2002 double homicide in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England
The Soham murders were a double child murder committed in Soham, Cambridge­shire, England, on 4 August 2002. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Amiee Chapman, who were lured into the home of a local resident and school caretaker, Ian Kevin Huntley, who murdered them – likely via asphyxiation – and disposed of their bodies in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002.
Huntley was convicted of the murder of both girls on 17 December 2003 and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, with the High Court later imposing a minimum term of 40 years. His girlfriend, Maxine Ann Carr – the girls' teaching assistant – had knowingly provided Huntley with a false alibi. She received a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice.
The search for Holly and Jessica in the thirteen days of their disappearance has been described as one of the most intense and extensive in British criminal history.
Disappearance.
At 11:45 a.m. on Sunday, 4 August 2002, Jessica Chapman left her home in Brook Street, Soham, for a barbecue at the home of her best friend, Holly Wells, in nearby Redhouse Gardens. She told her parents she was going to give her friend a necklace engraved with the letter "H" that she had purchased for her on a recent family holiday to Menorca.
The two girls and their friend Natalie Parr played computer games and listened to music for about half an hour before Parr returned home. By 3:15 p.m., both girls had changed into distinctive replica Manchester United football shirts, one of which belonged to Wells, and the other to her older brother, Oliver. At 5:04 p.m., Wells' mother took a photograph of the two before the children ate dinner with the other guests. They returned to playing upstairs in the house at about 6:10 p.m.
At approximately 6:15 p.m., the two girls left the Wells residence without informing anyone to buy sweets from a vending machine at the local sports centre. While returning to 4 Redhouse Gardens, Wells and Chapman walked past the College Close home of Ian Huntley, the senior caretaker at the local secondary school. Huntley evidently lured the girls into his house, saying his girlfriend, Maxine Carr – the girls' teaching assistant at St Andrew's Primary School – was in the house; she was in fact visiting her mother in Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
The precise events after the girls entered 5 College Close are unknown, but investigators believe sections of Huntley's claims in interviews to the media prior to his arrest, and in his later trial testimony – such as that he had been cleaning his dog at the time the girls passed by his house around 6:30 p.m., and that one girl had been suffering from a mild nosebleed – may have been true. The cause of death of both girls was later ruled to be asphyxiation. Chapman's Nokia 6110 mobile phone was switched off at 6:46 p.m.
At 8:00 p.m., Nicola Wells entered her daughter's bedroom to invite the girls to say goodbye to her guests, only to discover both children missing. Alarmed, she and her husband, Kevin, searched the house and nearby streets. Minutes after their daughter's 8:30 p.m. curfew had expired, Nicola Wells phoned the Chapmans to ask if the girls were there, only to learn Leslie and Sharon Chapman were worried that their youngest daughter had not returned home. Following frantic efforts by the families to locate their daughters, Wells and Chapman were reported missing by their parents at 9:55 p.m.
Search and discovery.
Police immediately launched an intensive search for the missing children. Over 400 officers were assigned full-time to search for the girls. These officers conducted extensive house-to-house enquiries across Soham; their efforts to search local terrain were supported by hundreds of local volunteers and, later, some United States Air Force personnel stationed at nearby airbases.
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. A physical description of each girl was also released to the media, describing them as being white, about tall, and slim. Chapman was described as being tanned, with shoulder-length, brown hair; Wells was described as being fair, with blonde hair. The parents of both girls stated that their daughters had been wary of talking with strangers, having been warned not to trust people they did not know from early childhood. This was supported by the headteacher of St Andrew's Primary School, who told reporters: "The possible danger from strangers is something we have impressed upon [the children] from an early age."
Suspecting the children had been kidnapped, investigators questioned every registered sex offender in Cambridgeshire and neighbouring Lincolnshire. Over 260 registered sex offenders across the UK – including 15 high-risk paedophiles – were also questioned; all were eliminated from the investigation. Police also investigated the possibility that the girls had arranged to meet someone they had contacted via an internet chat room, but this was soon ruled out.
On 8 August, CCTV footage of the girls, recorded minutes before their disappearance, was released to the public. This footage depicted them arriving at the local sports centre at 6:28 p.m. A televised reconstruction of the children's last known movements was broadcast nationally on 10 August, and both sets of parents granted an interview with presenter Colin Baker on ITV's current affairs programme "Tonight", which was broadcast on 12 August. Other family members and friends of both girls also appealed via the media for the safe return of the children. These appeals for information on the whereabouts of Wells and Chapman produced over 2,000 phone calls and tips from the public, with all information obtained entered into the investigation's HOLMES 2 database. The community held a candlelight vigil on 7 August.
