POLICE hunting the killer of the French student Amélie Delagrange now believe that he is a serial attacker after linking five similar assaults on young blonde women in southwest London.
A special squad of the most experienced detectives at Scotland Yard has been formed to investigate the assaults, which include the murder of the gap-year student Marsha McDonnell, 19, last year.
The victims were attacked from behind with a blunt instrument. None of the survivors has been able to give a detailed description of the attacker.
The link comes exactly a month after Miss Delagrange, 22, was bludgeoned to death as she walked home after a night out in Twickenham.
The attacks have all been within a five-mile radius in what has always been considered one of the safer areas of the capital. The victims were all walking alone late at night.
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“We are now formally linking a number of attacks on women in southwest London,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said. “The investigation has not revealed any forensic links for the incidents or anything linking the victims.
However, there are some similarities in the profiles of the victims that are being linked. There are also similarities in the times, the nature of the venues and the mode of attack.”
The first victim of the so-called “hammer attacks” is thought to be a 17-year-old girl from Strawberry Hill in Richmond who was attacked on January 8 last year in Walpole Gardens. The unnamed girl suffered serious head injuries, including a fractured cheek and ruptured eye socket. She spent ten days recovering in hospital but has no recollection of the attack.
Less than two miles away, on February 4, 2003, Miss McDonnell was hit three times over the head with a blunt instrument just yards from her front door in Hampton.
After Miss McDonnell’s murder, the unnamed girl’s parents contacted police, fearing that their daughter may have been a victim of an attack. A medical examination then confirmed that a head wound could have been from a single heavy blow with a blunt instrument.
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Ute McDonnell, Miss McDonnell’s mother, said: “When I first saw the picture of Amélie I thought, ‘That’s Marsha’. They looked so alike, both young, blonde and very pretty.”
On November 5 last year, Dawn Brunton, 36, an accounts clerk, was assaulted from behind, possibly with a sledgehammer, in an alleyway in Hatton Cross, near Heathrow, West London. She survived but was left with a fractured skull and facial injuries.
“When I heard about Amélie’s murder, I was in absolute shock,” she said. “There are so many similarities with what happened to me.
“The last thing I heard was the rustling of leaves before he hit me on the back of the head. I fell down unconscious without putting out my hands and landed on the left side of my face, smashing my bones and teeth.
“My life was probably saved because I was discovered quite quickly by passers-by.”
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In Twickenham, on April 18 this year, Edel Harbison, 34, an accountant, also survived after being struck on the head from behind. The next attack is believed to be the murder of Miss Delagrange. Police have now disclosed that, only four days later on August 23, a sixth woman, 28, was attacked in Feltham.
When she was found unconscious on the pavement, it was assumed at first that she had fallen over. But, two days later, after visiting hospital suffering from headaches, she reported the incident.
The investigation is being led by Commander Andy Baker, with Detective Chief Superintendents Jon Shatford and Andy Murphy.
Until the new link emerged, the prime suspect for the murder of Miss McDonnell was a boy of 16 held under the Mental Health Act but never charged.
Officers are now using psychological profiling techniques to build up a picture of the new suspect. They have also stepped up patrols in the area and offered local women panic alarms.