Black Panther's evil trail of murder.

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Black Panther's evil trail of murder

DONALD Neilson turned from cat burglar to deadly Black Panther when he gunned down Baxenden sub-postmaster Derek Astin and sparked one of Britain's biggest ever manhunts. In the first of a series of six features retracing the steps of some of East Lancashire's most notorious killers, crime reporter NICK EVANS looks back at the case and talks to one of the detectives who helped bring him to justice.

JUST before four in the morning on September 6, 1974, Baxenden sub postmaster Derek Astin woke to find a hooded intruder in his bedroom.

He cried out and leapt out from his bed to tackle the man, pushing him along the corridor and into the bathroom.

As he did so the intruder pulled out a shotgun and blasted the postmaster at point blank range in the shoulder, before fleeing through a downstairs window.

Despite the best efforts of his wife Marion and ambulance crews, Derek Astin died from his wounds in Blackburn Infirmary later the same morning.

The killer was later unmasked as the notorious Black Panther, Donald Neilson, convicted two years later of the murder of Derek Astin, two more sub postmasters and Shropshire heiress Lesley Whittle.

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Derek Astin's two children, Susan, 13, and Stephen, 10, were both sound asleep when they were awakened by the gunfire on that fateful night.

After watching horrified as their father lay bleeding, they ran with their mother to a neighbour's house to raise the alarm because the telephone wires in the post office had been cut. During Neilson's trial at Oxford Crown Court, Marion Astin described the night the Black Panther shattered her life.

"I woke up and saw a small figure, dressed all in black, standing near the wardrobe," she said.

"Derek immediately got out of ...

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