By David Lohr
November 15, 2007
LONDON (Crime Library) — Essex Police have identified skeletal remains found in the back garden of a home that was once occupied by convicted sex offender and killer Peter Britton Tobin, 61, in the town of Margate.
On Monday, forensic teams using Geophysics equipment to identify areas where the ground had been disturbed discovered human skeletal remains, after an exhaustive 12-hour search of the backyard of Tobin's former residence, where he lived from March to December 1991. Originally the remains were believed to be those of 18-year-old Dinah McNicol, a student from Tillingham in Essex, who disappeared on August 4, 1991. However, yesterday forensics experts positively identified the remains as those of another missing teenager who disappeared nearly 17 years ago.
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| Vicky Hamilton |
Fifteen-year-old Vicky Hamilton was last seen on the evening of Feb. 10, 1991. According to police, she disappeared while in route from her sister's house in Livingston to her home in Redding, near Falkirk. Investigators have been able to ascertain that she got off a bus at Bathgate, West Lothian, to wait for a connecting service. An eyewitness places her on a bench near the station at approximately 5:30 p.m. Her movements from there remain a mystery. Roughly two weeks later, police received their only physical clue in the case when her purse was found in a garbage can near St. Andrew Square bus station in Edinburgh.
Two years after Vicky's disappearance, her 41-year-old mother died. According to family members, the cause of death was a "broken heart." Following Janet's funeral, Vicky's father, Michael Hamilton, told News.scotsman.com: "If Vicky was alive, she would have been at her mother's funeral. There is no way she would have missed it." Michael's statement was in response to rumors that Vicky had run off to start a new life somewhere else. When contacted by the media yesterday about his daughter's discovery, Michael said he was too upset to discuss the case.
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| Dinah McNicol |
Dinah McNicol's father, Ian McNicol, 68, also took the news hard.
"My family hoped it was Dinah so we could put her to rest and go through our grieving process, but obviously we can't now," Ian told Guardian.co.uk. "But it's not finished, they are looking to see if there's more bodies there.
"... I want to be able to grieve for Dinah, to be able to bury her or cremate her properly and go through the normal grieving process. Her being missing is worse, 10 times worse.
"I'm 68 now and I haven't got long left, because of this. I desperately want to lay Dinah to rest before my time comes."
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