Clues twist in 1991 mum murder probe

POLICE RELEASE CCTV IMAGE OF MAN THEY WANT TO SPEAK TO AND TELL OF RECOVERED GUN CARTRIDGE - AS DETECTIVE SAYS 'LEVEL OF BRUTALITY IS QUITE HARD TO UNDERSTAND'

- NEAL KEELING

IN A POIGNANT TV clip, a fresh-faced teenager talks fondly about her mum.

"Everyone liked her. She was a bubbly kind of person". The words were spoken by 19-year-old Lorraine Newton, back in November 1991.

What the BBC Crimewatch footage didn't reveal was that Lorraine was then pregnant with a girl who would be named Gemma. A grandchild who would never know her gran.

Three months earlier, on a Bank Holiday weekend in August, Lorraine's mother, Vera Anderson, had been found brutally murdered. She was lying across the driver's seat of her Mark II blue Ford Cortina in an old works yard.

Now, police have released details of a man they wish to trace, believing he might have information that could be helpful to the investigation.

The killer had cut Vera's throat, after probably first rendering her unconscious with a sash cord pulled tight around her neck. The attack was neither sexual nor a robbery. Yet the level and nature of the violence used had the hallmarks of a hitman.

The M.E.N. can reveal for the first time other chilling elements of the attack. In the footwell of Vera's car police recovered an 8mm cartridge from a blank-firing handgun. Detectives believe a pistol may have been discharged to frighten Vera and stop her from fleeing her vehicle.

The killer also tore a large piece of Vera's hair from her scalp either before, during, or after the attack. It was never found. It may have been taken as proof that her life had been taken. Whoever rendezvoused with Vera in a remote, almost hidden location, went there with a garrotte, a blade of some kind, a firearm, and, police believe, one intention to murder her.

Found just in front of her car was a discarded empty cigarette box, of the brand, Embassy Regal, with a blue design on the pack. They were not Vera's choice. But her DNA was on wrapping inside it.