How chewing gum helped to catch a killer after 35 years

A piece of chewing gum has helped convict the partner of a woman killed in 1981.

The death of 24-year-old Nova Welsh had remained unsolved after her body was found hidden in a cupboard near her flat in Ladywood, Birmingham.

But advances in DNA meant chewing gum, used to secure the broken lock on the cupboard, was tested more than thirty years later and it matched that of her former partner, Osmond Bell.

Bell has been cleared of murder but was found guilty of manslaughter.