POLICE files relating to the 60-year-old unsolved murder of a four-year-old girl are being assessed by Scotland's new Cold Case squad.

The death of Betty Alexander, whose battered body was found near her Garnethill home, sparked one of the biggest investigations of the time.

No one was ever caught for the killing of the young girl, who had been missing for four days in October 1952.

Strathclyde Police have passed the details of Betty's case to the Crown Office's Specialist Cold Case Unit.

Records include 3000 witness statements and 1000 fingerprints taken from every male resident of Garnethill in what was then the country's largest fingerprinting exercise.

Detectives may also be able to examine Betty's clothing, although police at the time said she had not been sexually assaulted.

The brutal crime shocked Glasgow with crowds gathering outside the local police station for updates.

Thousands lined the street's for the little girl's funeral as her body was carried in a tiny white coffin.

Her body had been found badly battered with a scarf twisted round her neck in an alley just 200 yards from her home.

Betty had lived with her parents in Buccleuch Street and had been out playing with friends when she went missing on October 7, 1952.

After a city-wide search her body was found by a cleaner in the back court of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children dispensary.

Despite a massive police hunt no one was ever brought to justice for her killing.

Betty's case, although being reinvestigated, is not one of five priority crimes being studied by the Cold Case Unit.

Although the Crown Office will not confirm which cases are among the five, the infamous World's End murders are thought to be among them.