'Croydon cat killer' hunt ends after three-year investigation

Scotland Yard declares humans in the clear and foxes likely to be behind mutilations in south London

For a nation of animal lovers, it was one of the most gripping whodunnits of the modern era. Reports in November 2015 of cats found mutilated around the Croydon area of south London, with their heads and tails removed, sparked media headlines that a "Croydon cat killer" was on the loose and fears the fiend might strike again.

But almost three years on, after postmortems on deceased cats and two rabbits, forensic examinations, DNA tests and the studying of CCTV, Scotland Yard announced that humans were in the clear - and that the most likely culprits were foxes or other scavenging animals.