LORRAINE McCausland was raped and beaten to death after a Saturday night out at a local UDA-run social club.
Police say the 23-year-old's murder in March 1987 has "the shadow of loyalist paramilitarism" hanging over it.
The mother of two children is believed to have been struck with a concrete breeze block before her body was dumped on open ground beside a steam in the Forthriver area of north Belfast.
Police today announced they were reopening an investigation into the murder of a young woman who was liked "for her personality and kindness".
"Lorraine was a popular member of the local community. She had worked as a stitcher and then in her sister's mobile shop. Everybody in the area knew Lorraine and liked her for her personality and kindness," Detective Inspector Michelle Griffin said.
Ms McCausland had lived in Forthriver Crescent in north Belfast and gone to the club with friends for a night out on March 7 1987. Her partially clothed body was found in the early hours of the following day.
No-one has ever been charged with her murder. Her family has previously said they believed the main suspect had been recruited by the security services as an informer and ultimately protected from prosecution.
Following the death of Ms McCausland's mother in 2003, her father made a complaint to the Police Ombudsman about the original RUC investigation.
With the help of British Irish Rights Watch group, the family learned potentially crucial DNA evidence had allegedly been missed in the original 1987 investigation.
This prompted the family to eventually request the case be taken up by the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team, who told them the main suspect had been recruited as an informer after the murder.
More bleak details of the killing began to emerge, including discoveries by pathologist Nathaniel Cary who had worked on high-profile cases including the 2002 murder of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, England. His Old Bailey evidence helped put their killer, school caretaker Ian Huntley, behind bars for life.
The Home Office pathologist had also carried out what was said to have been the “most dangerous post mortem in the western world” when he donned two protective suits and a plastic hood pumped with filtered air to examine the radiation-ravaged body of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who died from polonium poisoning in London in 2006.
Dr Carey told the McCauslands he had found evidence that showed Lorraine might have been raped before her life was ended. His report was handed to the PSNI which has reopened the investigation into her murder.
There was further heartarche for the McCausland family in 2005 when Lorraine's son Craig was shot dead by the UVF.
His girlfriend's two young children were present when the 22-year-old was gunned down. He also left behind a little boy.
