Jessica had just returned from a family holiday and wanted to catch up with her friend and give her a gift that she bought for her. [85][86], In the weeks following the disappearances, Huntley reluctantly[87] granted several television interviews to media outlets such as Sky News and the regional BBC News programme, BBC Look East, speaking of the general shock in the local community and his dismay at being the last person to see the children alive. To one colleague, Capp would talk incessantly about her dreams of leaving this employment and embarking on a teaching career. Huntley further alleges Carr had encouraged him to burn both bodies in an attempt to destroy all forensic evidence linking him to the crime. [72][n 6], Despite this, investigators rapidly deduced who the two victims most likely were, and that they had not died at the location of their discovery. Each room of Huntley's home had evidently been recently and meticulously cleaned[101] with what was later described as being a "lemony" cleaning fluid,[102] but the search of the home revealed many items of "major importance" to the investigation. According to Clift, a "pale, shaking"[59] Huntley gazed into the boot for several moments, while Carr stood alongside him, her head bowed, weeping. They then returned to playing in Wells' bedroom at about 6:10p.m.[6][8], Around 6:15p.m., the two girls left the Wells residence without informing any of the house guests, to purchase sweets from a vending machine at the local sports centre. [106][107], During initial questioning, Huntley refused to answer questions and appeared evasive, confused, and emotionally detached, occasionally drooling during police attempts to question him in an effort to feign mental illness. [92], On 3 December, Carr went into the witness box to testify in her own defence. He further elaborated that a deciding factor to dispose of the bodies in this particular location had been that RAF Lakenheath was just two miles from the home of his disabled grandmother, and that if eyewitnesses spotted his vehicle, he could falsely claim his purpose for being in this vicinity had been his decision to visit his grandmother. We will never forget Holly but life does move on it has to. The couple relocated to East Anglia in early 2001. His girlfriend, Maxine Ann Carrthe girls' teaching assistanthad knowingly provided Huntley with a false alibi. The best friends, who were both just ten years old, were attending a barbeque . Howard Gilbert, then-headteacher of Soham Village Collegehaving admitted the college's failure to check Huntley's references prior to offering him employmentlater said that he would not have employed Huntley if he had been aware of the burglary charge, as one of Huntley's key responsibilities was to ensure security in the school grounds. [171], Between August 1995 and May 1996, Huntley established numerous sexual relationships with teenage girls, all of whom were under the legal age of consent. [25][n 1], To help their public appeals for information, Cambridgeshire Police released the photograph Nicola Wells had taken of the children less than two hours before their disappearance depicting both girls wearing their Manchester United replica football shirts. [54], Police were suspicious of Huntley's account. This admissionin which Huntley also confessed to having a sexual interest in children while insisting the murders of Wells and Chapman had not been sexually motivatedwas welcomed by the victim of this sexual assault. Holly and Jessica remembered. By John McGurk. . They both lived in the village of Soham in Cambridgeshire, where they went to St Andrew's Primary School. In an attempt to emotionally blackmail his wife into remaining with him, Huntley alternately feigned an illness and, later, began drooling before faking an epileptic seizure; neither ploy succeeded. Carr only replied to his missed call at 6:23p.m. I get the impression that the Chapman's do not want any publicity at all rather than there being any hostility. Oliver Wells was 12 when Holly . [49], One person who claimed to have spoken with the girls immediately before their disappearance was 28-year-old Huntley, who informed investigators on 5 August he had had a brief conversation with both girls on his doorstep the previous afternoon. Maxine Carr is found not guilty of helping Ian Huntley in relation to the deaths of the girls but guilty of lying to the police about what happened. Referencing one of the 1998 rapes he had committed but had earlier claimed to her to have been falsely accused of in this phone call, Huntley then began voicing concerns as to again being falsely accused of involvement on this occasion, also claiming his previous arrest had caused him to suffer a nervous breakdown. As a result, he began rebuffing any offers to socialise with colleagues for fear of being attacked while alone in their company. Ian Huntley brutally murdered schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the Soham murders of 2002 - and persuaded his girlfriend Maxine Carr to cover for