A DANGEROUS sex offender spotted in Aberdeen is being hunted by police in connection with the killing of prostitute Michaela Hauge.
Prostitute Michaela was left dying on Bonfire Night 2001 after being brutally knifed 19 times.
Mum-of-one Michaela was left for dead in a secluded car park at Sheffield’s Spitalfields after she was picked up in the heart of the city’s then red light district, on Bower Street.
Another prostitute later found her lying in a pool of blood and called the police.
She lost her fight for life later that night in the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield.
But before Michaela’s battle for life was over a police officer kept her warm with his jacket and wrote details of the attacker down on his hand.
She told police she believed the killer was driving an old blue Ford Sierra, prompting a nationwide hunt for the car.
A photo-fit was later released and the high-profile killing featured on TV series Crimewatch.
Police revealed that an anonymous phone call received two months after her death could hold the key to solving Michaela’s murder.
Detectives investigating the murder of the 25-year-old now want to quiz Peter McDonagh who they believe has “vital” information.
And today police waging a manhunt for McDonagh took the unusual step of releasing CCTV footage of him in an Aberdeen shop – the last confirmed sighting of the convict.
Her devastated family only found out Michaela was working as a prostitute after her death.
It was reported that she came clean to her family about her drug habit but never told them what she did to pay for her next fix.
A review of the murder case was launched in November last year on the seventh anniversary of the killing.
Police were hopeful that advances in forensic and DNA technology would help them finally crack the case.
The manhunt for convict McDonagh continued today with police in West Yorkshire keeping in contact with Grampian officers.
Detectives revealed that McDonagh had a history of serious sex offences.
He was jailed for eight years for raping a Leeds woman at knifepoint and then locking her in a cellar, back in 2002.
And he had already served prison sentences in 1997 for sexually assaulting a woman hitchhiker in his native Ireland and later in 2000 for falsely imprisoning an ex-girlfriend after threatening her with a knife.
The convicted sex attacker was released from prison in September 2008 and ordered to stay in a supervised hostel.
He was spotted outside Manchester Piccadilly Station on the day he disappeared and then took a cab to Carlisle.
After staying overnight he headed for Aberdeen by train.
And the last sighting of McDonagh was shopping on Union Street on February 12.
lkernan@ajl.co.uk