by Chris Clark
The murders of Silke Garben, Virginie Delmas and Perrine Vigneron all contain details that match Robert Black’s MO as exhibited in the murders for which he was convicted..
All victims were pre-pubescent, pretty, young girls and fitted Black’s target victim group. The four ages of his confirmed UK victims were, in chronological order of his attacks, nine, eleven, five, ten, fifteen and six; whilst the three little girls from Germany and France were aged, in chronological order of attacks, ten, ten and seven.
All three European victims were snatched near their homes in early/late afternoon time while going about normal daily activities – April Fabb, Genette Tate, Jennifer Cardy, Susan Maxwell, Teresa Thornhill and Laura Turner were all abducted or nearly abducted in early or late afternoon.
Silke Garben was abducted whilst on her way to a dental appointment; Sarah Harper in Morley was heading home from the shop after buying some bread and milk when Black snatched her. Virginie Delmas was playing in front of her apartment building when she went missing, and Caroline Hogg was playing not far from her home in Portobello when approached and abducted by Black. Perrine Vigneron was heading to a pottery class when she was abducted, and Jennifer Cardy was heading for a friend’s house, while Susan Maxwell was returning home from playing tennis with a friend.
The bodies of Silke, Virginie and Perrine were all found in public places with no real effort having been made to conceal them. Silke Garben was found in a stream off the River Rhine, face down and drowned; however, she was unconscious but alive when put in the water, just like Jennifer Cardy when she was put in McKee’s Dam and Sarah Harper when she was put in the River Trent. Perrine Vigneron was disposed of in a field near a busy road, dumped in a manner similar to the disposal of Susan Maxwell and Caroline Hogg, whose bodies were found in ground off lay-bys, whilst Virginie Delmas was found in an orchard, all of these places accessible to the public.
Silke, Virginie and Perrine were all sexually assaulted and strangled. Police believed Jennifer Cardy was strangled by her own cardigan to the point of unconsciousness before being put in water where she drowned. Like Jennifer Sarah Harper was alive but most likely unconscious when she was dropped in the river. The cause of death of Susan and Caroline was never known due to the state of the bodies when they were found, but considering Black in 1964 throttled a seven-year-old girl to the point of her passing out before proceeding to sexually assault her and then walk away, it is conceivable that Susan and Caroline died as a result of strangulation.
The brutal sexual assault on Silke resulted in her suffering a 6-centimetre tear in her vagina: Sarah Harper sustained similar appalling vaginal injuries. The motive in Virginie and Perrine’s murders was clearly sexual as it was with Jennifer Cardy (bloodstain on her underpants, which were replaced on her inside out, and the zip of her trousers down), Susan Maxwell (underwear removed) and Caroline Hogg (found naked). It is hard not to conclude that these little girls were all murdered by the same individual – a sexually motivated serial killer of children, who seemed to prefer strangulation as a means of subjugating his victims.
Robert Black was found to have been in the abduction areas when all six of his confirmed UK-based victims were snatched – proved through petrol receipts, delivery logs and wage statements. This played a crucial part in him being convicted as it displayed he had the time and opportunity to abduct his victims.
Black made two trips to Germany in 1985 and Silke Garben was abducted and murdered whilst he was on one of those trips. In an episode of the 2001 Channel 5 television series Mapping Murder that focuses on Black, Ray Wyre confirms that Black was in France when Virginie and Perrine were killed. He was working making deliveries in the northern half of France, which includes the two suburbs of Paris from where the two girls were abducted.
The presence of a van. Black was using a navy-blue van when he attempted to abduct Teresa Thornhill in 1988, and also used a blue van when he abducted Laura Turner in Stow in 1990. Black also was also using a van when he seized his four UK murder victims in the 1980s. A white van was seen parked in a field entrance at the spot towards which Susan Maxwell was walking when she was last seen before Black abducted her in 1982, Caroline Hogg was led out of the Fun City funfair by Black in 1983 towards a car park where a grey van was spotted. In 1986 a white van was seen driving around Morley the night Sarah Harper was snatched.
Black had access to several different-coloured vans while working as a driver for PDS. According to an article on him in Real Life Crime magazine Black was driving a white van when making deliveries in France in 1987 and witnesses reported seeing a white van near both abduction sites in connection with the two French cases. A vehicle of some sort was clearly used in the abduction and murder of Silke, Virginie and Perrine.
Silke, Virginie and Perrine were abducted and murdered in the late spring/early summer months of May and June. Three of Black’s confirmed murder victims and one lucky survivor were abducted in the summer months of June, July and August (Jennifer Cardy, Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg and Laura Turner). Because of the good weather and the more active outdoor lives of children, and the school holidays, late spring and summer seems to have been a preferred hunting time for Black. All three victims on the Continent seem to have been abducted very swiftly and there were no witnesses to the abductions.
