A BBC Crimewatch reconstruction boosted the inquiry

On Wednesday, South Wales Police said they were liaising with the Home Office over the exhumation.

Detective Chief Superintendent Wynne Phillips said he wanted to stress that the deceased man was still a suspect.

There was a "substantial amount of forensic and legal processes to be followed," he said.

On Monday officers said the unnamed man was living in the west Glamorgan area at the time of the killings in 1973.

DNA evidence has only recently linked the three deaths.

The availability of new forensic techniques was responsible for detectives 're-opening' the cases.

Officers have tracked down dozens of possible suspects from the murder files - some of whom who had moved as far away as Australia.

The man police now suspect is responsible - who featured in the original inquiry - was in his early 30s and married at the time.

Raped and strangled

South Wales Police have said that he was later estranged from his wife before dying of natural causes in 1990.

"We view this development as highly significant and it has led the investigation into a new chapter," said Detective Superintendent Wynne Phillips.

"The investigating team will have a lot of work to do but we intend to keep the public fully updated at each relevant stage of the inquiry."

The 1973 murders sparked a massive inquiry

The murders were reconstructed for the BBC's Crimewatch programme in January this year which showed Pauline and Geraldine hitch-hiking home after a night out in Swansea's Top Rank Suite.

Witnesses later saw them being picked up on the outskirts of the city by the driver of a light coloured car.

They had been raped and strangled.

Their deaths led to a massive murder inquiry during which 30,000 people were questioned, including 10,000 motorists.

Serial killer Fred West was ruled out of the inquiry after it emerged he had lived close to Llandarcy - where he had worked as a labourer at the BP oil refinery - at the time the teenagers were killed.

For more information on the Llandarcy murder investigation, see the South Wales Police website.

http://www.south-wales.police.uk/llandarcy/