Clad in matching red footy shirts, best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both 10, looked like two peas in a pod.
It was late afternoon on August 4, 2002 – a Sunday – and the girls were at a barbecue at the Wells’ family home in Soham, Cambridgeshire in the UK.
Giggling, they’d decided to change into the matching Manchester United jerseys. United was their team and David Beckham was their favourite player – both of them had his name and his squad number ‘7’ emblazoned on the back.
Holly’s mum, Nicola, snapped a photo of the girls in their identical ensembles. Not long after that, around 5.30pm, Holly and Jessica, who’d been friends since they were four years old, linked arms and went for a walk to buy lollies from the local shop.
They were captured on CCTV on their way back from the shop just before 6.30pm but by 10 they still hadn’t returned home and their frantic parents raised the alarm, the Daily Mail reported.
The photo of them in their Manchester United shirts quickly became the image distributed to police and media outlets in the desperate search for the girls. It would later become a haunting symbol of evil.
It turned out that Ian Huntley, caretaker of the local Soham college, had been the last person to see the girls. Huntley was engaged to a woman called Maxine Carr, the teaching assistant at St. Andrews primary school, where Holly and Jessica were pupils.
He told police he’d been in his front yard washing his dog around 6.30pm when the girls had walked past, as reported in the Telegraph. Holly and Jessica, who loved Maxine Carr, asked if she was around. Huntley said he’d told them she was upstairs taking a bath because she was feeling sick so the girls had wished her well before walking off in the direction of the local library.
Top Comments
Poor babies. I’m glad he got what he deserved. I’m shocked his lawyers used such a ridiculous and evidence deficient defence. Had his story been legitimate and her nose bled as it did, wouldn’t there have been evidence on the shirt?
I really do wish the headlines to articles actually described the article itself.
The whole "three words" thing had nothing to do with "revealing his guilt" it was after he'd already been arrested, charged and convicted.
Yes, exactly correct, it is really irritating.
A looot of the clickbait-y stuff going on here lately.
The article failed to mention a very recent development with this perpetrator - that he is wanting to transition to female. If you can prove it to the authorities, the NHS will budget for 100K pounds to pay for your transition courtesy of the taxpayers. And in the UK the policy is to allow prisoners to be housed with the sex that they gender-identify with. You can imagine how that is working out (considering 50% of male identified transwomen prisoners are sexual offenders). Apparently Ian, or Lian as he likes to be called, thinks the women have it "cushy". Fortunately, his fellow male prisoners are onto it and he's had death threats and is most unpopular. Another prisoner tried to slash his throat but didn't succeed. Shame.