Journalist Susan McKay has written extensively about Robert Howard and his crimes
Chances were missed to save the lives of victims of child killer Robert Howard, a former senior policeman in Northern Ireland has said.
Howard, 71, died while serving a life sentence, external for raping and killing Hannah Williams, 14, from London in 2001.
He was suspected of killing County Tyrone teenager Arlene Arkinson, who went missing in 1994 in County Donegal. Her body has never been found.
Her sister Kathleen said that she was glad that Howard had died in prison.
Arlene was 15 when she went missing after going to a disco. The Castlederg teenager was last seen in a car driven by Robert Howard.
Alan McQuillan said: "There is no doubt what happened to Arlene - I only wish that we could have found her body to at least give her family some rest."
Howard was charged with murdering her but was acquitted in 2005, external.
Robert Howard was a suspect in the murder of the County Tyrone teenager Arlene Arkinson but was found not guilty after a trial in 2005
The jury was not told that Howard had a history of sexual violence, external, and by then he was already serving a life term for killing and raping Hannah Williams.
Arlene Arkinson's sister Kathleen said: "I'm angry at the police, I'm angry that he's dead and that the system waited and waited and waited," she said.
"There's a lot of unanswered questions. I've been let down so many times I don't know how I'll get up this time.'
Arlene Arkinson was 15 went she went missing in 1994, shortly after getting into a car with Robert Howard, who was later cleared of her murder
"In a way I'm glad for his victims, he can't do it again. I'm glad he didn't die out here, he died in prison."
Kathleen also said that she would not give up hope of finding her sister's body.
"I'm going to keep on, somebody will come across it accidentally because if I didn't believe Arlene would be found then I wouldn't be here today."
Mr McQuillan said Howard was a "predatory psychopathic paedophile" and "one of the most evil people I came across in my entire career".
He said the case of Howard was "an example of everything that went wrong in the criminal justice system in dealing with this type of offender over a period of almost 40 years".
Howard was an inmate at HMP Frankland in County Durham but died in hospital on Friday.
It is believed he died from natural causes.
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