Police began a hunt for a serial killer last night after it was confirmed that a third woman found dead in woodland in Suffolk was a prostitute.

Sources at Suffolk police said that they were not naming the woman, who was in her twenties, at this stage. Her body was found in a copse at Nacton, near Ipswich, yesterday afternoon.

The discovery was made less than ten miles from where the bodies of Gemma Adams, 25 and Tania Nicol, 19, were found last week. The two women worked as prostitutes in the town’s red-light district and had been reported missing.

The latest body was found by a woman out walking, who stumbled upon it at about 3.20pm in woodland close to the entrance to Amberfield, an independent girls’ school housed in a former stately home.

A large area around the school and the village was cordoned off as police, scene-of-crime technicians and a pathologist examined the body and searched the woodland for evidence.

Ms Adams’s remains were found by a fishery warden at Hintlesham on December 2. She disappeared on November 15. The body of Ms Nicol, who disappeared on October 31, was recovered at Copdock Mill, near Ipswich last Friday.

The bodies of the two identified women, who knew each other, had both been stripped naked. Both their bodies had been immersed in water for lengthy periods and showed no obvious signs of violent injury or sexual assault.

Before yesterday’s discovery the force confirmed that it was consulting forensic psychologists and geographical profilers in an effort to build up a picture of the suspect. Given his apparent knowledge of local roads and waterways, he is likely to be someone living in the area.

Suffolk detectives have also been liaising with officers in the neighbouring force of Norfolk where the murders of a number of prostitutes in Norwich between 2000 and 2002 remain unsolved.

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