Tobin ruled out of Babes in the Wood murders

But Sussex Police are including the killing of 22-year-old student Jessie Earl among the files they are trawling as they trace 61-year-old Tobin's murderous past.

A CID team at Sussex Police's major crimes branch is reopening its files on women who went missing in the 20 years Tobin lived in Brighton - including that of Miss Earl, who disappeared in 1980.

Police today found a second body at a council house in Kent where Tobin lived in 1991 - just two years after he married for the third time in a Kemp Town church.

Tobin has been linked in the media to a host of unsolved crimes, including the 1986 murders of Babes in the Wood nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in Wild Park.

But Sussex Police says there is no evidence Tobin was involved in that crime.

Instead officers are actively researching Tobin's life in Brighton and whether he could be linked to Miss Earl, whose body was found at Beachy Head in 1989.

Detective Chief Superintendent Kevin Moore, the head of Sussex CID, said: "Like many forces in the UK we are looking at tracking the movements of Tobin over a period of years.

"In conjunction with this we are considering the potential for his involvement in connection with similar matters falling within the Sussex area.

"In particular we are focusing on any missing females, particularly those that went missing during the time that Tobin lived in Sussex.

"At this time there is no evidence or intelligence to link him to any of these specifically."

In 1969 Tobin was 22 and working as a grill chef while living in an eight-bedroom house with a patio garden in Dyke Road, Brighton. He married Margaret Mountney, 18, a typist who lived just two doors away.

In 1973 he married registered nurse Sylvia Jeffries at St John the Baptist Chapel in Bristol Road, Brighton.

He was working as a restaurant chef and they lived at Regency Square.

In August 1989 Tobin, then 42, married 19-year-old insurance clerk Cathy Wilson at Dorset Gardens Methodist Church in Kemp Town and moved into a ground-floor flat in Chadborn Close on the Bristol estate.

Police were tonight trying to identify a second body they found at Tobin's former Margate home.

Detectives from Essex found the body, and that of murdered 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton, as they searched for missing 18-year-old Dinah McNicol.

The relatives of the Babes in the Wood murder victims have extended their sympathy to the families of the girls whose bodies have been found.

Ian and Nigel Heffron, the uncles of Nicola Fellows, left a message on The Argus website saying: "There are many families in the same situation as us, seeking to find why we lost loved ones.

"We wish this enquiry well, and that they can bring disclosure for those grieving relatives.

"We send our heartfelt sympathy to the family of Vicky Hamilton.

"We pray that the facts will soon be known."

Ian Heffron told The Argus yesterday: "I extend that to the families of any other girls who are found there.

"In a way they are getting some kind of closure."

He said the families will still be desperate for answers even after the bodies of their loved ones have been found.

He said: "I want someone to turn round and say to me, 'This is why it happened.' "I have got to hope, you have got to keep some glimmer of hope you will find out what happened."

Tobin appeared in court in Scotland on Thursday charged with the murder of Vicky Hamilton.

He is already serving a life sentence for the 2006 murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk in Glasgow.

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