Police hope a sample of child killer Derek Percy's DNA will provide answers to the secrets he has taken to the grave.
Percy, Victoria's longest serving prisoner, died of cancer on Wednesday and remains a suspect in a number of unsolved murders in four states.
The 64-year-old was quizzed by police on what he knew about more than half a dozen unsolved cases up until his death, but remained tight-lipped.
Victorian police have taken a DNA sample from Percy which has been made available to officers interstate.
A blood stain taken last year from the scene of the 1965 murders of teenagers Christine Sharrock and Marianne Schmidt on Sydney's Wanda Beach could provide a breakthrough in the case, in which Percy is a suspect.
But DNA testing is not advanced enough to make a definitive link, because the evidence is so old.
NSW Detective Chief Inspector John Lehmann from the unsolved homicide team said such a breakthrough was a long was off.
"That blood or possible blood is still being examined to try and have it enhanced to positively identify DNA," he told AAP.
On Wednesday victims of those believed to have been killed by Percy were relieved at his death, even though it means they will not get answers about their loved ones.
"There's a relief in the fact that he's not there anymore and the emotional pain of him is not so prevalent," said Gary Stilwell, whose seven-year-old sister Linda disappeared from an inner Melbourne beach in 1968.
Percy is the prime suspect in Linda's death and admitted being in the area at the same time she went missing.
At the weekend, he denied to investigators any involvement in her death, despite earlier saying he couldn't remember.
Donald Brook, whose toddler Simon Brook was brutally murdered in Sydney in 1968, said Percy will no longer be able to harm other children.
In 2005, the then NSW state coroner recommended that Percy be charged over Simon's murder, but the charge did not proceed.
Percy abducted and killed 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy southeast of Melbourne in 1969 and has been detained on insanity grounds since.
He also remains a suspect in the unsolved murders of six-year-old Alan Redston in Canberra in 1966 and three-year-old Simon Brook in Sydney in 1968, and the disappearance of the three Beaumont children in Adelaide in 1966.
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