A DORSET detective has appeared on Italian television to appeal for help in solving the murder of Bournemouth mother-of-two Heather Barnett.

The television broadcast on the Italian version of BBC's Crimewatch programme Chi l'ha Visto? on Monday, November 12, coincided with the fifth anniversary of Heather's brutal killing.

The popular seamstress was attacked with a hammer-like object and stabbed several times in the bathroom of her Charminster home. Her breasts were cut off and placed by her side.

Two detectives involved in the investigation to track down 48-year-old Heather's brutal killer have travelled to Italy.

They are liaising with their Italian counterparts who have reopened their investigation into the disappearance of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in Potenza, southern Italy, in September 1993.

Dorset detectives believe there is a link between Heather's murder and Elisa's disappearance.

Officers are also convinced there is a connection between bizarre hair-cutting incidents in Bournemouth and Potenza.

In both towns young women travelling on buses had some of their hair snipped from behind by a man.

When Heather Barnett's mutilated body was discovered by her two children there were strands of cut hair in both her hands; some from her own head and others from an unknown person police are desperate to trace.

New forensic evidence has confirmed that the hair which wasn't Heather's belonged to a UK resident who had travelled abroad twice before November 12, 2002.

The first journey was to the Valencia to Almeria area of eastern Spain and/or the Marseille to Perpignan area of southern France and the second trip abroad was to an urban part of the Tampa region of Florida.

When the Barnett case was first featured on Italian television in November 2006 a large number of women phoned to say they had had their hair cut in strange circumstances.

Police in Potenza, who have been carrying out searches in the area where Elisa was last seen, said they were "working in close co-operation with Dorset police, co-ordinated by Interpol."

l If you can help detectives phone 01202 222500 or the anonymous Crime-stoppers line on 0800 555111.