Original subtitles

On 9 July 1996,

45-year-old Lynn Russell and her two young daughters, 9-year-old Josie and 6

-year-old Megan, are reported missing when they fail to return home after

dark.

Sean couldn't find them along the route, so he went back home, and when nothing

came of that, he decided to call the police.

Search teams scour the surrounding fields for the girls and their mother.

By half eleven that evening, a large police presence descended upon the

village. This was really unusual and everybody was highly concerned.

Soon, a terrible discovery is made along a secluded country path.

The police have discovered the bodies of Josie, Lynn and Megan and the dog in a

copse just off of Cherry Garden Lane.

Despite an extensive police investigation... Few leads emerge in the

case and the attacker remains at large.

The crime itself was nationally and internationally known.

There was no suspect as well, so it was killer on the loose and really, really

quite a terrifying story.

The picturesque village of Chilenden is located in the heart of East Kent.

Chilenden is a very small rural village in East Kent.

It's very famous in a way because it goes back to the Doomsday Book as well,

so it's got its incredible history.

Kent is often referred to as the Garden of England and Chilenden epitomises

that. It's a small rural village, tight-knit community, most people know

each other.

It's not very far from what used to be the Kent Coalfield, but now it's all

fully countryside, a very rural location.

There's less than 100 people who live there. It's really picturesque. People

say it's beautiful.

In 1995, the Russell family and their two dogs moved to the Chillingdon area.

Living in Chillingdon was the Russell family, Dr Lynne Russell and Dr Sean

Russell. And they had two children, Megan and Josie.

Megan was six years old and Josie was nine years old.

Dr. Lynn and Dr. Sean Russell were really well educated.

One had a degree in geology and they spent time doing fieldwork in Africa.

They married in 1975 and they returned to the UK in 1991 from Africa.

They originally lived in North Wales when they first came back to the UK.

In 1994, Sean was offered a position at the University of Kent, so that prompted

their move to Chillingdon in the Kent area.

As the children were growing up, Dr Lynne Russell took that time and paused

her career to bring the children up in the perfect situation they were in,

whilst Dr Sean Russell went off and worked in various universities as a

lecturer.

Tuesday, the 9th of July 1996, began as a normal summer's day for the Russell

family.

The 9th of July 1996 was just an ordinary day, a summer's day, getting

towards the end of a school term.

The day started as normal.

Sean got up, got himself ready and went off to work at the university, while

Lynn stayed at home and got their two daughters ready for school.

Both girls were going to go to a swimming gala that day in Goodnessstone.

Nothing was different on that day to most of the days during the week they

had together.

Lynne would be expected to pick the girls up from school around about

quarter four in the afternoon and she would return home until Sean came back

from his work.

Sean came home, as usual, at about 7.30 to the cottage, but unusually he found

the cottage locked and only one of the dogs in the cottage.

One of their golden retrievers was still in the house.

He didn't think there was anything unusual. He assumed that Lynn had gone

out with the girls to visit a pony in one of the fields.

There's nobody there.

He thinks, well, maybe they've gone to feed one of the ponies in a field

nearby.

Sean was preparing dinner, as Lynn and the girls weren't there, and then he

received a call from one of the neighbours saying that they'd called

round at five o'clock that evening and nobody was in.

The phone call rang alarm bells for Sean, who began to become concerned.

This was really unusual.

Sean knew that Lynn and the girls would have left school about 3.45 that day,

and they always took the same route home. They would either walk or cycle.

So Sean decided to retrace that route to see if he could see them along the way.

Sean knew that there was a swimming gala that day that the girls were going to be

involved in, so there could be a possibility that that had gone on a bit

late.

Sean couldn't find them along the route, so he went back home, started to call

friends, hoping that they would know where Lynne and the girls were.

With darkness fast approaching, Sean becomes increasingly worried for the

safety of his wife and daughters.

But by the time it gets to 11, 11.30 at night, and nothing at all, no messages,

then, of course, as you can imagine, he's starting to panic and reaches out

to the police at that point.

The police were notified and by half eleven that evening a large police

presence descended upon the village.

This was really unusual and everybody was highly concerned.

There would have been a large police response to that call. It was completely

out of the ordinary.

Sean had done his own form of house to house, contacted neighbours.

There was no trace of them and no reason for them to have gone missing.

This is not a sort of teenage girl.

teenage boy who's gone missing or some other person who might not be a massive

concern it's a woman and two very young children so they immediately call out

quite a lot of resources and start searching there was a big search for

lynn and the two girls they used dogs a large number of police officers and

initially sean was helping in that search as well sean himself walks with

the police in the route that they would normally take from the school back to

home Police tell him, you know, you go home.

