IN THE YEARS after Genette Tate’s abduction, her family has been forced to endure even more heartache.
Tate went missing when she was 13 years old in 1978, and while serial killer Robert Black has been linked to the crime, no one has ever been charged – and no body has ever been located.
Who was Robert Black victim Genette Tate?
Genette Louise Tate was a girl living in East Devon when she went missing.
She was born on May 5, 1965, in Somerset.
Genette Tate was the only child of John and Sheila Tate.
When their daughter was small, John and Sheila divorced, and John eventually remarried a lady named Violet.
Violet had a daughter, Tania, and the two resided in the village of Aylesbeare, east of Exeter, with John and Genette.
Genette was affectionately referred to as “Ginny” by her relatives.
Her disappearance is one of the most notable and long-running missing persons cases in the United Kingdom.
What happened to Genette Tate?
doing August 19, 1978, Genette Tate went missing while doing her paper route.
She was filling in for the regular paper boy, who was on vacation.
Two of Genette’s friends discovered her bike laying in the middle of a path near her home shortly after 3:30 p.m., with its owner nowhere to be found.
The girls had only been conversing with Genette for seven minutes when they discovered her bicycle – and the newspapers she was supposed to deliver – abandoned.
They were walking the same path as their companion on foot, while Genette was riding her bike, so they were following her closely.
The girls informed Genette’s relatives after discovering the bike.
Genette’s father then reported her missing at 5 p.m.
Tate’s disappearance spurred an investigation.
However, the crime has been linked to Robert Black, and Tate is thought to be the serial child killer’s first victim.
In 1994, Black was convicted of the rape and murder of three young girls across the United Kingdom.
For the atrocities committed in the 1980s, he was sentenced to life in prison.
After his arrest for other disappearances in 1990, Black was questioned by authorities in connection with Tate’s disappearance.
He was a long-distance delivery driver who had done work in the Exeter area.
A witness claimed to have spotted a vehicle similar to the one Black was driving at Exeter Airport on the day Genette vanished, but police were unable to locate him in Aylesbeare.
Then, in 2011, Black was found guilty of the murder of Jennifer Cardy in 1981.
At the time, a spokesman for the Northern Ireland Police Service remarked on the “striking similarities” between Cardy’s killing and Genette’s abduction.
The Crown Prosecution Service ruled in 2008 that there was not enough evidence to charge Black with Tate’s murder.
Devon and Cornwall Police assessed the case in June 2014, and when Black died in January 2016, they were just weeks away from pursuing charges against him.
A dossier was presented in April 2016, but owing to Tate’s death, no posthumous decision was made to charge Black with Tate’s murder.
The case is still unsolved.
In 2017, twenty families from Somerset, near where Genette was born, were sent
While authorities were unable to charge Black in connection with Genette’s abduction, he was found guilty in May 1994 of murdering Sarah Harper, Susan Maxwell, and Caroline Hogg.
He was also convicted of Hardy’s murder 30 years after the fact.
