope was that she would be found alive presumably there were a large a number of vehicles in the area on Wednesday when Jennifer went missing yes well this particular Road uh isn’t normally used as a through route the

Police weren’t saying very much I think I made an approach to try and get someone from the family to speak to me if someone has taken Jennifer and is watching tonight what do you have to say to them well all I can appeal for is that she comes back UNH horned I can

Remember making appeals I can’t remember who till I can remember the cameras here here and hoping and hoping that uh somebody had seen her hoping and hoping that if somebody was holding her that they would let her go you know send her home again hoping that we could you see you feel so

Helpless like nobody knows what it’s like to use lose your own daughter and just give it back to us know all we want just the daughter back we don’t care about punishments or anything as long as we get our daughter back For the family I think it was extremely difficult and especially for two people like Pat um who s died recently and for Andy I don’t really think that they wanted to be cast into the media Limelight that was not in their nature what can you do all you can do is sit and

Weight if somebody offers you uh an olive branch or offers you a straw you would uh grab hold of that straw you would do anything to get your child back I would have to say that we very much appreciate the assistance that we have had from the general public and in

Particular the people who are living in and around a and valere they have assisted magnificently the Serv Wendy Austin take one well that summer 1981 was pretty full on I was a reporter at that stage you woke up in the morning you listen to the news and you thought

To yourself well which one of those awful stories am I going to be covering today I remember all those people sitting with that photograph on a printed sheet on their knees um and I think the community around lisburn well it wasn’t just the community around lisburn people came

From really quite far a field to join in and and to look for her as the days passed and and Jennifer cardi hadn’t been safely returned you had more and more worries that it wasn’t going to end well every day without news means you have some hope left but yet every day

With right new seems to take some hope away I had not left this house for the six days my brother-in-law called he saids Andy I would like you to come down to the police headquarters just to see the extent of this search and see the effort

That the police have put into it on the Army and all the Armed Forces so I agreed with him to go down and we met the senior police man who I already knew and we talked and all of a sudden he was called away a member of the public had

Contacted the police with a potential lead on the 18th of August 1981 two man were at a place called mck’s Dam which was about 18 miles away and was situated off a lby on the A1 which was the main road from Belfast out through lisburn and they’ gone to sass the area

Was it going to be good for shooting ducks they saw something just beneath the surface of the lake they saw some bit of clothing they got concerned that it was Jennifer’s Body and they went directly to L police station at Hills informed the place Jennifer C’s body was found in a pond

Beside a lby off the main road between Belfast and Dublin it’s like a kind of black cloud that comes down at a time like that isn’t there where you you’ve been hoping against hope and then that call comes in that a child’s body has been found and

You just know that the bottom has dropped out of the cardi family’s world really I still have a picture in my head and I think anyone of my kind of age does of that little girl standing with her brown hair and her we white shirt and her red treasures and her bike

Outside her house and that picture is as clear in my mind now as it was at that time the body was R just behind us here from a small pond can you remember if you were traveling road I was here a huge investigation by 1981 standards then commenced so did you

Notice any other vehicles parked about the road here and I suppose it shocked the community in ways that we thought we were beond shock um because no matter what we did to each other you know no matter how horrendous the streets were and uh problems with paramilitarism and

Terrorism we didn’t do that and even as an 11-year-old living in lisbourne at that stage I remember the shock waves in the community and I remember my own parents they were less willing to see you move all that far away from the house I think it was the end of a period

Of relative innocence that something is horrible as that could happen in a Country Lane in Northern Ireland I know that sounds ridiculous given what else was going on at that stage but the troubles were separate from that you know this was real kind of country life if you

Like I had to go to Craig off and morg Pat wanted to go with me but I wouldn’t let her go I said no Pat look I’ll do this you stay at home with the youngsters so I went to Cav and More and uh I’ll never forget that uh when you look at your daughter who’d been in the water for so many days and uh I uh asked him to open the the body bag right down to the bottom so I could see all of Her we thank thee that we can come to thee we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ it was a shocking act that for once the entire Community could get behind in grief and in Sympathy for the family and in that way probably United the community that at that time was was betterly Divided the cardi family they’re people of a very very strong faith and and it just s of shines through everything they Do Pat had a fantastic and wonderful face so she had and that face was her uh was really her strong point I didn’t have as much Faith at that Point postmortem examinations show Jennifer died by Drowning with evidence also of possible strangulation and further Evidence showed signs of sexual abuse the postmortem would indicate that Jennifer was the victim of some form of sexual assault by her killer like if I had have known who had taken my da daughter and

