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Soham murders
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.
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's 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.
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Soham murders
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.
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's 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.