him. [192][195][n 14], While Capp resided with her mother in Grimsby, she unofficially adopted the surname Benson. [192], In 1993, Capp finished her schooling, having obtained no qualifications. Wells and her friend, Jessica Chapman was out to purchase a sweet from a nearby vending machine. Thank you! A scenes of crime officer also testified that, despite Huntley's exhaustive efforts to remove physical evidence of his crime from his home, a forensic examination had revealed several traces of blood spattering about the hallway and main entrance to the master bedroom. Both girls had been missing for thirteen days when their bodies were found, and their corpses were in an advanced state of decomposition. Three of them were aged 15, and one 13. Jessicas parents are Sharon and Leslie Chapman. Its strange being three of us when there used to be a fourth.. [129] Latham described how mobile phone records and eyewitness accounts placed Carr in Grimsby on the evening in question,[130] showing the statements she had given to police and press had been false. The murder took its toll on their marriage for a while, the pair have admitted. He regularly travelled to Cambridgeshire from East Anglia on his days off to help his father, and soon developed aspirations to become a school caretaker himself. [8] Another woman living in nearby Little Thetford claimed to have seen two girls whose appearance and clothing matched those of Wells and Chapman walking past her home the morning after they had been reported missing. "[90], Discussing the personalities of the girls, Carr described Wells as being the "more feminine" of the two, adding that Chapman was "more of a tomboy"[91] and that on one occasion, she had jokingly remarked to Chapman how, unlike many of her friends, she seldom wore a skirt. [70][71] No clear footprints were discovered at the crime scene. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman, who were lured into the home of a local resident and school caretaker, Ian Kevin Huntley, who subsequently murdered the children, before disposing of . [14], At the urging of his father, Huntley joined the Air Training Corps at age 13. Huntley supplied a DNA sample to assist in their enquiries, with Carr also providing an alibi to support his claims of innocence. [69], Carr was also interviewed by the press during the second week of the search for the children. Several of Carr's former partners would later inform reporters they found her to be an. [78] This service was attended by about 2,000 people, including the girls' classmates, teachers and the six family liaison officers who had provided 24-hour service for both families. The same year, she and her mother moved from Keelby back to Grimsby. [74], The following day, Cambridgeshire Deputy Chief Constable Keith Hodder released a press statement to the media confirming the discovery of the children's bodies, adding that both families had been informed of the developments and that although positive formal identification would take several days, investigators were as "certain as [they] possibly could be" the bodies were those of Wells and Chapman. Ian was sentenced to life sentences. [3] She received a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice. A prisoner who is serving a life sentence for the notorious murders of British schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman is in hospital after having . The girls' bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002. Holly wouldve been an auntie to her brothers children. Carr was sentenced to serve three-and-a-half years in prison for perverting the course of justice. Both were questioned for approximately seven hours. Almost two weeks after Holly and Jessica went missing, their bodies were found - dumped in a ditch and badly burned. [231][232][233][234], Shortly after her release from prison, Carr and her family contacted a Tyneside-based publishing company with view to publishing her autobiography. The Wells family still live in Soham, the village where Holly was killed. ", "Caretaker Charged With Murder of Two Girls and Sent to Rampton", "Holly and Jessica: Two Bodies Found in Woods", "The Whole Town is Weeping: A Community Dazed by Grief and Disbelief", "Chatroom Contact Dismissed as False Lead", "Reconstruction of Children's Walk Too Painful for Parents to Watch", "Walking in the Last Known Footsteps of Holly and Jessica", "Abduction of Six-year-old May be Linked to Missing Girls", "A Long Night Waiting for News That Never Came", "Countdown to Murder of 'Two Little Beckhams', "Soham Murders: Why did Ian Huntley Kill Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman? [127], The trial of Huntley for the murders of Wells and Chapman opened at the Old Bailey on 5 November 2003 before Mr Justice Alan Moses; Huntley was charged with two counts of murder, to which he entered a plea of not guilty. . e-mail; 18. shares. Two decades on, where are their parents now, and how have they moved on from the awful tragedy? Shortly thereafter, Huntley obtained employment