Sexually abused her and killed her I would have killed them like I would have most definitely done that the discovery of Jennifer’s Body revealed new information to detectives it was believed that Jennifer’s Body had been in the water from the 12th of August so 6 days the watch was stopped when

Jennifer’s Body was recovered from a key Dam at 5:40 p.m. so there was a degree of evidence from the 19 1981 investigation so we had the forensic evidence from the watch we had some eyewitness reports of Jennifer leaving the house and probably been set it in

The bicycle and that gave us a time frame beyond the time frame police had very little to go on we had no witnesses to the abduction we had no witnesses to the body deposition we had no reasonable expectation of delivering forensics we had no CCTV and we had no other types of

Passive data so it wasn’t an easy footing for the investigation right from the start they really didn’t have any real suspect in mind the police just didn’t have a lot to go on they just didn’t have the Vital Information they didn’t have the evidence Not only was there no evidence

Life in Northern Ireland was making the investigation even more difficult I think in the early 80s the troubles just sucked all of the oxygen out of the policing capability there was something happening every single day how could you possibly manage the number of cases that they had coming at them all of the

Time Jennifer Cardi’s disappearance and murder as with many other awful stories merged into the background if you like and sadly a lot of people forgot about it no one who was involved did obviously but the rest of us moved on my name is Roger or I was a detective

Inspector with loing and borders police based at Portell police station in Edinburgh while in Northern Ireland the search for Jennifer’s killer had run cold around the rest of the UK a series of similar crimes had left the public in shock the first case was that of J

Maxwolf from Cold Stream on the borders of Scotland she was last seen near the Cold Stream Bridge which spans the river Tweed she had been abducted in July of 1982 and her body had been discovered many many hundreds of miles away and UT toxit in Staffordshire similarly in July of

1983 Caroline hog 5-year-old girl had been abducted on the prominade beside the beach in PTO Bell in Edinburgh Caroline’s parents John and Annette appealed for help want want that back they want them back now and her body found murdered dumped in a laby near the village of Twi cross

In leerer there are so many inquiries which have been concluded and there are no new lines of inquiry coming in in 1986 9-year-old Sarah Harper who lived in the small village of Morley and Leeds was abducted on a wet night in March her body was found on Saturday on a stretch

Of the river Trent at Wilford near Nottingham all three girls had been sexually assaulted before being murdered just like Jennifer so three very similar abductions when looked at together provide a linkage and a reason for investigating them as potentially the work of one killer unlike today when there seems to

Be such a great Reliance on forensic evidence derived from a whole range of sources video from cameras in the street or in private dwellings or in cars and none of these things applied instead detectives relied on witness statements employment records and door-to-door inquiries we had an excess of 20 tons of colleted material

187,000 people that we’d spoken to 60 odd thousand statements taken quarter of a million Vehicles traced and their owners interviewed and there was not one single piece of forensic evidence which at any time linked any of these Crimes but suddenly a breakthrough a fourth abduction in broad daylight was about to confirm that one man was behind all these horrific crimes it was a very warm July day in 1990 his victim comes out of our house only a short distance from here he’s driving past he seesar looks ahead and sees this entrance way here and thinks to himself I can block her on the pavement there was a man cutting his lawn on the opposite side of the

Road saw the van parked ahead of her saw the girl go behind the van and not reemerge he rang the police the police responded and they were actually talking to the man when the neighbor saw the van coming back the opposite way through the village and said listen that’s the van that’s it

The police officer steps into the middle of the road here and signals the van to stop and it does stop in the back of the van was a girl stuffed in a sleeping bag with a cushion cover over her head that had a draw string drawn tight she was actually very close to

Dying just like Susie Caroline and Sarah this girl had been sexually assaulted the alarm bills were right from minute one basically I mean these things don’t happen every other day by any stretch of the imagination the manner in which the girl had been forcibly abducted and broad daylight literally snatched

Bundled and bound in the back of a van very seriously tied up her mouth taped her hands tied behind her back cushion covers over her head and placed inside a sleeping bag this was somebody who had clearly done this before Robert black had been unknown he’d had some juvenile offending way

