DETECTIVES are continuing to quiz an Ipswich man in connection with the murder of Capel pensioner Joan Albert.The 24-year-old had not, at the time of going to press, been charged with killing of the 79-year-old former hairdresser.

DETECTIVES are continuing to quiz an Ipswich man in connection with the murder of Capel pensioner Joan Albert.

The 24-year-old had not, at the time of going to press, been charged with killing of the 79-year-old former hairdresser.

But he remains in police custody today, detained for a further 12 hours on the special authorisation of a police superintendent.

Under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, if he is not charged when this time elapses, at approximately 8pm this evening, police must apply to magistrates for another 24-hour extension.

This period may then be extended again allowing another possible day of quizzing.

The arrested man has been in police custody since officers arrested him at his Ipswich home in an early-morning swoop yesterday.

Police were unable to say whether he had legal representation during police interviews.

The arrest came just over seven months after a the murder of home alone widow Mrs Albert whose stabbed body was discovered by neighbours in the hallway of her Boydlands home at 10am on December 16 last year.

The brutality of the attack on the 79-year-old sparked a huge police inquiry during which 700 Capel residents received a mail shot from police and more than 1,000 statements were taken.

Throughout the investigation, headed by Detective Superintendent Roy Lambert, detectives remained confident the killer would not evade justice.

The arrest came on day 221 of what was known by police as Operation Magdala.

The security-conscious Mrs Albert had, in the months before her murder, installed a motion sensor at the front of her family sized home and kept a phone by her bed.

Her immaculate and elegant presence was a familiar sight around Capel when she walked her beloved spaniel Rusty.

She was the second eldest of seven children to Elias and Agnes Tuckwell. The family was well known when their father began farming in Pettaugh.