DNA profiles tested

Detectives hunting the killer of a student teacher who was strangled while hitchhiking 27 years ago have put together a DNA profile of the man responsible for the crime. Derbyshire police said yesterday that the Forensic Science Service obtained the DNA "fingerprint" from a minute sample left on a garment worn by Barbara Mayo, 24, who was sexual assaulted and strangled in October 1970 as she tried to thumb a lift from her west London home to Catterick, North Yorkshire.

Don Dovaston, Assistant Chief Constable for Operations, said the DNA profile was obtained from clothing kept by police since Ms Mayo's body was found in woodland near Junction 29 of the M1. He said more than 200,000 DNA profiles kept on a database had been eliminated from the inquiry in the last three weeks. Most of the 9,000 samples taken from serving prisoners around the country had also been tested and failed to produce a match, he added.