Trevor remained at Major Crime. He was promoted and made a sergeant, and, after I left, he worked with Malcolm Howells and they continued to work on the Family Murders as well as other killings. They monitored the appeals and continued to investigate leads as they were received at Major Crime.
The investigation went quiet for the next four years. In March 1988, the State Coroner, Kevin Ahern, who has now retired, was about to inquire into the death of Mark Langley. He had already conducted inquests into the deaths of Alan Barnes and Peter Stogneff. Tom Ferguson, one of the bosses in the detective branch, sent a letter to the coroner requesting that he inquire into the deaths of all the boys. Tom requested a joint investigation because the police held the view that there were similarities between the deaths. Kevin Ahern agreed to do so. He reopened the inquests into Alan Barnes and Peter Stogneff and included them in his new inquiry. This inquest did not include the Richard Kelvin murder because it had been the subject of a successful criminal trial but the Coroner did not ignore the circumstances of Richard’s abduction and murder.
Pathologists, Ross James and Colin Manock, gave evidence at the inquest. Ross James was the pathologist who examined Alan Barnes and Neil Muir and he gave evidence to the Coroner about the anal injuries to the two boys.
‘If I can ask you a very general question with respect to the anal injury,’ Kevin Ahern asked, ‘in your opinion is there any similarity between the injuries which you observed with Muir and Barnes?’
‘There is in the sense that the anus was ruptured. The nature of the anal injury was that it was torn and cut. Some blunt object had stretched the anus to the point where it was torn,’ Ross James said in evidence.
This, officially, provided the first link between the murders of Alan Barnes and Neil Muir. The counsel assisting the Coroner also asked about the cutting up of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff.
‘Yes, in this case the body [Stogneff] in effect has been cut into approximately three equal pieces. The cuts were at the level of the lower backbone above the pelvis, in this instant at the level of the third lumbar vertebra. Secondly, each lower thigh was sawn to above the level of the knees. The difference from, for instance, Muir, is that there is no evidence that the head had been cut off from the trunk.’
‘But the other cuts in location first of all were virtually in the same position as those of Muir?’
‘Yes.’
Ross James was providing a similarity between the murders of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff, and he gave additional evidence to say that the anal injuries of Alan Barnes, Neil Muir and Mark Langley were similar. Some form of blunt instrument, such as a bottle, caused the tearing of the anus. Here was a respected expert stating there was a link between the murders of three of the boys and, if the cutting up of Neil Muir and Peter Stogneff was similar, then, indirectly, he was linking all five murders.
Colin Manock, the other pathologist, also gave evidence to the Coroner. He talked about the cut to Mark Langley’s abdomen that was roughly stitched. He said that this wound would have given access to the anal canal, allowing the removal of any object which may have been forced into the anus. Colin was suggesting that an object could have been inserted into Mark’s anus and then removed by rough surgery. Trevor and I had always speculated that Mark’s murderer was forcing something into his anus and possibly lost it in Mark’s anal tract. We believed he was cut open to retrieve it. Colin Manock was giving evidence that this may have happened.
Trevor Kipling also gave evidence at the Coroner’s inquest. He had been working on the murders for nearly seven years and he gave very clear evidence about them when he answered a question from the counsel assisting the Coroner.
‘It may be obvious from what I have said to you, leaving Kelvin aside for a moment, [but] did the police form a view as to whether the deaths of Barnes, Muir and Stogneff and Langley were connected?’
‘Yes.’
Trevor had not wavered in his view that the same people were involved with four of the murders. His reasons included the manner in which the young men were murdered, the way their bodies were redressed and dumped and the drug link. He also supported the evidence of Ross James referring to the similarities of the cutting up of Muir and Stogneff.
Coroner Ahern then commented that there were similarities in the deaths of Alan Barnes, Neil Muir, Mark Langley and Richard Kelvin.
‘In each case, there was the presence of a substantial anal injury, washing of the body after death, redressing the body in the cases of Langley and Barnes and the dumping of all bodies in a locality other than where the murder occurred. In the cases of Langley, Barnes and Kelvin, it was likely there was a period of detention prior to the death and also the presence of certain drugs . . . In relation to the deaths of Barnes, Langley and Muir, it is my own personal view that more than one person was probably involved in the original abduction and subsequent murder. It would be difficult, in my view, for one person alone to abduct persons of the stature particularly of Barnes and
