A MAN jailed for life for the sadistic murder of a prostitute is to be quizzed about the Jack the Ripper-style killings of two vice girls discovered in Leigh and Lowton.

David Smith, who has a long history of appalling sexual violence, is to be questioned in prison by detectives probing the unsolved murder of convicted prostitute Maria Christina Requena.

The vice girl's mutilated corpse was discovered dumped in five bin bags - containing her torso, arms and legs - floating in Pennington Flash eight years ago. Smith, 43, who was jailed for life for the sadistic murder of a young mother in London, will also be questioned about the murder of Liverpool vice girl, Linda Donaldson, whose body was discovered in a field at Lowton in October 1988. Detectives fear that Smith, a taxi driver, may have preyed on women, particularly prostitutes, all over Britain.

A special team working on Operation Enigma - a national inquiry set up to determine whether or not serial killers are involved in other murders - will speak to Smith.

The brutal killings of Maria Requena in January 1991 and Linda Donaldson - their bodies discovered three miles apart - are just two murders detectives want to question Smith about.

Smith, nicknamed Honey Monster and Lurch by workmates because of his 6ft 3ins height and 18st bulk, was jailed for life after an Old Bailey jury found him guilty of murdering 21-year-old Amanda Walker and dumping her body in the grounds of the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens at Wisley, Surrey, last April.

In July 1993, he was cleared of murdering vice girl Sarah Crump, aged 33, who was found mutilated in her flat in Southall, London.

His record of sex offences dates back to the age of 18, when he was jailed for four years for raping a young mother at knifepoint in front of her two children.

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