Soham Murder

Happy True Crime Thursday! 

For this weeks story I kind of stumbled upon it, I was doing research for a case of a missing girl (I won't name who, as I will still cover it) and as I was watching the documentary they started listing some similarities of a person tied to another case. This case was the murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. I became intrigued and decided to switch over to their case for this week. Now, I do want to warn you that this does involve 2 young girls under the age of 13. These are some of the hardest stories out there for me to research and write about, but my goal is to get these stories out there in the hopes that it can help in anyway possible for now or in the future.  

August 4, 2002

Holly on the left, Jessica on the right

On August  4, 2002 in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, 10 year old Jessica Chapman left her home around 11:45 am to go over to her best friend Holly Wells' home, also 10 years old. The girls had known each other since they were 4 years old and were like sisters. Holly was a girly girl that loved makeup, dancing and singing. Jessica was more of a tom boy and loved to be outside and play sports. Both girls were known as very bright and sweet kids.

Jessica told her parents that morning that she was excited to give Holly a necklace that she had gotten for her, engraved with the letter H.  The girls spent the afternoon enjoying a nice barbecue at Holly's family home. By 3:15 pm the pair had changed into matching Manchester United football shirts, it was their favorite team. At 5:04 pm a picture of the girls was taken by Nicola (Holly's mom) before the children ate their dinner with the other guests.

Around 6:15 pm the girls decided to leave the home to buy some sweets, but they never told anyone they were leaving and they never returned home. There is footage of them getting their sweets and heading back the direction of Holly's house.

At 8:00 pm Nicola went into Holly's room to invite the girls to say goodbye to their house guests, but she discovered that the girls were missing from their home. Kevin (Holly's Dad) joined her in searching their home and the nearby streets. She called the Chapman home to see if the girls had gone over there, she learned that the girls weren't over there and in fact Jessica's parents were starting to wonder why she hadn't returned home yet. Frantically the parents of the girls searched where ever they thought the girls might be, ultimately a missing persons report was filed at 9:55 pm

In the early days of the investigation several members of the community came forward saying they had seen the children the evening they disappeared. Mark Tuck told police he saw the girls around 6:30 pm that night as him and his wife drove past them, he remembers them because of the shirts they were wearing, saying to his wife "Look! There's two little Beckhams over there." A young woman by the name of Karen Greenwood remembered seeing the girls walking "arm in arm" along College Road about 2 minutes later. Ian Huntly, a caretaker at Soham Village College that lived on campus along College road, said he had been outside cleaning his dog around 6:30 when the girls walked by, he said he briefly talked to them as they knew his fiancé Maxine Carr, she was a teachers assistant at their school. They had asked if she was there and he told them that she wasn't feeling well and was taking a bath. They then asked if she had gotten the full time position she had applied for. He told them unfortunately no and that she wouldn't be returning to school next year, the girls said to tell her that they were sorry to hear that and to tell her they said hello. Then they continued on towards the library. Police had a clear path that the girls took due to camera footage and the eyewitnesses. 

Several people mentioned seeing a white van in the area, police were able to locate it on August 7th in Caravan Park, but nothing came of it. Then on the 12th of August, police took to the media to ask for help in tracing the driver of a dark green, 4 door saloon car that was seen struggling with 2 young girls by a taxi driver that had come forward. The driver stated that the individual had driven upon the A142 south of Soham toward Newmarket on the early morning of August 12th. The next evening a dog walker told police he had come across 2 mounds of recently disturbed earth just outside of Newmarket. The police did an examination of the location only to find that the mounds were just made from badgers. 

On August 17th at approximately 12:30 pm a 48 year old gamekeeper named Keith Pryer sadly discovered the bodies of both girls lying next to each other in an irrigation ditch 5 feet deep near a pheasant pen in Suffolk, about 10 miles east of Soham. He came across the bodies after he noticed an "unusual and unpleasant smell" in the area several days earlier. He returned to the area with 2 friends to investigate the source of the smell on the 17th. He immediately reported his findings to police.

The girls had been missing for 13 days at this point and it was obvious that they were in the advanced state of decomposition. In an apparent effort to destroy any physical evidence the killer had attempted to burn the bodies. Despite the efforts to destroy evidence investigators were able to ID the girls, and came to the conclusion that they had died elsewhere. They also discovered multiple hairs on a tree branch nearby that belonged to Jessica. 

On August 30th, a public memorial service was held to remember and celebrate both of the girls, about 2,000 people attended while 31,000 messages had been entered into an online book of condolences.

What monster did this to these poor sweet girls?

I want to take you back to witness Ian Huntley.

Police were suspicious of Ian from the beginning and his house was actually searched by a police officer on August 5, no incriminating evidence was discovered on this date. That officer did notice several pieces of clothing on the clothes line outside despite the fact that it had been raining. He also said it was obvious that extensive cleaning had been done to the houses interior. Huntley told him it was due to them just having flooding issues. Despite not finding anything and him having no criminal background he remained a strong suspect due to his suspicious sometimes agitated demeanor. There was also one more problem, he had an alibi. His fiancé Maxine Carr.

