Milly detectives join the search

12 April 2012

Police investigating the disappearance of Surrey schoolgirl Amanda Dowler have joined the hunt for Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells.

Senior officers from both inquiries have met to discuss a number of 'startling similarities' between the two cases.

In both, young, impressionable girls appear to have been snatched off the streets in daylight without any obvious sign of a struggle.

Both incidents happened in quiet, supposedly safe areas not associated with sex crimes.

Another similarity is that there were no crime scenes (where vital forensic evidence can be gathered), no witnesses and no bodies found.

Senior sources say it is right that police explore the possibility the cases could be linked. The fact that Amanda, also known as Milly, went missing 100 miles from Soham, where Jessica and Holly vanished, should not deter officers from considering the prospect the cases are the work of the same individual.

In the past, predatory sex offenders such as child killer Robert Black, who murdered three young girls, have travelled long distances looking for victims to take off the streets.

On Tuesday Detective Chief Inspector Brian Marjoram, in day-to-day charge of the Milly Dowler inquiry, travelled to Cambridgeshire with another Surrey officer to offer assistance and advice to those looking for Jessica and Holly.

A Surrey police spokesman said last night: 'There are similarities between the two inquiries and it will be beneficial to both investigations to liaise on these.

'Having conducted the meeting, at this moment in time there is nothing to suggest that the two cases are linked.'

He said DCI Marjoram, an expert on child sex offenders, would continue to stay in contact with the Cambridgeshire team.

Milly disappeared on her way home from Walton- on-Thames railway station in Surrey in March.

At first police thought she may have run away or had an accident. Last month they said they believed she had been abducted.

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