Ian Huntley killed Jessica Chapman and her 10-year-old friend, Holly Wells. Photo / Getty Images
Ian Huntley killed Jessica Chapman and her 10-year-old friend, Holly Wells. Photo / Getty Images
Ian Huntley, the Soham killer, has died a week after a British prison attack that left him with serious head injuries.
Huntley, 52, died just hours after doctors withdrew his life support. His mother was reportedly by his bedside and was consulted on the decision.
He was serving a lifesentence for murdering 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman at his home in Soham, a Cambridgeshire market town, in 2002. The schoolgirls left a family barbecue to buy sweets on August 4, 2002.
The prisoner was airlifted to hospital, where he was reportedly placed on a ventilator and given just a 5% chance of survival, after he was ambushed with a spiked metal pole at HMP Frankland, County Durham, on February 26.
The Ministry of Justice confirmed that he died on Saturday morning (local time).
Holly Wells (left) and her best friend Jessica Chapman were murdered in 2002. Photo / Getty Images
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families”.
Paramedics reportedly found the killer barely breathing and covered in blood. The source said the attack with a metal spike had split Huntley’s head in two, leaving him unrecognisable.
Before his death, it was reported that Huntley had been blinded in the assault.
Anthony Russell, a triple killer and rapist, is suspected of carrying out the attack in a prison workshop.
Huntley had previously survived at least two attacks in jail.
In 2005, an inmate threw boiling water over the former school caretaker while he was on the healthcare wing of Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire.
In 2010, he had emergency surgery after his throat was cut with a homemade weapon. Damien Fowkes, 35, a fellow inmate, later pleaded guilty to attempted murder at Hull Crown Court.
Daughter ‘glad’ Huntley is dead
After the latest attack, Huntley’s daughter said there was a “special place in hell” for her father.
Samantha Bryan said she was “glad” to hear he had been attacked and started crying with an “overwhelming sense of relief” because she thought he was dead.
“It felt like I could breathe again. I felt if he died, that burden died with him. I have always been judged for being his daughter – it has been a very difficult thing to deal with over the years.”
It was previously reported that Huntley wore a red Manchester United football shirt around prison, which caused friction with other inmates. Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were photographed wearing similar tops shortly before they were killed and it quickly became the image associated with his case.
Two murders
Huntley was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 40 years in December 2003 after he was found guilty of the two murders. Judges told him he had “little or no hope” of ever being released.
During his trial, Huntley told jurors that the two girls went into his house because Holly had a nosebleed. He insisted she drowned in the bath and that he killed Jessica to silence her screams.
Huntley initially claimed the pair had left his house alive but eventually confessed to dumping their bodies in a remote ditch, cutting off their clothes and burning their bodies to cover his tracks.
In a leaked recording in 2018, Huntley appeared to admit to murdering one of the girls before accidentally killing the other.
HMP Frankland is home to many of the country’s most notorious criminals. Its inmates include Wayne Couzens, the former police officer who murdered Sarah Everard, and serial killer Levi Bellfield.
Michael Adebolajo, one of two terrorists who killed soldier Lee Rigby is also being held in the prison.
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