Jo Yeates’ Facebook friends are being swabbed for DNA as police remain convinced the 25-year-old murder victim knew her killer.
Those targeted include men who live more than 100 miles away from where her body was discovered.
Yeates had more than 200 friends on the popular social networking website. Police are also asking for background information about her life and also her relationship with boyfriend Greg Reardon.
The swabbing move comes as calls grow for there to be mass DNA testing in Bristol, where she lived.
Labour MP Kerry McCarthy is leading the charge and yesterday called for DNA swabs to be taken from 250,000 men in the area.
McCarthy said the majority of people have no problem with requests for samples.
She added: “But rather than taking DNA just from men in the Clifton area, where the population is somewhat transient, the operation should be widened to include the whole of the city.
“Quite how the police would organise this I don’t know,” she added.
Detectives from Avon and Somerset Police previously used mass DNA screening in the 1995 investigation into the disappearance of 18-year-old Louise Smith.
Then, officers collected 4,500 DNA samples from local men.
Police said they had received new leads after questioning people at a number of locations around Bristol on Friday night, but have not yet indicated if they are considering a mass DNA screening.
In another development, it has been revealed that none of the 32 cameras on the Clifton bridge where her killer probably crossed are likely to give clear pictures.
A Clifton Suspension Bridge source told the Daily Mirror : “They’re rubbish at night. They’re too dim.”
A toll keeper at the bridge told the newspaper: “I don’t think you’d be able to see the driver of a car at night because of the glare – and it would be difficult to see the registration plate of all the cars crossing the bridge. But when they switch off the illuminations at midnight you can see everything.”
And, in a seperate move, police will this morning discuss overhauling the investigation team.
There is talk of bringing in ‘older, wiser heads’ to assist some of the younger detectives working on the case.
