10/02/2006

Fresh appeal launched over schoolboy murder

Police have today launched a fresh appeal for information into the murder of north Belfast schoolboy Thomas Devlin.

It has been six-months since the 15-year-old was fatally stabbed close to his home on the Sommerton Road area of the city, after visiting a local garage to buy sweets.

Police have said that a number of people who were in the area at the time of the murder have not yet come forward.

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Gilchrist today released a statement calling for those people to make themselves known.

He said: "We know that a number of people who were passing through the Sommerton Road area at the time of the murder remain unidentified.

"We need those people to come forward and make themselves known."

DCI Gilchrist continued: "I know that there are people with information, which could help us.

"They may be people who are very close to the suspects in this case and I imagine they must be really struggling with their conscience.

We have here, the absolutely wanton murder of an innocent schoolboy, taken from his parents, his brother and sister and his friends, denied his life.

"Those people who have knowledge of this murder must do the right thing and contact us; their information is of great importance to this inquiry."

Police have previously carried out searches in the loyalist Mount Vernon estate, and removed objects, which were understood to be of interest to the inquiry.

Detectives have said that the key suspects in the case are two young men with a black and white dog, who were spotted in the area around the time Thomas Devlin was killed.

(EF/SP)

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