Detectives have renewed their appeal for information on the 50-year-old disappearance of Patricia Black, a case that has been linked to serial killer Angus Sinclair. The 22-year-old was last seen at a bus stop in Irvine, Ayrshire, on her way to her parents' home in Saltcoats but never arrived.
Brother's Plea for Answers
Patricia's brother, Alan Black, has made a dramatic plea for help in solving the case, convinced that a local man was responsible and that people still alive know what happened. Detective Inspector Peter Sweeney said: "It's very hard to imagine how difficult this has been for Patricia's family. Missing person cases are reviewed regularly and any new information received will be thoroughly assessed and acted on as appropriate. If anyone has any information regarding the disappearance of Patricia Black they should call 101."
Last Known Movements
Patricia, one of five siblings, left the family home on Friday, October 8, 1976, to meet a friend at the Turf Hotel in Irvine and stayed overnight at the friend's home. The factory worker phoned her mother Janet the following day to say she would be home that evening, which was the last contact the family had with her.
Alan, who was about to turn 18 at the time, had passed his driving test and was excited about taking his sister to the hotel that evening. She invited him in for a drink, but he declined, something he now regrets. He believes his sister was murdered, saying: "Someone out there knows something."
Link to Serial Killer
Three weeks after Patricia's disappearance, police found her handbag weighted down with stones in the River Irvine in an area called the Moor, about five minutes' walk from the bus stop where she was last seen. Police have always believed that Sinclair, who died in prison in 2019, had other victims.
Improved DNA profiling techniques linked Sinclair to the 1978 murder of teenager Mary Gallacher in Springburn, Glasgow, for which he was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life. He was sentenced to life again in 2014 for the murders of Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, who had gone missing in October 1977 after spending the evening in Edinburgh's World's End bar. The killer has been linked over the years with as many as nine unsolved murders and revealed in a leaked prison letter that he expected to be quizzed by cops on Patricia's case.
Local Man Theory
Alan is convinced that the person responsible for his sister's disappearance is a local man she met that day and not Sinclair. The retired bus driver has urged those with information to break their 50-year silence. He believes that his sister's body was dumped in the river, which had a strong tidal current, and she was swept out to sea.
The last official sighting of Patricia was around 5pm on Saturday, October 9, at the bus stop in Irvine's Eglinton Street opposite the Turf Hotel. A month after her disappearance, a 21-year-old man from Irvine gave an interview to the Daily Record and admitted he had walked Patricia to the bus stop before heading to a local jewellery shop. Patricia's father John passed away in 1979, followed by mum Janet in 1990, without knowing what had happened to their daughter.
Alan previously told the Record: "All my mother and father ever wanted was for a body to be found to give her a decent burial. That's all that I want. The truth. Answers. There are people out there still alive who know something. I have been hoping for 50 years for someone to come forward. It is not too late. Somebody is holding back that is for sure. Put things to rest, now is the time."