Back as young years but for a long period of time he was completely unknown he was a Scot he was based in London traveled and worked delivering posters for the advertising industry throughout the UK and he literally used his work vehicle as his home with mattresses bedding so he lived his life

On the road he had complete Freedom he was accountable to no one and we were beginning to find out had had a lifelong Fascination for prepubescent uh female children he drifted about the countryside doing his rounds and all the time he was doing that it appeared as if

He was fighting an urge to stop and have uh sexual contact uh with a child the van if you like was his weapon he was described to me by one psychologist as a heat seeking missile he was ranging the whole time his radar was out in front he was ranging but as

Soon as he was locked onto a Target that was it when he’s awake whether he’s working or he’s not working he is constantly fixated on young female children within weeks Robert black was convicted of the star abduction Robert black was jailed for life at the high court in Edinburgh for abduction and

Sexual assault sentencing him Lord Ross said he’ carried out this crime with chilling cold calculation and cunning detective or was convinced Robert black had committed further crimes and began working on a nationwide investigation it was the old hard yards detective work basically we had to look at his

Journeys we had to look at where he was when he was at certain places what times he was at certain places how could we place him there we could use petrol card we could use his delivery information and his wages so by linking these three elements together over time we were able

To suggest that yes Robert black was in Coldstream Robert black was in Edinburgh was in PTO Bello was in Leicester was in morle less than four years after his first conviction Robert black faced trial again this time for the murders of Susan Maxwell Caroline hog and Sarah Harper

To a great s of relief the foreman of the jury gave a verdict of guilty on the first charg that was the abduction murder of Susan Maxwell and the rest followed huge huge relief the judge then sentenced black to life in prison recommending that he

Serve a minimum 35 years for each of the three murders the judge said you are an extremely dangerous man take him down black was now in prison for three murders in Northern Ireland the case of Jennifer cardi was still unsolved then in 2002 21 years after her

Death the case was reopened and given to Raymond Murray shortly afterwards he began to consider serial killer Robert black when the investigation was handed over in 2002 it actually didn’t feature Robert black particularly so we began to look into it more detailed in the 20 years since Jennifer’s murder advances in forensic

Science should have allowed detective Murray to recover crucial evidence but the legacy of the troubles was inescapable the authorities estimate that last night’s huge bomb explosion in South Belfast caused at least 20 million worth of damage in 1992 there was a huge IR explosion the bomber’s target was the Northern Ireland forensic science

Laboratory the van packed with explosives left on the road outside and the Damage enormous We Believe exhibits belong to Jennifer Carney case were lost at that stage those who blew up the forensics Labs did it for one reason but on the other hand something like the investigation into Jennifer Cardi’s

Disappearance was collateral damage now four years after the signing of the Good Friday agreement peace in Northern Ireland freed up a wealth of police resources for the re-examination of cold cases like Jennifer cardi so Raymond Murray requested every single piece of evidence from the Robert black investigations we were dealing with the

Combined investigative efforts by that time eight years of intensive police work by six police forces throughout the UK K which had amassed tons literally tons of paper evidence index cards statements vehicle records so we had this vast library of information just a given an idea of

Scale it came across in the back of an articulated L and it was moved uh to Belfast to police station North Belfast where there was a large room set aside it was set out in racks put in plastic storage tubs labeled documented audited s it can vares just the size of it and

When you know that this is the part of the evidence that we used to prove Jennifer’s case it kind of conveys a vastness of it all the team opened box after box slowly they began constructing a timeline of Robert Black’s delivery schedule from the paper evidence the loing and borders aspect of

The time had seed a number of exhibits from the company for which Robert black worked for which was a company called poster dispatch storage and then amongst that were invoices and petrol receipts and petrol coupons that tended to show Robert Black’s traveling throughout the UK and that indicated that at times he

Would have been in Northern Ireland detectives wanted to establish Robert Black’s location on August 12th 1981 the day Jennifer was killed key to this was a delivery route known as the Ireland run didn’t matter whether it was Northern Ireland or the public of Ireland they just called it the Ireland

Run the times it included deliveries to Dublin now that was absolutely critical for the investigation if the deliveries that we believed Robert black were on on the 12th of August included Dublin he did not have time to abduct Jennifer cter if the poster deliveries did not include Dublin well then he probably

Did the team discovered that in 1981 special insurance was required to bring a UK registered van across the border into the Republic of Ireland we were able to dive in the company records which we still were able to find if they were going to Dublin they needed green flag insurance at that