Initially, Sean was helping the police search, but they asked him to go home so

they could focus on the search.

A police search team soon makes a grim discovery on Cherry Garden Lane, a

secluded road not far from the Russells' home.

Around midnight, they've made this horrific discovery, Lynn, Josie and

Megan. The police have discovered the bodies of Josie, Lynn and Megan and the

dog. in a copse just off of Cherry Garden Lane, which is the route they

would take coming home from school.

They'd all been found in a copse just off the lane, which is probably why Sean

didn't see them. Earlier in the evening, he had been out himself. He'd walked

that way himself and couldn't actually see anything.

The scene told officers that the victims had been restrained using bits of the

girls' towels that had been tied around them and shoelaces as well. All of them

had received catastrophic injuries.

They had suffered catastrophic head injuries, which would have been

determined at the scene, and that was all three of them and the dog as well.

And then around midnight, the police broke the news to Sean that Lynn and the

two girls had been found in a small copse off of Cherry Garden Lane.

The crime scene is now sealed off and a murder inquiry team has been called in.

They would have called the police surgeon out to pronounce that they were

dead.

They had believed that everybody was dead, but it soon became apparent that

Josie was hanging on to life.

Initially, a police doctor examined all three.

and pronounced them all dead but in a very short period of time they realized

that josie was actually still alive the doctor that had attended got her to a

hospital as quickly as possible for her to undergo emergency surgery and all the

care that she would need at that particular point nine-year-old josie

russell is immediately taken to hospital where doctors fight to save her life she

was rushed immediately to kent and canterbury hospital and then she was

later taken to a specialist neurologist department.

She was placed on life support at King's College Hospital in London, and then

early hours of the next morning, Sean was taken to see her.

We can only imagine the mixed emotions of Sean when initially he's told that

his wife and two daughters are dead, and then one's still alive.

Everything he knows that has happened to his wife and his other daughter, and

then he goes to see his surviving daughter in hospital and to see the pain

that she is in at that particular time.

She's only communicating with minimal sounds, so just being with her would be

comfort enough for him at that stage to know that there is a possibility that

she would remain alive.

Word quickly spreads throughout the rural community of Chilenden about the

terrible events on Cherry Garden Lane the previous day.

Kent Police made an announcement that there'd been two deaths and a child was

seriously injured as well.

There was probably a fair bit of speculation at the time about what could

have possibly been the motive for this attack.

Crucially, there was one witness to this, of course, Josie. But Josie was

being treated really intensively. She'd nearly lost her life and she couldn't

remember the attack.

She was physically and psychologically, in all likelihood, unable to give any

evidence to help the police at that critical time.

July 1996.

Kent police have launched a murder investigation following the savage

attacks on Dr. Lynn Russell and her two daughters, nine-year-old Josie and six

-year-old Megan, on a secluded country road near their home in Chilenden.

Josie was very into swimming. They were walking home from school with their

swimming stuff along a sort of country lane which they regularly used to and

from school when suddenly this shocking event happened.

The bodies were found in a small copse off the lane.

Because of the distressing scene, officers quickly formed the conclusion

that the girls and the mother and the dog were all deceased.

A police surgeon examining the victims at the scene made the shocking discovery

that nine-year-old Josie is still alive, despite her catastrophic injuries.

You are being methodical and taking your time, and all of a sudden that changes

dramatically.

Josie had a slight pulse, so everything would have been done to save her life.

The discovery that nine-year-old Josie is still alive changes the normal crime

scene procedures for police.

As much as you can try and stop any interference with evidence, that isn't

your priority. Your priority is to save her life, and if that can be done, then

that overrides any other decision that you would make at the time.

With Josie now recovering in hospital, investigators carefully examine the

crime scene for evidence that may help them catch the perpetrator.

In a scene such as that, you can isolate it, but on the other hand, you're out in

the elements, so you have to put tents up to preserve the evidence.

The scene was photographed and mapped and a full forensic search for evidence

was done.

Key items that the police recovered from the scene included fabric from towels

that were used to bind them.

Blood-stained bootlaces also used to bind them, and the lunchboxes of the two

children, which were covered in blood.

The brutal and frenzied attack on Lynn and her two young daughters quickly

becomes national news.

This is completely unheard of in a place like rural Kent.

Murder inquiries are quite rare, double murders even rarer, and this sort of

attack on a woman and two children is unprecedented.

In 1996, Kent didn't have a full-time major crime team.

You had a double murder and an attempt murder on a small child.