Black had already travelled to Northern Ireland on a number of occasions and in 1981 he snatched and murdered a child – Jennifer Cardy – and although Northern Ireland is part of the UK and they have the same culture, way of life and language, the journey there still involved travelling over the sea.. When in Northern Ireland Black was not just several hours down a motorway from his home in Stamford Hill, London. He was technically outside Great Britain, across water and in another country and had to get a car ferry back to England. If anything, this must have given him more confidence to abduct and murder a child. Unlike most of his colleagues, he was undeterred by the Troubles, which he probably realised were occupying much police attention, and the deed committed, he was out of the country undetected and back home before his victim was discovered. It seems likely that he would have developed a similar confidence during his work trips to Germany and France during the 1980s, comfortable in the knowledge that he would be back in his home country before any suspicious glances could be thrown in his direction.
In interviews with Ray Wyre Black talked about how at the time of his 1990 arrest he had been planning a holiday to Bangkok in Thailand (where you had to assume he planned to abuse young children). After quoting this statement in the episode ‘Crime and Motion’ of Mapping Murder Ray Wyre explains in an exchange with the programme’s presenter Professor David Canter how Black thought of his crimes not just nationally but internationally:
Ray Wyre: ‘I think the country became his territory that he had control of.’
Professor David Canter: ‘And he began to see that he could broaden beyond that, that he could go overseas.’
Ray Wyre: ‘That he could go overseas, that’s exactly what that statement is saying.’
As of summer 2017 nobody has been convicted of or charged with the murders of Silke Garben, Virginie Delmas or Perrine Vigneron.
The 11 May 1989 disappearance of eleven-year-old Ramona Herling in Germany, given the geographical location of her abduction and its circumstances, means that she too should be considered a possible victim of Black’s, assuming that he was in Germany at the time. Devon and Cornwall Police are the current guardians of the file on Robert Black and might have documentation, such as petrol receipts and Black’s work records, that would be helpful to the German authorities working on the case.
Another element that often crops up in discussions about the likelihood of Black being responsible for more unsolved murders and disappearances are the gaps in the timeline of his offending since he arrived in London in 1968. For example, if we create a timeline where we put in only the crimes Robert Black has been convicted of since his arrival in London in 1968, there are gaps betw
een the crimes, which raises the question of whether or not he was killing undetected.
1968 – Arrives to live and work in London
1976 – Starts work as a van driver for PDS
1981 – Murders Jennifer Cardy in Northern Ireland
1982 – Murders Susan Maxwell in Cornhill-on-Tweed
1983 – Murders Caroline Hogg in Portobello, Scotland
1986 – Murders Sarah Harper in Morley, Leeds
1988 – The attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill in Nottingham
1990 – The abduction of Laura Turner in Stow (victim is rescued and Black is finally captured)
Now if the other, currently unsolved, cases mentioned in this book are slotted in, the gaps are evened out or shortened. I have put the unsolved offences in bold to differentiate between the two:
1968 – Arrives to live and work in London
1969 – Disappearance of April Fabb/Attempted abduction of girl in Cornwall
1971 – Attempted abduction of Jeanne Twigden in Cambridgeshire
1972 – Arrested in London in a stolen Ford Zephyr car with keys for going equipped
1973 – Disappearance of Christine Markham
1976 – Starts work as a van driver for PDS
1977 – Attempted abduction of a young girl in Norfolk – Disappearance of Mary Boyle
1978 – Disappearance of Genette Tate
1979 – Disappearance of Suzanne Lawrence
1981 – Murder of Jennifer Cardy in Northern Ireland
1982 – Murder of Susan Maxwell in Cornhill-on-Tweed
1983 – Murder of Caroline Hogg in Portobello, Scotland
1985 – Abduction and murder of Silke Garben in Germany
1986 – Murder of Sarah Harper in Morley, Leeds
1987 – Abduction and murder of Virginie Delmas (May) and Perrine Vigneron (June)
1988 – Attempted abduction of Teresa Thornhill in Nottingham
1989 – Disappearance of Ramona Herling in Germany
1990 – Abduction of Laura Turner in Stow (victim is rescued and Black is finally captured)
What I have done here is not just attempt to fill in the gaps but present a type of profiling of the offender which I shall refer to as chronological profiling. This is where we think of an offender in terms of the number of times he kills or attacks and their frequency on a timeline, examining any potential gaps, and then see if there are linked cases that can fill in those gaps of offending. If there is a gap in the timeline of offending there may be a very good reason for it being there – apart from the obvious explanation like the offender being in prison – and we can rule that out in Black’s case as following his year in borstal as a youngster he was not imprisoned again until 1990.
Another reason for the gap may be a change in the offender’s personal or professional life that stops or hinders them from committing the crimes, at least for a period of time. Changes in the personal life of an offender very often involves a relationship with another person or other persons – this we can also rule out in Black’s case, who had had no steady relationships of any kind past his one and only girlfriend as a teenager, and who had no family. As for Black’s professional life, we know that he was continuously working (with the briefest of breaks in 1986) as a van driver for PDS from 1976 onwards, so his employment, during those fourteen years at least, was consistent. And from his point of view, there was certainly no reason to change his employment: as we have seen, it gave him the facility to work solo, to travel far and wide, and, as long as he made his deliveries correctly and on time, to go where and when he wanted.
