POLICE investigating the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton refused yesterday to rule out that her DNA had been found in the former home of convicted killer Peter Tobin.
Reports yesterday claimed that DNA traces of the missing teenager were discovered in a house that was once the home of Tobin, the man who was convicted of raping and murdering Polish student Angelika Kluk.
Detectives refused to confirm or deny th
e reports that crucial evidence had been found in a forensic search of the property in Bathgate last month.
Vicky was 15 when she was last seen in the town in February, 1991, less than a mile from where Tobin lived in Robertson Avenue. Police are now expected to question 60-year-old Tobin in prison.
Vicky's father, Michael, has always maintained she was no teenage runaway. "She was a bright and bubbly teenager... who was starting to strike out on her own. I believe she was abducted and murdered.
"I hope the police will knock on my door some day soon and finally let me know what happened," Mr Hamilton said.
Lothian and Borders Police did not deny the claim yesterday, but said that tests still had to be completed.
Vicky went missing on 10 February, 1991, during a snowstorm, following a visit to her sister's home in Livingston, West Lothian. She was last seen waiting for a bus in Bathgate to take her back to the family home in Redding, near Falkirk.
Despite a massive police investigation and nationwide appeal, her body was never found, and detectives believe she was abducted and murdered.
Investigators stripped the house in West Lothian where Tobin had been staying and carried out extensive tests on the contents. All the furniture belonging to the family living there was removed and the house reduced to a bare shell.
Tobin was found guilty in April of the rape and murder of Miss Kluk. He was sentenced to at least 21 years in prison for her murder, after the 23-year-old's mutilated body was found under the floorboards of St Patrick's Church in the Anderston area of Glasgow.
The court heard that Tobin had been convicted in England in 1994 for raping and abusing two teenage girls.
He is believed to have left Bathgate just days after Vicky's disappearance.