as a barman in a local pub. [6], The two girls and a friend named Natalie Parr played computer games and listened to music for about half an hour. Jessica and her friend Holly Marie Wells were both killed by Ian Huntly and his girlfriend Maxine Carr. Ten years after the murders, in 2012, Hollys parents Kevin and Nicola Wells opened up about the death of their daughter for the first time, via the Daily Mail. Carr's decision to corroborate Huntley's lies to investigators and media in the early stages of the police investigation briefly resulted in police discounting Huntley as a suspect before eyewitness accounts of Carr's whereabouts on 4 August and a search of mobile phone and telephone records proved the, Huntley had attempted to burn these clothes in the late evening of 4 August; the, Investigators later discovered that a week before his arrest, Huntley had taken his car to an. [203] He soon found new employment at a finance company in Binbrook while Carr maintained her employment packing fish at a local fish processing factory. [19] Following subsequent frantic efforts by the families of both girls to locate their daughters, Wells and Chapman were reported missing by their parents at 9:55p.m.[20], Police immediately launched an intensive search for the missing children. [174] Furthermore, both Huntley and Carr are known to have conducted affairs throughout their relationship. Both were arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder at 4:30a.m. on 17 August. None were alive when Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman died on this day 20 years ago . In 2002, two 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were at a barbecue at the Wells' home located in Soham, United Kingdom. Each refused to file criminal complaints or accept help from social services. Huntley saw the girls and lured them back to his house on the pretence that their teaching assistant Maxine Carr, his girlfriend was also at the house. When Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing in Soham in 2002, Dennis was called in by Holly's family to help. We slept on it for a long . [135] Davey testified she had found minute traces of blood and saliva on these objects, but no positive traces of semen. [100], In February 2002, Huntley found Carr a part-time job at St Andrew's Primary School, although she lied about her academic qualifications when applying for this position. [17], Prosecutors at Huntley's trial contended he had lured the children into his house with a likely sexual motivation, but investigators found no evidence of premeditation in relation to the murders. Soham: The Murder of Holly and Jessica 1/2 - True Crime DocumentaryTwo girls go missing from a Cambridge town in August of 2002, leaving their community reel. [113] Carr was also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice on this date. As for Hollys younger brother Oliver, who was six-years-old at the time of her murder, hes gone on to have a family of his own with his partner Lydia. Kevin, who runs his own window cleaning business, is also the founding patron of the charity Grief Encounter. In this offence, he and an accomplice allegedly broke into the house of a neighbour in Grimsby and stole electrical goods, jewellery and cash. Episode 1. In reference to the evident extensive cleaning of the house's interior, Huntley stated: "Excuse the dining room. And hes even walked the Great Wall of China to raise funds for it. He then claimed to her Chapman had sat on their bed as he had helped Wells control the bleeding from her nose before both girls had left their home. [82], Over the course of three days, Latham outlined the efforts of both defendants to divert suspicion away from Huntley, and Huntley's own efforts to destroy all physical and circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime,[24] but despite these efforts, investigators had retrieved enough evidence to show the children had been murdered within his home andwithin approximately twelve hours of their deathstransported in his vehicle to the location where their bodies were discovered on 17 August. [112], By 20 August, investigators had established sufficient physical evidence from Huntley's home, vehicle and Soham Village College to charge him with two counts of murder. Most watched News videos. Huntley also developed a hobby of plane spotting. We do chat about her quite regularly, which I think is a very nice thing. . Following the separation of his parents in 1993, Huntley chose to use his mother's surname. [136], On 1 December, Huntley testified before the court in his defence. [170], In March 1996, Huntley was charged with burglary. It was one, almost two years before we found each other again, but grief gives you a different sense of the passage of time and it slipped by unnoticed.. The jury accepted her insistence that she had only lied to the police and media in order to protect Huntley because, prior to their arrest, she had believed his claims of innocence.
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