There is no reason why all serial killers should want to kill all the time, or even on a yearly basis; even while they may always be on the lookout for potential victims. Some have cooling-off periods, and it is fairly clear that Black had these periods and we can explain the reasons why. These cooling-off periods differ in length depending on the offender and their circumstances. For example, there is nothing to indicate that in 1980 Black was involved in the murder of a child yet he is the prime suspect in the disappearances of two young girls in the two previous years (1978 and 1979) and we know he killed a child (Jennifer Cardy) the year after, in 1981.
The next year to show as a gap on the timeline where there are no known abductions or killings of children that can be linked to Black is 1984. It could have been a cooling-off year for him as six months earlier police were hunting the killer of Susan Maxwell (1982) and Caroline Hogg (1983) after connecting both cases publicly, so it would have made sense for him to lie low, especially since the police declared they believed the same man was responsible for both child murders. It in fact looks as though there is a three-year gap between the murder of Caroline Hogg in 1983 and the 1986 murder of Sarah Harper – but if we assume 1984 to be a cooling-off year and take into account the 1985 abduction and murder of Silke Garben in Germany the gap is shortened considerably.
Perhaps the huge publicity coverage and police work put into the Susan Maxwell and Caroline Hogg investigations from autumn 1983 and into 1984 is another reason to consider Black a suspect in Silke Garben’s murder – did he seek his next victim overseas to steer clear of the investigative heat in the United Kingdom? We can apply the same logic in the second half of the 1980s: Sarah Harper’s murder in 1986 once again saw nationwide publicity and a renewed and refreshed police focus, especially when it was eventually linked with the Maxwell and Hogg killings. So in the course of 1987 the investigation was ongoing, and with renewed vigour, when two little girls (Virginie Delmas and Perrine Vigneron) were abducted and murdered a month apart in France at a time when Black was working in the general area.
Did Black once again choose to offend abroad when the police investigation into his crimes was at its highest activity level at home? Putting these three continental killings into Black’s timeline of offending reduces the gaps and makes them easier to understand. In 1988, two years after Sarah Harpers death he felt confident enough to attack again in Britain when he attempted to abduct Teresa Thornhill in Nottingham. However, the failure of that abduction and the amount of information thus given by his victim to the police would have meant once again a cooling-off period of two years until the summer of 1990 when he abducted Laura Turner in Stow. On the other hand, if we take into consideration the disappearance of Ramona Herling in 1989 in Germany – another possible return to the continent after a crime committed on home ground – it would close the gap between 1988 and 1990.
What we see when we look at the majority of these crimes, solved and unsolved, is that Robert Black had the method, motive and opportunity to commit these crimes. Chris Clark and I are convinced that Robert Black was responsible for the deaths of more than four children. We believe that he was the most prolific and dangerous serial killer of children not only in the United Kingdom but Europe as well, not just in terms of the number of lives he claimed, but also taking into consideration the large geographical distances he covered and the number of years he was at large, undetected.
The Robert Black story never really ends – there are still so many unanswered questions over what other killings he might have committed and where some of his other victims may be. His death in January 2016, however, brought with it the end of any opportunity to charge him over more children’s deaths, and leaves too many families still seeking to know what happened to their murdered or vanished child. Chris and I feel for all the children talked about in this book and their families. A big part of the reason why this book was started in the first place was to raise awareness, or keep this awareness alive, of what happened to these little girls in the hope that it will perhaps jog memories or prick someone’s conscience into coming forward with information that may lead to these mysteries being solved.
Robert Black’s police mugshot following his arrest in Scotland for loitering with intent to steal, 12 August 1968. He was not convicted.
(from The Murder of Childhood by Ray Wyre and Tim Tate, 1995; reproduced by kind permission of Tim Tate)<
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Thirteen-year-old April Fabb, who went missing while cycling near her home at Metton, near Cromer in Norfolk, on 8 April 1969. Although her bicycle was recovered, her body has never been found.
(left – © Sunday Post; right - © Norfolk Constabulary)
In May 1971, fifteen-year-old Jeanne Twigden had a lucky escape when an attempt was made to abduct her as she cycled home from an open-air pool near the village of Great Paxton, Cambridgeshire.
On 21 May 1973, Christine Markham, aged nine, vanished while walking to school in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Her body has never been found.
(© Sunday Post)
Aged just six, Mary Boyle disappeared on 18 March 1977 while on a family visit to her grandparents’ home in Ballyshannon. Co. Donegal, Ireland. Black is known to have been just over the border in Northern Ireland at the time of her disappearance. Again, her body has never been found.
(© Sunday Post)
On 19 August 1978, thirteen-year-old Genette Tate disappeared while delivering newspapers on Wilthen Lane in Aylesbeare, East Devon. Many years later, although reported by BBC News as the ‘only suspect’ in the case, Black died days before he could be charged with killing Genette.
(left – © Sunday Post; below – Devon and Cornwall Police)
Aged fourteen, Suzanne Lawrence did not return home with her younger sister after staying with a friend in Dagenham, Saturday, 28 July, 1979. During a senior police conference in Newcastle in July 1994, her name was added to the list of Black’s possible victims.
