A cold case investigation has uncovered new evidence suggesting that Tina Bell, an 18-year-old who vanished in 1989, may have been murdered by one of two dangerous men living near her home in Billingham, Teesside. The teenager disappeared on June 2, 1989, after leaving to buy sweets for her younger brother, and her remains were found ten months later on wasteland close to her family home.
The case, featured in the television series In the Footsteps of Killers presented by Emilia Fox and criminologist Professor David Wilson, reveals that Tina associated with convicted murderer Billy Dunlop on the night she died. Dunlop, now serving a life sentence for the 1989 murder of Julie Hogg, was one of the last people to see Tina alive. He was acquitted twice of Julie's murder but became the first person in the UK to be retried under double jeopardy rules.
Professor Wilson noted that Dunlop had a history of violent assaults, including against a teenage girl, by the time he was with Tina on the night she disappeared. The other suspect is David Courtney, a convicted paedophile known as the 'child rapist preacher', who lived 300 yards from Tina's home. She regularly had sleepovers with his children, leading former detective Graham Hill to suggest Courtney may have abused and murdered her to cover up the abuse.
Tina's remains were discovered on April 21, 1990, by two youths shooting pigeons. Initial forensic tests suggested her body had been dissolved in acid, but it later emerged that the land was contaminated with chemicals. Her sister Angela Wade has expressed that she has given up hope of ever seeing her sister's killer brought to justice.