Stage in 1981 and we were actually able to identify that they did not have green flag insurance which indicated that the Run had been within the confines of Northern Ireland only it was progress but didn’t prove Robert black drove the van so the team turned to the thousands of petrol

Receipts gathered as part of the Scottish investigation the drivers for uh PDS each had an individual card it was their personal card and when they needed petrol they could pull into a number of different types of petrol station BP shell mobile produce the card and that

Was how they paid for the petol and they had to sign the docket and they had to put the registration number of the vehicle were in at that time on the docket they searched for Robert Black’s signature on a Northern Ireland docket but we didn’t have it unlike some of the other

Investigations Harper hog Maxwell we had no patal receipt that put Robert black in Northern Ireland but detective marray was convinced that somewhere in the 20 tons of paperwork was the evidence they needed drivers for PDS post a dispatch and storage were paid in two ways they

Got a weekly wage flat wage but they also got a Bonus and the bonus depended on the runs that they had done the Ireland run normally attracted a bonus of50 the bonus wage book had been found and for the week of the 14th of August 1981 Robert black had been paid

£50 Robert black was in Northern Ireland but they still couldn’t put him near the abduction we spoke to all the drivers and we rapidly established that deliveries Northern irand always included B alast D Murray and nuuri and nuuri became really really important if Robert black had made a

Delivery in muuri his route would have passed close to balander where Jennifer had been abducted and murdered even after all those years we found a witness that had previously knocked them F who owned poster sites in yri family run business didn’t throw anything out and we were able to get his original records

From 1981 and from that we were able to prove that there were specific poster uh campaigns that were running that he needed posters for and that he needed a delivery in the middle of August 1981 the only person we believe the evidence showed could have done the Run was Robert

Black and that is the story of the cardi investigator it was about tightening it and tightening it and tightening it by luring on the evidence to build the circumstantial evidence to such a degree that there was no other reasonable explanation other than Robert black did it what we believe happened in relation

To jenifer’s murder was that Robert black leaves London on the 11th of August in the Ireland van makes its way up uh through England to the docks at Liverpool boards Liverpool boat which was the ster Prince and travels overnight into Northern Ireland docking at 700 a.m. he then makes deliveries in Belfast

In dun Murray and then he goes down the A1 past mck’s Dam to Yuri where he delivers the posters and he’s finished in Yuri at about 11:30 a.m. he does not board the boat until 9:15 p.m. that night he obviously has to be at the Docks a short time before so

He’s ear the afternoon where with time on his hand his ammo in England was that if he had time on his hands he would leave the M roads and he would go and explore the back road potentially looking for a child so we believe that he’s come off

The main road and he’s ended up exploring the ground and around the Baler area he then has spotted Jennifer Okay this interview has been tap recorded the interview is being conducted in an interview room at Anon police station the evidence so far was only circumstantial police hoped an interview with Robert black himself might change that uh the is Monday 16th May 2005 the time from the to in the wall is 1449

But Robert black imprisoned for three murders and one abduction had never admitted to any of his crimes Robert could you give me a full name please Robert black okay and your dat of birth please 21447 there are a number of issues Robert that we would like to talk to you

About are you happy enough with that carry on she good okay there’s a terrible contrast between the gentleness of his voice and the violence of the offense itself I’ve got one question yeah why in this situation is it always a female officer that talks about these things you can almost hear from the

Quality of his voice how a child might respond to him he’s softly spoken he’s not aggressive he’s not sharp when I’m been interviewed by a male and a female it seems when I’m questioned about these matters there always a female of dis equation he he was far from normal um he

Would sit and engage you and stare at you and then he would drop his eyes and in those moments you knew that you were getting as close as you were ever likely to get to him and they always happened uh when there was any suggestion of killing any suggestion of

Using the word murder I’m finished talking about that I’ve done this before I’m not doing it again that’s when he had difficulty and that was him putting up his defenses and passing the the emphasis or the difficulty back on to you it’s not easy for me to explain

Robert perhaps it would be no I’m quite enjoying Wasing Struggle Robert Black’s an interesting character um he loves driving he Prides himself on driving and he Prides himself in knowing the most direct routes from A to B so what we tried to do at the start was actually connect with him we had a 1981 Collins GM road atlas

Which people certain age will remember long before satnavs and Google Map you could just see him he was so completely entered he was leaning over the table he had a pen he was marking Roots it developed a good rapport within the interview room the detectives asked black about