So they would have called in officers to set up a major incident room, given the

brevity and seriousness of this offence.

This would have been absolutely the highest priority that force had at the

time and one of the worst incidents that force had ever seen.

You will have a rural area which is very difficult to examine.

Obviously, there wouldn't be the amount of CCTV that you'd see in a city area,

but there would be some, hopefully, door-to-door inquiries. Did people see

anyone suspicious?

Nobody saw it actually happen.

And you had Josie, who was really still unwell and unable to give any evidence

or eyewitness accounts of what happened that day.

The police will want to establish a timeline.

to narrow down when this could have happened because then you can direct

your inquiries to people in that area at that time to say well you were there

what did you see through really careful police work and triangulation of

sightings the police were able to determine that the attack likely lasted

around 15 minutes a mother at the local school saw lynn russell at call to four

in the afternoon as normal ready to pick the kids up from school at five o'clock

A neighbour who went to the house didn't receive a reply.

So you're narrowing down your timeline because they would have been home by

then in normal circumstances.

The bodies in circumstances like this of Lynn and Megan have to go through what

is called a special post-mortem, which is a much more advanced post-mortem than

would normally happen in a non-suspicious death.

Trying to establish the cause of death, potentially how long it lasted for, what

kind of weapon was used, if there's any forensic evidence that can be gathered.

Post-mortems conducted on Lynn and Megan confirmed that their cause of death was

multiple blows to their head.

Lynn sustained about 15 blows and Megan sustained at least seven blows.

The police have to try and find some independent witnesses who can give

information about people or things they see that would be suspicious.

And they discovered a woman who had been driving by Cherry Garden Lane around

about the time or just after when they believed the murder took place.

She'd seen a car that was light-coloured or beige and it was parked and

manoeuvring in a way that was suspicious, suspicious enough for her to

remember it quite clearly.

She said there was one person in the car, it was a male, and he was in the

driver's seat.

He was in his 20s or 30s and she noticed that he was stationary and he kept

looking in his wing mirror, looking back at her, so that drew her attention to

him.

And that was very significant because that person was right in the place at

the time that these crimes had taken place or were taking place. So important

to find and identify that car and that person.

The driver was a white man in his 20s or 30s. She said he looked angry with a

chubby red face and gelled hair.

Overall, he looked agitated and this stuck with her and she was able to help

the police with the e-fit.

AFITs have been around for many years in policing. It's essentially where

witnesses will describe somebody and then professional artists will try and

sketch out what they can see so that eventually you come up with what is the

AFIT, which is the best possible description of that particular witness

on their own can describe as the person they saw.

Josie Russell continues to recover from the catastrophic injury she sustained

during the attack.

Josie makes an amazing recovery, but she has to do a lot of work rebuilding her

vocabulary because a lot of that was lost.

Less than two months after the attack, Josie and Sean were watching the

television and a programme popped up that made reference to her mother and

her sister's attack and Josie indicated to Sean that she remembered something.

The ether image was circulated in the media. Everybody would have seen that

image. And the first thing he does, Sean, is contact the police and say,

look, her memory's coming back. We might have something.

Police have a massive challenge when they're interviewing child witnesses.

Not only have they witnessed something horrific, Josie had the physical

injuries that she was recovering from. So there are a lot of complexities to

this case, and getting evidence from Josie would have been really complicated

and a really sensitive task for officers.

When you interview a child of that age, you would use specialist interviewers

that are specifically trained to interview children.

It's really important when you interview children not to give them any leading

questions. So in this case, they used a doll, and with the doll, they got Josie

to identify clothing and colours of clothing that the attacker was wearing.

And then she was using other tools to identify the colour of the vehicle.

This took a long time, and...

You might think that police get frustrated by the amount of time it's

taken, but you know this is going to lead to something, it's going to help

you, and also the welfare of Josie is paramount to anything else that takes

place.

As Josie's memory of the horrific attack continues to improve, investigators make

the decision to interview her as a witness to the crime.

Between that time of September and May, she's being helped medically with lots

of intensive help that she's getting with her speech and everything else.

Josie gave her first video interview in May 1997, which was ten months after the

attack.

Josie started her recollection from leaving school with her mum and her

sister and the dog Lucy and walking along Cherry Garden Lane.

A beige vehicle drove past them and she actually waved at the driver and then

that vehicle stopped and blocked their path.

Josephine waved to the driver. She was that kind of friendly child that would

do that.

She described a man getting out, going to his boot and bringing out a hammer.

