Ian Huntley death: Notorious Soham child killer who murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman
Ian Huntley, the notorious Soham killer and one of Britain’s most criticized murderers, has died following a violent attack in prison.
The former school caretaker was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for the 2002 murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
His horrific crime shocked the country and raised widespread questions about how a man with a history of sexual allegations could be employed at a school.
Huntley, who lives next door to Maxine Carr, a teacher’s assistant at Holly and Jessica’s primary school, has lured his best friends to his home in Soham, Cambridgeshire.
The girls, wearing Manchester United jerseys, left a family barbecue to buy sweets on August 4 and chanced upon Huntley while Carr was away for the weekend.
For reasons known only to him, Huntley killed the girls and then dumped their bodies in a ditch ten miles away. They have not been found for 13 days
Their disappearance sparked a search involving hundreds of police officers.
The country’s media flocked to Soham and it wasn’t long before Huntley attracted suspicions about his uneasy demeanor.
Reporter Brian Farmer, then working for the Press Association in East Anglia, interviewed Huntley and became so concerned afterwards that he went to the police.
Mr Farmer, who had initially hoped to speak to Carr, was surprised when Huntley began telling him how he imagined girls would react to a stranger approaching them even though he did not know them or worked at the school.
The reporter later recalled: “The main thing that struck me when he answered the question was: How could he know how they would react?”
Huntley was also reluctant to be photographed; which meant he didn’t want to be recognized.
Indeed, in later TV interviews, someone from the Grimsby area where he grew up recognized Huntley and told police he was facing a series of rape charges in the late 1990s.
During her trial at the Old Bailey, Huntley tries to convince the jury that Holly had a nosebleed and drowned in the bath, and kills Jessica as she tries to silence her screams.
They did not believe him and he was found guilty of two murders. The trial heard Huntley cut clothes from the bodies of Holly and Jessica and tried to burn them in a bin in the hangar of the school where he worked.
He told Mr Justice Moses Huntley: “Ian Kevin Huntley, on 4 August 2002 you lured two 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, into your home.
“They were happy, smart, loyal and loved by their families and everyone who knew them.
“You killed them both. You’re the only one who knows how you killed, you’re the only one who knows why. You destroyed evidence showing no mercy or remorse.”
The girls’ bodies were found by a ranger in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath.
Carr gave Huntley a false alibi and was sentenced to 21 months in prison for perverting the course of justice. He now lives with a new identity.
After the hearing, Jessica’s father, Leslie Chapman, said: “I think she was a ticking bomb waiting to explode and both our daughters were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I hope the next time I see her it will be like we saw our daughters and it will be in a coffin.”
Holly’s older brother Oliver, who was 12 when she disappeared, told the Radio Times in 2012 that he dreamed of seeing her grow up. “I wish I could see it now, see what it looks like,” she told the magazine.
Referring to her parents, Kevin and Nicola Wells, she added: “We chat about him pretty regularly, which I think is lovely. It’s weird having three of us when there used to be a fourth.”
The case led to an investigation into how Huntley evaded police vetting procedures.
The investigation report revealed a “deeply shocking” catalog of errors across all organizations that were in contact with Huntley before he killed Holly and Jessica.
Huntley was a marked man in prison, surviving repeated assassination attempts and being kept under close guard along with other notorious murderers.
In 2010 robber Damien Fowkes slashed her with a homemade gun, creating a “serious, deep cut on the left side of her neck”, a 7-inch (18 cm) wound that required 21 stitches.
Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.”
Media reports since his imprisonment said Huntley was known as a loner, arrogant and whiny, and that he sought to form close relationships with guards.
In a leaked conversation, Huntley reportedly said: “Any prison you go into is very, very dangerous, there is no safe place in prison.”
As she clung to life, her only daughter, Samantha Bryan, said: Sun on Sunday: “There’s a special place in hell waiting for him.”
