Tramp finds body parts of woman and girl in binliners behind pub

Police investigating a double murder after dismembered body parts were found in a bin behind a London pub discovered more human remains yesterday.

A tramp foraging for food in bins at the back of the College Arms in Camden, north London, discovered the mutilated parts of a woman and girl on Monday. He took the bag with parts of two legs to the nearby Hospital for Tropical Diseases where staff called the police. A search of the bin revealed another binliner containing the torso of a young girl.

Yesterday, murder squad detectives found "seven or eight" carrier bags containing other body parts about 100 yards from the site of the original find.

Rachel Musarati, 35, landlady of the College Arms, said: "The police told me body parts have been found in my bin. It's disturbing. I'm horrified."

Forty officers have been assigned to the murder investigation with officers making door-to-door inquiries on a nearby housing estate as well as fingertip searches of the immediate area.

Detective Superintendent Dave Cook said: "There was a local gentleman foraging in the bins. He was looking for food, bits and pieces for himself and he came across a rubbish bag in which he identified a human leg."

Post-mortem examinations on Monday night indicated that the torso belonged to a girl as young as 14 and the leg parts were from a woman aged between 20 and 40. Both were white. Forensic science tests will show whether the two were related.

Det Supt Cook said: "The area has been sealed off and there is an extensive search going on to find the remainder of the bodies and extensive house-to-house inquiries to identify the victims. We are looking back at the space of a week [but] further examination by the forensic science service may reduce the time-scale."

Detectives believed the latest rubbish bin collection from the area had been on Friday and that some of the body parts could already have been collected, he said.

A trawl of missing persons databases has yet to provide any leads and Det Supt Cook urged anyone who knew of a missing woman and girl to contact the police. He said officers were keeping an open mind about links to other cases in which mutilated body parts had been found.