Alice Gross murder: police wait for forensic tests on Arnis Zalkalns

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/05/alice-gross-murder-forensic-tests-arnis-zalkalns

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Police are waiting for the results of forensic tests to discover if there is evidence showing whether their prime suspect Arnis Zalkalns murdered the teenager Alice Gross.

Zalkalns’s body was found on Saturday hanging from a tree in dense woodland in Boston Manor Park, west London, bringing to an end a four-week search.

Police had named him as a suspect in the disappearance of Alice, 14, whose body was found on Tuesday hidden and weighed down in the river Brent in Hanwell, west London.

She was last seen on 28 August after going for a walk in west London. Police believe Zalkalns, who was convicted of murdering his wife in Latvia, came across Alice during her final walk.

On Sunday, after the discovery of Zalkalns’s body, police said their investigation into Alice’s murder remained active.

Zalkalns’s body was found in a badly decomposed state and a postmortem and other tests are not expected to be completed for several days. Formal identification is also yet to take place.

A postmortem into Alice’s death is inconclusive, meaning further work will have to be carried out.

In a statement Scotland Yard said: ”Although Arnis Zalkalns had been identified as a suspect in the Alice Gross murder investigation, inquiries continue to establish the full circumstances surrounding this crime.

“Officers are still searching for evidence, and once again appeal to the public for any information that could assist them.”

Zalkalns was last seen on 3 September, as media coverage over Alice’s disappearance increased and homicide detectives took over the search for the teenager.

Police say Zalkalns was reported missing on 5 September. He was initially treated as a missing person. He disappeared without his passport and his bank accounts had not been accessed.

It was only when CCTV placed him close to where Alice went missing that detectives started to consider linking the two disappearances.

Police took the unusual step of naming Zalkalns as a suspect and sent officers to Latvia.

The body of the 41-year-old was found at around 2pm on Saturday, but not removed until Sunday morning. The extent of the decomposition means the body had been there for some weeks.

Scotland Yard said: “We can now confirm the body found in Boston Manor Park on Saturday 4 October has now been recovered by specialist officers and taken to a west London mortuary. A postmortem examination will be held in due course.”

Police could not say if they had previously searched the area where Zalkalns’s body was found. Police in London say the inquiry into Alice’s disappearance has been the biggest search operation since the investigation into the 7 July 2005 terrorist attacks on London.

Detectives believe Zalkalns, who was riding a bike, would have come across Alice as she walked by a canal on the day she disappeared.

She was captured on CCTV walking along the Grand Union canal towpath. The last sighting of her walking along the canal under a bridge, apparently heading towards Hanwell, was at 4.26pm on 28 August.

Her body was found on Tuesday in shallow water in the river Brent close by and was under logs which had weighed it down. Detectives believe there was a concerted and deliberate attempt to conceal it.

Police have taken DNA and other samples from Zalkalns’s home. Any forensic test results may confirm suspicions that the 41-year-old labourer murdered Alice, or rule him out. But detectives believe the latter is a remote possibility.

According to a Latvian court official, documents in Riga show Zalkalns was found guilty of murdering his wife on 18 June 1998, after a trial at Riga’s regional court.

He was also found guilty of keeping a gun and ammunition without a permit.

The court papers show Zalkalns was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. This was in effect backdated to start from the time he had been arrested over the murder and placed on remand pending trial, which was 9 July 1997.

Zalkalns stabbed his wife in remote woodland and buried her in a shallow grave.

He is believed to have come to Britain in 2007 and in 2009 was arrested over an alleged indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl in west London. That case was dropped after the girl declined to make a statement.

Zalkalns is believed to have children in Latvia and also to have had a child, now aged one, with a woman in London.

Police said she was being supported after the discovery of the body.