His movements on August 12th the day Jennifer was abducted the evidence was very gently then begin to get loaded into him in terms of the bonus book in terms off the van do you accept that you did the Ireland drum that week yeah you do and what we would

Suggest is that you set off from L London obviously sometime on Tuesday the 11th of August so in effect that you would have been in Ireland from the morning of Wednesday the 12th of August until that evening yeah black next described a fantasy he used to have when he was driving that

Be driving along to see a young girl I came to a a sort of Rubicon moment and we all knew it and we all held our breath i’ go and talk to try to push way get at the van and uh take her somewhere quiet mhm

And uh take into the back of the V he strangely seemed to be engaged with it and whether it was a combination of that and that the fact that he was being interviewed by a a woman detective officer at that time as well brought together some elements that

None of us had really considered before and well can you describe to me um in your fantasy what the country situation would be like well it was just a a narrow road was going downhill and way at the bottom of the hill where the road carved away there

Was a house set back from the road a bit it was the only house in s mhm as we listen to him go through those details and as we overlay that against the details of the case we began to realize it was more than the generalities of what his sexual desires

Were he was actually setting it in the context as much as he felt he could dare of the case and you could see that probably most starkly we felt in the description of the perfect scenario he talked about the high Hedges the lonely road sweeping around the band

Was the high set pack and we thought right well that’s what Jennifer Wen missing he would all say that he had kept control that he had these fantasies these dead dreams about his his feelings towards young girls and and what would happen but what he didn’t realize was that when he told P

Simpson what this fantasy was what this Daydream was it was actually what really happened he effectively relived the murder of Jennifer Cardy or at least the Abduction of Jennifer Cardy as what was essentially a fantasy for him but it really was to all intents and purposes an admission a coded admission if you

Like so the police in a way did get a confession out of Robert Black and that was the point we thought right we’ve made a break through but was it enough to secure a conviction Robert black was charged for the murder and Abduction of Jennifer cardi the trial began on September 22nd 2011 well the prosecution have begun their opening statement Jennifer card’s

Parents Andy and Patricia were in court along with her sister for them it’s likely to be a difficult and challenging few weeks ahead where we sat there was a Stairway coming up from the sails below and each day he walked past me like I could have touched him then he went

There and walked around and he sat almost in front of me quite close so for six odd weeks I had to sit and look at the man who I knew had killed my daughter the last living person that she had seen you look across to the family where

They were sitting in the seats and you know you realize that for them this has been a journey of 30 years and this is a jury deciding the facts about what happened to their child so you realize what’s at stake and then you look across

To the other bench and you see ranks of media and you realize you know the wider impact it’s going to have outside the family you know that this is going to be a moment that you’re not going to forget in a hurry forensics was always going to be

The weakest part of the prosecution’s case the 1992 Ira bombing had destroyed most of the material evidence Jennifer’s clothing and other evidence from the case was lost forever and that’s a huge blow the lack of forensic evidence is for any case a real hindrance even the forensic evidence

That did survive was of little evidential value Jennifer’s clothing had been tap lifted and from that 21 hers were recovered they were tested for DNA um with new results that were useful to the investigation three hers were actually selected and sent for a specific type of DNA called mitochondrial DNA which

Traces uh the DNA through the female line but again didn’t generate any useful results for the investigation the only thing the prosecution could prove was that Robert black had the opportunity to abduct and murder Jennifer thanks to her watch the watch was stopped when Jennifer’s Body was recovered from A’s Dam at 5:40

P.m. similar watches were purchased by the forensic lab they were immersed in water and not all of them but most of them stopped within a very very short period of time it was a good indicator that she had probably been put into mck’s Dam in around 5:40 P.m the time frame suggested Robert black had almost four spare hours before catching the ferry back to England the case now turned to his previous crimes it reached a stage obviously where I knew that I was going to be called as a witness I had

Submitted um a 40 odd page uh report as a professional witness and it was time for me to speak to that report in the witness box he’s a preferential child molester on one level but he’s an aggressive predatory pedophile on another I was giving to the public some

Of them for the first time uh some very intimate details about these previous offenses some quite harrowing evidence um particularly around the incident in St and in Robert Black’s own background as far back as June 1963 he had a conviction for what was described as lwd Behavior towards a 7-year-old

