'Good response' in murder inquiry

Helen Scott and Christine Eadie were murdered in 1977

Scottish police forces investigating the unsolved murders of seven young women say they have had a "highly encouraging" response from the public.

Detectives who received dozens of calls at the weekend are now assessing the information.

New DNA evidence has suggested the seven killings could be linked.

About 100 police officers are working on the inquiry, which includes Edinburgh's notorious 1977 World's End pub murders.

The victims had been beaten, raped and strangled after disappearing during a night out at the pub on Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

The bodies of 17-year-olds Helen Scott and Christine Eadie were found in separate spots in East Lothian in October 1977.

UNSOLVED MURDERS Anna Kenny, August 1977 Matilda McAuley, October 1977 Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, October 1977 Agnes Cooney, December 1977 Carol Lannan, March 1979 Elizabeth McCabe, March 1980

Agnes Cooney's body was found in Lanarkshire in 1997, while Carole Lannan and Elizabeth McCabe were victims in the high profile Templeton Woods murders in Dundee in 1979 and 1980 respectively.

The other murders being investigated include Anna Kenny and Hilda McCauley, who were both killed in Glasgow in 1977.

The inquiry involves the Lothian and Borders, Strathclyde and Tayside forces.

Lothian and Borders Deputy Chief Constable Tom Wood said new calls were being cross-referenced with all the existing information relating to the murders.

He said: "We have to evaluate all the pieces of information we have against the massive database which we've collected over the years.

"We think we have something like 35,000 individual files, relating to individual people or incidents.

"We've got to get it altogether, we've got to co-ordinate it and then we've got to set all of that database against new information as it comes in."

Mr Wood said he was hopeful there would be more information to come.

And he also stressed that people should come forward with even "tiny pieces" of information which they may regard as unimportant.

But the officer would not be drawn on whether the case was focussing on a convicted murderer identified in some media reports as the prime suspect.