Shortly after the children's disappearance, Staffordshire Police contacted the investigating officers to report their suspicions the girls could have been abducted by the same man responsible for an abduction in their jurisdiction the previous year, in which a six-year-old girl had survived an indecent assault by an abductor who was still at large and whose green Ford Mondeo had number plates which had earlier been stolen in Peterborough. The person responsible for this abduction and assault was also believed to have followed a 12-year-old girl in the same area, although in this instance, his car had been fitted with number plates which had been stolen in Nottinghamshire. The same vehicle had recently been sighted in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. This information was later included in a televised appeal about the children's disappearance on the BBC's "Crimewatch", but this potential lead failed to bear fruit.
Sightings.
Several members of the public reported having seen the children in the early days of the investigation. Mark Tuck informed investigators that as he had driven past the girls on Sand Street in Soham town centre at approximately 6:30 p.m. on 4 August, his attention had been drawn toward their Manchester United replica shirts, causing him to remark to his wife, Lucy: "Look! There's two little Beckhams over there." A young woman named Karen Greenwood also reported seeing the girls walking "arm in arm" along College Road approximately two minutes later. 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. Police also received statements regarding a suspicious white van that had been seen in Soham on the evening of the children's disappearance. Investigators located and seized this vehicle from a caravan park in Wentworth on 7 August; this lead also proved fruitless.
On 12 August, police launched an appeal to trace the driver of a four-door, dark green saloon car. A taxi driver stated he had seen him "thrashing his arms" as he struggled with two young girls inside his vehicle as he drove on the A142 south of Soham towards Newmarket around the time that the girls were last seen. This vehicle was last seen turning into the Studlands Park housing estate.
The following evening, a jogger alerted police to two mounds of recently disturbed earth he had seen at Warren Hill, just outside Newmarket, which he speculated might have been the burial locations of the two girls. An overnight examination revealed them to be badger setts.
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. According to Huntley, Wells and Chapman – both "happy as Larry" – had briefly enquired as to whether his partner, Carr, had been successful in a recent application for a full-time teaching assistant position at their school. When he had replied Carr had not got the job, one of the girls had said, "Tell her we're sorry" before they both walked along College Street towards a bridge leading towards Clay Street.
Police were suspicious of Huntley's account. A single police officer searched his house on 5 August; no incriminating evidence was discovered, but the officer noticed items of clothing on the washing line despite the fact it had been raining. In reference to the evident extensive cleaning of the house's interior, Huntley said: "Excuse the dining room. We had a flood." This officer was unconvinced by Huntley's claims and suspicious of his agitated demeanour; Huntley remained a strong suspect.
On 6 August, Huntley drove from Soham to Grimsby to pick up Carr. Shortly before the two returned to College Close, a neighbour of Carr's mother named Marion Clift saw the couple standing at the rear of the vehicle, with the boot open. According to Clift, a "pale, shaking" Huntley gazed into the boot for several moments, while Carr stood alongside him, her head bowed, weeping. When Huntley became aware of Clift's presence, he abruptly closed the boot.
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 I don't know the girls. I was stood on the front doorstep grooming my dog down. She'd run away and come back a bit of a mess ... they just came across and asked how [Maxine] was ... I just said she weren't very good as she hadn't got the job and they just says please tell her that we're very sorry and off they walked, in the direction of the library over there.
 Ian Huntley, interviewed by Sky News correspondent Jeremy Thompson. 15 August 2002
Discoveries.
At about 12:30 p.m. on 17 August, a 48-year-old gamekeeper named Keith Pryer discovered the bodies of both girls lying side by side in a deep irrigation ditch close to a pheasant pen near the perimeter fence of RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, more than east of Soham. Pryer had noticed what he later described as an "unusual and unpleasant smell" in the area several days earlier; when returning to the area with two friends on 17 August, he had decided to investigate its cause. Walking through an overgrown verge about from a partially tarmacked road, Pryer and one of his companions, Adrian Lawrence, discovered the children's bodies. Lawrence turned to his girlfriend, Helen Sawyer, and shouted: "Don't come any closer, Helen! Get back in the van!" Lawrence immediately reported the discoveries to police.
The girls had been missing for thirteen days when their bodies were found, and their charred corpses were in an advanced state of decomposition. No clear footprints were discovered at the crime scene.
Investigators rapidly deduced who the two victims most likely were, and that they had not died where their bodies had been discovered. Numerous hairs later determined to belong to Chapman were discovered on a tree branch close to the location of the girls' bodies.
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.
Identification.
On 21 August, both bodies were identified via DNA testing. Nine days later, a public memorial service was held at Ely Cathedral for the girls. About 2,000 people attended, including the girls'