(Image: Police Scotland)
The brother of a Saltcoats woman who has been missing for half a century and suspected to have been murdered has claimed: "I know who killed her."
Alan Black spoke out after the 50th anniversary of sibling Patricia Black's disappearance in October 1976.
The Stevenston man said: "I'm 100 per cent sure it's not the World's End killer Angus Sinclair, who has been in the spotlight in recent times.
"It is someone she was seen with on the night - who died some years ago. It's a local man."
Patricia Black's shocking disappearance on October 9, 1976, prompted one of Ayrshire's biggest murder investigations.
Two weeks after the 22-year-old factory worker vanished, her handbag - weighted down - was recovered from the River Irvine. But there was no trace of a body in the water.
Alan Black (Image: Newsquest)
Known to friends and family as Tricia, she had joined a female friend on a shopping trip to the town - and spent time in the Eglinton Arms before parting company with her pal.
Four male friends then walked her to the bus stop opposite the Turf Hotel in Irvine, before bidding her farewell. Some claimed she was then seen talking to another man at the bus stop.
And that was the last reported sighting of Patricia.
Mr Black said: "There's not a day goes by that I don't think about her. It happened about 10 days before my 18th birthday.
"I was the one who took her to Irvine on that Friday night. My mother knew she was staying overnight with a friend but she didn't know who with.
"Patricia phoned my mum to ask her to put her immersion heater on. But she never came home the next day. That's when mum started getting worried. All day Sunday she was worried and she went to the police on Monday.
"The police weren't interested. They said she would be staying with friends."
Patricia Black (Image: Police Scotland)
Mr Black revealed: "The man I believe killed my sister admitted he saw her. But he had an alibi for that night, provided by a family member.
"One police detective later told me they were sure it was this man - they just couldn't get any proof.
"I think she was thrown in the river. If the police had moved their a*** e quicker, maybe they would have found her."
It was a grim time in Ayrshire and Scotland as a whole in 1976 with the disappearance of young Sandy Davidson from Irvine earlier that year. He too has never been found.
And soon after Patricia's disappearance, another huge case gripped the Scottish press.
Renee McCrae vanished in November that year alongside her two-year-old son Andrew. Their bodies, again, have never been found.
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Mr Black said: "When that happened, I think the search for Patricia died down. My father died just two years later in 1978."
The still-grieving brother dismissed recent suggestions that Angus Sinclair, convicted of the World's End murders of Christine Eadie, 17, and Helen Scott, 17, in 1977, could have killed Patricia too.
Already a convicted killer and serial rapist, he would not be convicted of the crimes until 2014 and died in prison in 2019.
He said: "Sinclair wasn't even mentioned in connection with Patricia until a national newspaper article a few years ago, then the spotlight was on him. I'm sure he's not the man."