London : 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 250-foot 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.
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.
"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 her father was the singer's second husband Sergio Novak.
Moffat, 47, from Edinburgh, was jailed for 11 years for battering his girlfriend 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.
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.
The woman 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. Beale, 60, 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.
