Police have said forensic evidence links a man who died in December to the double murder of a convicted sex offender and his daughter in the same month.

Scotland Yard announced a major development in the investigation into the killing of Noel Brown, 69, and Marie Brown, 41, naming Nathaniel Henry as a significant suspect.

The Browns were found dead at a property in Deptford, south-east London, on 4 December.

Henry, 37, a youth worker, was found dead in a block of flats in Southwark, south-east London, on New Year’s Eve in “non-suspicious” circumstances.

A GoFundMe page set up in memory of Henry said he was last seen alive at the community centre where he worked on 5 December.

The page, which has raised £1,480 since 12 January, reads: “Nathaniel worked at the Damilola Taylor Centre as a basketball coach and mentor. He was a true pillar of the community who loved helping to make a difference. He would always go above and beyond his job by helping the children with any problems they may have had at home.”

Police said Noel Brown was strangled and his body dismembered, and the killer removed some of the body parts from the flat over the course of several visits. They said Brown’s daughter was believed to have been strangled after disturbing the killer when she visited to check on her father on 2 December.

Detectives are trying to piece together Henry’s final movements. They have previously trawled through 1,000 hours of CCTV footage in the investigation and issued images of a man seen carrying a distinctive large rucksack.