DETECTIVES in England have re-launched investigations into the murder of a Greek Cypriot teenage girl who was sexually assaulted and strangled nearly 20 years ago.
Yiannoulla Yianni was 17 when she was assaulted and killed at her home in Hampstead, north London on August 13, 1982.
On that day, Yiannoulla had left her father, George, and brother Ricky at the family’s shoe shop in Hampstead and returned the short distance to their home on her own where she began setting the table for dinner at around 1.30pm.
An hour and half later her parents returned home and found their daughter had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Advances in forensic science have enabled police to obtain fresh clues from materials recovered from the murder scene and kept in storage.
Scotland Yard detectives now want to trace and question about 900 people who lived in the area, went to school with Yiannoulla or had contact with the Greek Cypriot family.
Police have already tracked down about 100 of the 1,000 people questioned in 1982, but most of the remainder are thought to have moved abroad.
Many have gone to Cyprus, Portugal and Spain.
Detectives also want to question anyone who attended Greek dancing classes with Yiannoulla in London.
An extensive murder inquiry began with police interviewing more than 1,000 potential suspects and fingerprinted hundreds of male pupils and staff at Yiannoulla’s school.
No trace of the killer was ever found.
Apart from the scientific evidence, the police case revolves around sightings of two men or, possibly, the same man. On the day of the murder, two people remember seeing a man of Mediterranean appearance in his early 20s chatting to Yiannoulla on the doorstep of her home and on two separate occasions in the three months before the murder, the two sisters and their mother were followed by a man they described as of Arab or Iranian appearance, also in his 20s.
Descriptions and an artist’s impression were released, but without result.
Police are appealing to the public to help and to come forward.
Anyone with information should contact the police in England on 0044-20-8358 1777.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
