SERIAL child murderer and rapist Robert Black is known to have killed four girls, but has been linked with many more cases.
His is explored in Channel 5 docuseries The Child Snatcher: Manhunt.
Monster in the making
was born in on April 21, 1947.
His mum put him up for adoption before moving to , leaving him to be taken in by foster parents.
When his foster parents died, Black moved between care homes.
In 1963, aged just 16, he was charged with lewd and libidinous behaviour after luring a seven-year-old girl into an air raid shelter and sexually assaulting her.
Black never married and had only one known girlfriend, Pamela Hodgson, who broke up with him because of his “unusual sexual demands”;.
Once he was allowed to live independently, Black moved to and started working as a delivery driver.
He drove up and down the country delivering posters and billboard adverts — a job detectives later said helped him dispose of his victim’s bodies.
four children, but the monster is .
Recordings from a counselling session in 1990 revealed how he .
Robert Black’s confirmed crimes
While alive, Black was found guilty of murdering four schoolgirls across the UK.
after new evidence was found linking him to more than a dozen more murders across the UK and, detectives believe that number could be as high as 18
Genette Tate, 13
When he died in 2016, Black was just weeks away from being .
On August 19, 1978, she vanished on her paper round near her home in Aylesbeare, .
’s and her family was reportedly for her killing.
Jennifer Cardy, 9
Black committed his first known murder on August 12, 1981, three years after he is thought to have killed Genette.
He abducted, sexually assaulted and killed nine-year-old in Ballinderry, County Antrim.
Six days later, Jennifer’s body was found in a reservoir in Hillsborough, County Down.
Black wasn’t found guilty of the murder until 2011 — 30 years after the crime was committed.
Susan Maxwell, 11
On July 30, 1982, Susan Maxwell was abducted by Black while she was walking home from a game of tennis in Coldstream, .
Her body was found on the A518 near — 264 miles from where she was last seen.
An inquest concluded that her body had been in Black’s van for more than 24 hours as Black continued his deliveries across Scotland, before driving back down to London.
Caroline Hogg, 5
At just five years old, .
She disappeared after playing outside her house in Portobello, .
Black took her to the local funfair before killing her and hiding her body near the M1 motorway in Twycross — 310 miles away.
Sarah Harper, 10
by Black when she went to buy a loaf of bread from the local corner shop in Morley, , on March 26, 1986.
On April 19, her body was found 71 miles from where she had been kidnapped, in the River Trent near.
Black sexually assaulted Sarah before she died.
Robert Black finally apprehended
after he attempted to take another child victim.
David Herkes witnessed his neighbour, a six-year-old girl, disappear across the road from his home in Stow, Scotland.
He said he noticed her walking past a parked Transit van on the opposite side of the road, before her feet disappeared and the van sped off.
Herkes wrote down the van’s number plate and contacted , who immediately launched a manhunt.
Black was caught when he drove down the same road again and an officer jumped in front of the van, forcing him to swerve.
When the officer forced open the van, he found .
He managed to rescue her, bringing an end to Black’s crime spree.
No matter how horrific or distressing the evidence had been, Robert Black demonstrated not a single flicker of concern
Reporter Gordon Adair Cardy,
After a lengthy court trial, Black was found guilty of murdering Sarah, Susan and Caroline on May 19, 1994.
Black was later convicted of Jennifer’s murder.
Gordon Adair Cardy, the BBC’s Northern Ireland reporter, said that he had never seen an “outpouring of emotion”; equal to the one that triggered when the foreman “uttered the single word ‘guilty’”;.
Gordon said: “Jennifer’s family, jurors, journalists, and even detectives wept.
“The only person who showed no emotion was Robert Black.
“He sat – as he had done throughout the trial – gazing towards the front of the court.
“No matter how horrific or distressing the evidence had been, he demonstrated not a single flicker of concern; not for Jennifer, not for her family.”;
Robert Black’s possible links to other cases
Since being found guilty of murdering four schoolgirls, Black has been linked to several other murders and disappearances in the UK and abroad.
April Fabb, 13
, when she was cycling to a relative’s house.
Her body has never been found and Black was questioned over her disappearance.
Retired police officer Chris Clark, told The Sun in 2016: “I am convinced Black abducted April.
“The methods used are exactly the same as in his other attacks, and he had easy access to Roughton from his London home.”;
Christine Markham, 9
Christine from Scunthorpe on May 21, 1973.
She disappeared after leaving for school but tragically never arrived.
The case was linked to Black in 2004 but police do not consider him a strong suspect.
Mary Boyle, 6
Mary is‘s after vanishing near her grandparents’s house in Ballyshannon, County Donegal on March 18, 1977.
Black was known to make deliveries in.
He is also said to have returned to ask about girls living in the area a year after she disappeared.
Suzanne Lawrence, 14
Suzanne was originally thought to have run away when she disappeared from Harold Hill in , in July 1979.
However, police later began to consider that .
Her case has been linked to both Black and -based serial killer.
Patsy Morris, 14
Patsy disappeared from school in Feltham, London, on June 16, 1980.
Tragically, her body was found two days later in Hounslow Heath.
The murder was linked to Black, as he was living in London at the time.
and have also been considered suspects.
Pamela Hastie, 16
Pamela was found to have been raped and killed in Rannoch Woods after she went missing from Johnstone, Renfrewshire, on November 4, 1981.
A man confessed to her murder and was jailed a year later but his conviction was overturned in 2007 when his admission of guilt was found to be false.
Black was linked to the murder after he was identified as running out of the woods on the night of the killing by a van driver.
Tracey Waters, 11
Tracey’s body was found in the back garden of a house half a mile away from her home in Johnstone on February 14, 1983.
She had been killed after disappearing on her way to a Valentine’s Day event at the local youth club.
Her death has been linked to Black as it bears similarities with his previous crimes and took place in the same location as Pamela Hastie’s murder.
Lisa Hession, 14
Lisa was assaulted and strangled before being killed as she walked home from a party.
Her body was found just 500 yards from her front door in Leigh, Greater, on December 8, 1984.
However, .
In 2024, cops renewed a£50,000 reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of Lisa’s killer.
Robert Black’s death
In 2016 Black died in at the age of 68.
He was serving 12 life terms at the time of his death.
The murderer was found to have died from a heart attack.
The Child Snatcher: Manhunt
Black’s chilling crimes will be explored in the documentary The Child Snatcher: Manhunt.
You can catch the first episode of the two-part series on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at 10.05pm.
Both episodes are already available on Channel 5’s streaming service My5.
