Detectives are not reopening an investigation into murder-suicides of elderly couples which a report claimed could be the work of a serial killer. Cheshire police have dismissed the suggestion of a link between the five historic cases in the north-west of England after the report leaked to the Sunday Times raised concerns about a third party. The force added that there was no reason to believe the cases were not investigated “appropriately” by officers at the time. Inquests into the deaths concluded they were all murder-suicides, with each husband attacking the wife before killing himself. The five incidents – two in Cheshire, two in Greater Manchester and one in Cumbria – happened between 1996 and 2011. According to the Sunday Times, Cheshire police’s senior coroner’s officer, Stephanie Davies, produced a 197-page report raising concerns to the National Crime Agency and Interpol that the deaths of Harold and Bea Ainsworth in April 1996 and Donald and Auriel Ward in November 1999 in Wilmslow were double murders by a killer who was still at large. In an investigation published on 22 August, the newspaper reported that a suspect in the north of England had been identified in the report but could not be named for legal reasons. However, on Tuesday, DCS Aaron Duggan, of Cheshire constabulary, said the circumstances by which the unapproved report had been shared were now subject to an internal review. “These articles were based upon a report completed by a member of police staff working in the coroner’s office in Cheshire,” said Duggan. “The report was not approved by either the constabulary or the coroner’s office. Some media reports have referred to the author as a senior coroner or coroner and this is factually incorrect. “At this time, there is no reason to believe that the cases were not investigated by the police appropriately. They were also the subject of inquests.” Although the force has not reopened the cases, the decision will remain under review, Duggan added. Davies developed the theory about a third party after making freedom of information requests across the UK to look for other murder-suicides and finding 39 cases of older couples discovered together in such circumstances between 2000 and 2019, the Sunday Times reported. Although she was unable to look at police files belonging to other forces but she found three that shared “striking” similarities with the Wilmslow cases. One such case was the deaths of Michael and Violet Higgins in February 2000 in Didsbury, south Manchester. At an inquest, a coroner noted that the murder-suicide had been a “very sad end to many years of apparent happy marriage”.