Girl in 1967 there was a similar conviction on a 6-year-old girl and in 1990 he was convicted of the Abduction of another six-year-old in the Scottish borders I was very conscious of the fact that what I was saying to The Wider public and what I was saying to the jury

Was also being heard in very minute and very harrowing detail by Jennifer’s parents and wder family we can only imagine how hard it must have been for Jennifer card’s parents to sit through this day of horrific evidence sitting in close to each other in the public Gallery they

Heard how black had been caught red-handed abducting a six-year-old girl in Scotland some 9 years after Jennifer’s death the interview is being conducted in an interview room at an police station what we were hoping to get out of the interviews was to begin to um investigate him as a person his

Psychology especially around his sexual activity um the type of person that he wanted to have sexual contact with and the nature of that sexual contact which we thought would be very very important when we related it back to the facts of the other case Robert could you give me

A full name please Robert BL okay and you did bir pce 21447 all of a sudden they played tips of Robert black being interviewed in under crime Suite might she a girl on her own some place and say could I should I will I he explained on how and why he liked little

Girls and not exactly proud of the way I feel towards young girls like there’s a part of me that knows I’m wrong that knows it it’s wrong that uh I shouldn’t be doing things like that I shouldn’t even be thinking things like that and he explained other things that he did

Himself when he with these these little girls and it was such a shock but this other part that says You Like It Go on in my uh in my imagination I could never imagine a man wanting to do what he wanted to do in a little girl and it was absolutely shocking and

I just sat and w it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for them sitting in court listening to Robert black describe what he did um and what he fantasized about and how that fitted in with their 9-year-old daughter that he killed listening to him was horrific it give

You Shivers up your back you just felt he just felt horror and and Loathing of that man that was probably one of the most horrendous memories of the trial it was listening to them tips the child killer Robert black who’s already serving life in prison for the

Murders of three young girls in the 198 80s has been found guilty of killing a fourth victim 9-year-old Jennifer cardi went missing in County Anum in nor there was just a moment where you think right at last the family have got actually what they deserve to get which is you

Know knowing what happened uh somebody convicted um some degree of shity and and not not an end to the story because they they will always live it forever but but that’s better of it the criminal justice better of it at least has come to some sort of defined end after all that Time at the beginning when she went missing and then she was found and we buried her and there was nobody ever caught for murder I had revenge in my mind for the last 6 weeks we have had to endure and listen to how Robert black uh kidnapped and sexually abused and murdered our

Daughter we heard things that in all honesty was not even in our imagination but then I got a turning point in my life when I come to know the Lord Jesus my Savior and I learned about forgiveness and I prayed long and hard about it and it wasn’t something that happened

Overnight I knew that if they ever found the person who murdered my daughter that I could find forgiveness one of the few as positive moments that came out of this whole thing was meeting the cardi family having the experience of talking with them seeing how they live their

Lives it does kind of leave a very positive mark on you about how this family has survived you know this absolute horror but not only survived it but survived it in a way that allows him to be positive that allows him to be loving that allows

Them to be United so can you tell us about your da your members would you like to that huh Jennifer was the most happiest of all little girls that I’ve ever known she had a lovely thoughtfulness Beyond her 9 years and Andrea and I will not only never forget

Her but yes she’s ever ever remembered and always missed all right now After we met the Press I went into the court to speak to the clerk of the court to thank her she says Andy I have to tell you something I say I’ve never sat through anything that got in my life she says the first time I’ve ever seen the prosecution cry

The first time I’ve ever saw that Defence Cry she says it’s the first time I’ve seen all the jury cry that’s the first time I’ve seen the police cry says the first time I’ve ever saw thepress cry and says the first time I’ve ever cried such was the atmosphere that the Cour I can tell you the exact spot where the bike was found I’m a runner I was a distance Runner and I can remember the first day I ran past that spot and they all awful awful feeling it doesn’t bother me now it only a place that the bike was found it was

Only a place where she ducted It the one thing that always brought us through it as a family to know that Jennifer was in Heaven if I wanted to destroy myself I could say if I never bought her that bik she wouldn’t have be abducted so you have decisions to make I could have destroyed my life thinking about that my fault that you was on that bag it was my fault then PT could have destroyed

Herself by saying it was my fault letting her go down to boundary on her bag so you big decisions to make in your life so you Have Robert black took Jennifer’s life but the one thing that Pat and I ensured was that it wasn’t going to take our Lives