Murdered Family's Car Forensics complete

13 May 2011, 17:58

Police hunting a Chinese businessman wanted for killing a university lecturer, his wife and their two daughters - are now awaiting forensic tests results on the killer's getaway car.

Anxiang Du, 52,  is believed to have stabbed to death Jifing Ding, 46, wife Helen, 47, daughters Nancy, 18, and Alice, 12 -  the day after he lost tens of thousands of pounds in a court ruling.

He escaped from the scene in a Vauxhall Corsa which had been hired by Nancy. It was discovered by a member of the public in a side street (Venables Street) off the A5 Edgware Road in St John's Wood in West London, very close to Paddington Green Police station, at 1.30 pm Wednesday afternoon.

At a press conference Detective Superintendent Glyn Timmins said the car. He said: "It had been locked could have been there for some days. It was not concealed.

DS Timmins said an ANPR vehicle check had also revealed that Du was in the Corsa car in Northampton late on the night of Friday 29 - at around 10.15 pm.

For technical reasons this information only became available almost a week later, Thursday 5 May.

The vehicle had activated cameras on motorway ANPR, at the services, on Junction 15a of the M1.

He appealed for anyone who had seen the car between 4pm and 10.15pm in Northampton to call the police and for people who had seen the car since to contact them.

Leaflets appealing for help in tracing Du have been printed in Mandarin and are being distributed amongst the Chinese community in London.

Specialist officers from the Metropolitan Police, National Search Advisers, Home Office forensic specialists, the National Family Liaison Lead, Behavioral Analysts, the Independent Advisory Group and Police Search Trained Advisers have assisted the team of 60 officers from Northamptonshire Police dedicated to the quadruple murder investigation.

DS Timmins says "Forensic examination of the Vauxhall Corsa discovered is now complete.  The purpose of the examination was to seek links between the vehicle and the murder scene and the suspect, and we are now awaiting the results of the scientific examination to come back."

Officers have completed house-to-house enquiries in the area of North West London where the vehicle was located and we are working on trying to establish if it has been used and how long it has been there.

Northants Police say they now have hundreds of hours of CCTV footage to trawl through and a "team of officers have been allocated to sift through this footage methodically to see if they can identify sightings of our suspect Anxiang Du."

DS Timmins added "We will be focusing our enquiries on the London area over the weekend with the full co-operation of the Metropolitan Police. We are liaising with officers who have a specialist knowledge of the Chinese population and they are helping us circulate leaflets in these communities."

The family were killed at their detached home in Pioneer Close, Northampton at lunchtime on Royal Wedding Day between 3 and 4pm.

But the murders were not uncovered until Sunday May 1st when concerned neighbours called the police. It gave the killer a 48 hour start on detectives.

The motive for the slaughter is a dispute between Mr Du, from Coventry, and Helen over a Chinese Herbal Remedy business.

The Ding family were highly regarded by people who knew them. Scores of flowers were left outside their home.

Mr Ding taught at Manchester Met University, Mrs Ding worked part-time as a Mandarin teacher at Caroline Chisholm School in Northampton, where Alice was a Year Seven student. Xing was a sixth form student and deputy head girl at the private Northampton High School. Both girls were talented musicians.

Despite a search of the area, including drains, the murder weapon has not been found.

Over 200 witnesses have come forward with possible sightings since the media appeal after Du's journey from Coventry and Birmingham to Northampton was retraced by officers.

Du, who lived in Coventry, ran a business in the Pavilion shopping centre in Birmingham and was seen on CCTV on the day of the killings at Birmingham New Street railway station, then at Northampton railway station.

The next CCTV image shows him catching a bus from Northampton town centre to Wootton. Another shows him on the journey asking the bus driver if he has reached his destination.

He is described as 5ft 9ins tall and of slim build. He was last seen wearing a white baseball cap, brown waist length coat, grey trousers, a blue woollen top, black leather shoes.

His family reported him missing on Friday 29 April. He left them a "goodbye note."