Jailed killer faces quiz on death of Shirley Bassey's youngest daughter

By Michael Seamark for MailOnline
Updated:


A convicted murderer faces being questioned in his cell over the death of Dame Shirley Bassey's daughter 25 years ago.

The singer has never accepted the official ruling that Samantha Novak, found face-down in the River Avon near the 250ft Clifton Suspension Bridge, died accidentally.

Now a 'cold case' squad of detectives is investigating allegations that a killer was linked to the 21-year-old's death.

Bassey

A weeping Shirley Bassey is helped to her car after saying goodbye to her youngest daughter, 21-year-old Samantha Novak, in 1985

Avon and Somerset Police said yesterday that the family of murderer Michael Moffat's victim - Penny Beale - have written to detectives with a new lead.

Penny's mother contacted them saying Moffat had told her daughter he was 'involved in the murder' of Dame Shirley's daughter. The killer bragged about having a relationship with the singer's daughter and warned Penny that she would suffer the same fate.

Samantha was found in the river in Bristol in August 1985, nine days after leaving a pub where she had been drinking. Police concluded that she 'just fell in' and it was a tragic accident.

At her inquest the coroner recorded an open verdict, saying she had died from shock due to unexpected submersion into water and there was no evidence of foul play.

But in an interview last October Dame Shirley said: 'I never believed that [it was suicide] . . . if she'd jumped off the bridge, all her bones would have been broken.

Bassey

The killer and his victim: Michael Moffat and Penny Beale, who was found with 123 separate injuries including 18 broken ribs

'But there was not a bone broken. She did not have a mark on her.

'She didn't have any water in her lungs. If someone's drowning, they gasp, don't they?

'It's bothered me all this time. Because if she didn't have any bruises or broken bones, where did she fall?

'And if she didn't fall from the bridge . . . My imagination goes wild.' 

Samantha was Dame Shirley's second daughter and brought up while she was married to her second husband Sergio Novak,

Moffat, 47, from Edinburgh, was jailed for 11 years for battering his girlfriend Miss Beale, 31, to death in Hastings, East Sussex, in 2001.

The killer, who is being held in a Scottish jail, is believed to have lived in the same area as Samantha at the time of her death.

Miss Beale's mother, also called Penny, claimed she had been telling police for nine years that the man who murdered her daughter may have also killed Samantha.

SHIRLEY BASSEY

Dame Shirley with her adopted son Mark Novak aged 7, and Samantha aged 12 in 1976

Mystery: Shirley Bassey's daughter Samantha Novak, who died in 1985

Mystery: Shirley Bassey's daughter Samantha Novak, who died in 1985

Mrs Beale, 60, said she told them of her concerns in October 2001 - one month before her daughter was murdered by Moffat.

Since then she said she has contacted officers with the allegation 'over and over again' but believes they did not take her claims seriously until Dame Shirley's comments last October.

Mrs Beale said: 'Before my daughter was murdered she attempted to kill herself and it was then that Moffat said another of his girlfriends had committed suicide. He told her it was Shirley Bassey's daughter.

'In the summer of 2001 I told police my concerns he had murdered Samantha and was going to kill Penny but everybody thought I was just an overprotective parent.'

Police will decide within the next few weeks whether to travel north from Bristol to question Moffat.

Detective Chief Inspector Mike Carter, head of the force's major crime review team, said: 'We looked at the circumstances surrounding the death six months ago after comments made by Dame Shirley.

'There was nothing from the coroner's report to suggest it was murder rather than suicide, however this information is additional so we are making fresh inquiries.'

A spokesman for Dame Shirley declined to comment.


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