She stated that she was home when the girls stopped by, but she had been in the shower. She told the media while the girls were still missing, "I only wish we had asked them where they were going... If only we knew then what we know now, then we could have stopped them, or done something about it" She also discussed the girls and her time with them at school. Maxine said that Jessica had told her that she wanted to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, and that the tomboy would only be willing to wear a dress for that occasion. Maxine also showed reporters a thank you card that she had gotten from Holly on the last day of school. Saying "She was just lovely, really lovely." Before she made the appeal to the children to "just get on the phone and come home, or if somebody's got them, just let them go." Seems like a sweet teacher to the girls...except I want you to see her statement about Holly... it was made in the past tense. What did she know that she wasn't telling?

During the active search for the girls Ian would actively participate in them. Adding to their suspicions they noticed Ian making efforts to ask police questions such as how their investigation was progressing and just how long DNA evidence could survive without deteriorating. One of the officers he was talking to noticed 3 vertical scratch marks on Ian's chin, but he claims it had been inflicted by his dog. By week 2 of the girls disappearance Ian was visibly not ok, it was obvious that he was not sleeping and had begun to lose weight. On August 13th, he was prescribed anti-depressants after some erratic and distressful behavior. To one officer he got upset and said "you think I've done it? I was the last person to see them!"

On August 16th, just a day before the girls were found, both Ian and Maxine were questioned by

police, each for about 7 hours. Both still sticking to the same statements as before. What they didn't know was by this time the police had received numerous statements from residents in Grimsby that Ian had been accused of rape several years earlier, they recognized him from his multiple television interviews. While he had never been convicted there had been multiple incidents with woman and underage girls, the charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence. They also discovered through exes that he was very controlling and abusive. Other witnesses came forward saying that Maxine had been seen in Grimsby Town Centre on the night the girls went missing and that she had been visiting her mom at the time, which means she in fact was not home in Soham with Ian like she had indicated.

That night police searched the grounds of Soham Village College where Ian worked as the caretaker and also searched their home. These searches located numerous items of major importance. It wasn't made public at the time, but police had discovered in a shed clothing the girls had been wearing including charred and cut Manchester shirts located at Ian's place of work. His fingerprints were discovered on the container those clothes were in as well as fiber samples matched what had been found on the clothing to Ian's clothing and his home. They also searched his car and found that it had been extensively cleaned, but they still found trace amounts of a very distinct mixture of brick dust, chalk and concrete. The same type used to pave the road leading to where the girls' bodies were discovered.  They also found that a seat cover and the lining of the trunk had been removed.

Police arrested both Ian and Maxine, they strongly believed that the girls were murdered the same day that they went missing or close to it.  During his initial questioning Ian didn't answer any questions, but he also was acting bizarre enough that the police sent him to a mental hospital to undergo a psychological evaluation. Maxine on the other hand quickly spilled the beans, she confessed that she had lied about her whereabouts on August 4th, she returned home on August 7th after visiting her mother in Grimsby. Ian had initially told Maxine before she got home that he had seen the girls shortly before they went missing, "the thing is, Maxine, they came in our home." Ian then told her that the children came in because Holly suddenly had a nose bleed while they were talking, he said that Jessica sat on the bed and tried to help Holly control the bleeding, before both girls got up and left the home. He told her he was concerned about being falsely accused of any involvement, because of his past rape accusations (that he claimed were also false accusations) So she agreed to come up with the lie that she was there with him. She swore up and down that it wasn't him, even when police presented her with all of their evidence she was still adamant that he wasn't responsible. I'm not sure that I myself believe she had nothing to do with this due to her use of talking about the girls in past tense when they were still considered missing. Regardless the jury believed her claims of only lying to protect Ian and that was it. She was found not guilty to assisting an offender and guilty for perverting the course of justice, she was sentenced to 3 1/2 years. 

As for Ian, he started to change up his story, but nobody was buying it. He said the that 2 girls came inside his home after Holly had a nosebleed, he insisted that she drowned in the bath and that he killed Jessica, but only to silence her screams. Once his psychological assessment showed that he was mentally fit to stand trial, he told the same story to jurors. Maxine was present and this was the first time supposedly she had heard him say that he was there when the girls died. On December 17, 2003 he was found guilty of 2 counts of murder, he was sentenced to life in prison. He showed no emotions as the verdict was read. No one, but Ian knows exactly the events that truly happened that day or why. If he would have been convicted of any of his past crimes he most likely wouldn't have gotten the job at the college and wouldn't have been there to cross the path of Holly and Jessica that Summer day. What's even more disgusting was Ian did multiple television interviews saying he hoped the girls were found and joined in the search effort with the families all while knowing the truth.