'Bigfoot' print may link killer to vice girl deaths

POLICE have taken moulds of a killer's size 14 feet in the hope they can solve the murders of three prostitutes dating back more than 20 years.

David Smith, 52, sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 21-year-old Amanda Walker in 1998, is the main suspect in the other cases. Now officers on a "cold case" review team want to check footprints at the crime scenes to see if they match his.

A source said they were hoping to convict Smith, who is 6ft 3in tall and has the nicknames Lurch and the Honey Monster, for the deaths of Sarah Crump, 33, Maria Christina Requena, 27, and Linda Donaldson, 31. "He has feet like the abominable snowman," the source said. "He was incensed when asked to co-operate."

Smith was taken from Wakefield prison to a Leeds police station for casts to be made of his feet. He was jailed for Miss Walker's murder after her mutilated body was found at the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens in Wisley, Surrey. He had been spotted picking her up in a red-light district near Paddington station.

Five years earlier he had been cleared of butchering Miss Crump, despite admitting paying her for sex at her flat in Southall. That case can now be re-opened thanks to changes in double jeopardy laws which previously meant cleared suspects could not be tried again for the same crime. Miss Requena's body was found in bin bags in Leigh, Greater Manchester in 1991. Miss Donaldson's body had been discovered in the same area three years earlier.

A police source said: "Smith was a lorry driver travelling up and down the country. We believe he was s serial killer and are going back in time to bring closure for victims' families."