Lin and Megan Russell’s murders were two of the UK’s most brutal. Now, as the Mail launches The CRIME DESK, we exclusively reveal it’s being reinvestigated after 30 years – with an already notorious killer in the frame…
Megan’s older sister Josie, then nine, miraculously survived the bloodbath in a crime that horrified the nation.
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Lin, Josie and Megan Russell were attacked with a hammer in a country lane not far from their home in Chillenden, Kent, 1996 (pictured, on a family holiday in Wales in 1995)
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Michael Stone has always protested his innocence over the murders of Lin and Megan Russell in Chillenden, Kent in 1996 (Pictured, Stone leaving the Court of Appeal in 2005)
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Pictured: The scene of the murders in a country lane in Chillenden, Kent
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Stone has professed his innocence ever since, implicating Milly Dowler killer Levi Belfield in the attack and accusing Daley of lying.
The CCRC – which has the power to refer convictions back to the Court of Appeal – is looking to visit Daley in HMP Full Sutton, where he is serving life for a 2014 murder.
It forms part of a three-pronged probe into the case on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the murders.
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The commission will also test items from the crime scene using modern forensic techniques, and analyse the possibility that Bellfield could have been the real culprit.
I’m Sam Greenhill, Chief Reporter, and nearly 25 years ago I had an encounter with killer Ian Huntley that still sends shivers down my spine.
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Huntley is one Britain’s most notorious child murderers. But when I was invited into his home for tea and biscuits days before he was arrested for the Soham Murders, this was the last thing on my mind. I’ve written about it in The Crime Desk newsletter – sign up to read it for free.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Stone said he would ‘never’ admit to the killings.
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He insisted Bellfield was involved and branded Daley a ‘lying lowlife… who created a miscarriage of justice’.
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The CCRC first rejected a submission by Stone in 2010 but have kept open a subsequent application made in 2017.
The watchdog’s previous analysis of drug-addict Daley’s reliability had been centred on his bad character and claims from former friends and cellmates that he had admitted he invented the Stone confession.
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Now the CCRC is looking deeper into career criminal Daley’s medical records to understand if his evidence should have been admissible, the Daily Mail understands.
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Daley, from Folkestone, Kent, was jailed for life in 2014 aged 39 for murdering Gus Allman, a 20-year-old from London, during a drug-related dispute.
Leading barrister Mark McDonald, who has represented Stone for 27 years, said looking at Daley was a crucial step.
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‘He’s withdrawn his testimony a number of times by telling other inmates that he lied,’ McDonald told the Daily Mail.
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‘His credibility is now being looked at properly by the CCRC and they are focusing on areas not previously investigated, as well as some that will be re-analysed with the modern eye.
‘There is a strong possibility something will be found that will undermine his testimony and help us get referred back to the Court of Appeal.’
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In September 1997, Daley was on remand at HMP Canterbury in Kent when he was moved to the segregation unit for trying to bite off another prisoner’s nose. Stone was in a neighbouring cell, and Daley claimed he had confessed to him through a heating pipe.
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A crucial testimony
Stone says he was there after asking to be isolated to avoid the risk of other inmates claiming he had confessed to the Chillenden murders.
A copy of a newspaper, dated the same day as Stone’s alleged confession and found in Daley’s cell, contained details of the murders, leading to doubts over the truthfulness of Daley’s evidence as information was already in the public domain.
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After Daley and two other inmates claimed he had confessed, Stone was convicted of the murders by a majority decision at Maidstone Crown Court in 1998.
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But within a day of his conviction, one of those witnesses, Barry Thompson, gave an interview saying he had made it all up. A second prisoner, Mark Jennings, admitted taking money from the media and being offered more in the event of Stone’s conviction.
Stone’s conviction was quashed and his case was sent for retrial in 2001 and only one prisoner, Daley, testified. Again, Stone was convicted on a majority verdict at Nottingham Crown Court.
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