She then goes on to say that this man demanded money, which is kind of unusual

in this circumstance because that looks like it was potentially a robbery about

to take place.

Lynne said that she didn't have any money and she said she was willing to go

back to the house and get some money for him.

but he refused that offer so it was that point that lynn shouted to josie and

megan to run josie said that she tried to run but she was quickly caught

because she was struck by a hammer the man then dragged the three of them and

the dog into the cops this man then was ripping their clothing using boot laces

tying them to a tree bound and blindfolding them he said i'm only going

to tie you up and you know nothing else will happen

Josie was actually blindfolded during the attack, but before that she gives a

description of the man that got out of the beige vehicle.

She describes him as a white male in his 20s to 30s, clean-shaven, with spiky

hair.

Josie's descriptions were in line with the e-fit that had been created, but she

also added that he was around the same height as her dad, so the police had

more of an idea of who they were looking for.

As... Josie continues to recollect. She describes the motions of the hammer

attacking, and that first recollection must have been horrific. Very, very

upsetting, you know, video interviews that she had to give.

Josie didn't clearly witness the full attacks on her mum and sister, but she

heard their painful screams.

Before she loses consciousness, she remembers her mum saying, no, no, no,

and things like, ow, you know, horrendous things.

however little to hear, because you know that people are in pain and they are

your family.

Investigators are convinced they are closing in on the man responsible for

the horrific and cowardly murders. But as time passes, the killer continues to

evade justice and the horrific murders of Lynn and Megan Russell remain

unsolved.

There was really no clear idea of...

who'd done it. It was in a country area where there's no CCTV around there.

There was no obvious leads.

Kent, 1997.

Police continue to investigate the brutal murders of Dr. Lynn Russell and

her six-year-old daughter Megan Russell during a frenzied assault on Cherry

Garden Lane in Chillendon in July 1996.

Megan's older sister, nine-year-old Josie Russell, was severely injured but

survived the attack with devastating injuries.

In July 1997, investigators make a fresh nationwide appeal to the public for new

information that can help identify the killer.

One of the biggest tools that the police had at the time to identify people or

get witnesses was Crimewatch on BBC.

14 million people really could watch that programme in one week. It was such

an important tool for police officers.

Over the years, Crimewatch appeals have been really successful because sometimes

you may see something and you don't realise it's relevant, but then you see

a Crimewatch appeal and you call in with that evidence and it can be extremely

useful to the police.

Exactly one year after the murder, on 9 July 1997, BBC Crimewatch did an appeal.

We didn't have hundreds of channels to pick from in the 90s, so this was huge.

Following the Crimewatch appeal...

police receive a number of significant leads.

When Crimewatch did that re-enactment, they began to get some leads.

It's not just witnesses to the crime, but people who might believe that

somebody else that they know or someone that they know they work with or could

be a relation could be involved or has said something significant about that

particular attack.

The Crimewatch appeal led to the first lead on Michael Stone.

Stone was reported to Crimewatch by professionals who'd been working with

him, a psychiatrist and nursing staff.

These staff members reported they'd been having fantasies of violence and making

threats.

His psychiatrist phoned up the day after the Crimewatch programme and identified

Stone as a potential suspect.

Also, a close friend of Stone's phoned up and said he closely resembled the e

-fit that was constructed by the eyewitness on the day of the offence.

He fitted the e-fit so well for the officers that it really was a good piece

of evidence.

It can't stand alone as evidence, but it's a good piece of evidence.

So the police obviously straight away looking at him as a potential suspect

because everything was coming together to say, well, he's local, he fits the

description, and they find out he's got these fantasies about hammers and

attacking people.

Michael Stone had actually grown up in Tunbridge Wells, which is quite an

affluent town in Kent.

but he'd had a sort of dysfunctional family and he'd gone into care at quite

an early age.

He dropped out of school at quite a young age and got involved in petty

crime. He then developed quite a serious drug habit, which involved the use of

heroin and cocaine, so he needed to commit crime to fund that habit.

He was stealing to fund his habit, which around the time of the murder was

apparently costing him about £1,500 a week.

He would apparently often drive around the Kent area looking for things to

steal, especially things like lawnmowers.

And it was maybe not a coincidence that a lawnmower had been stolen in the

Chilindon area around about that time.

Investigators look into 37-year-old Michael Stone's extensive criminal

history.

Stone's criminal history included burglary, theft and some serious

assaults, one in particular where he used a hammer on a man and then he also

stabbed somebody in 1981.

Stone also had some significant mental health issues.

He was diagnosed with paranoid psychosis.

He was sectioned in 1994 to a mental health hospital and in 1996 there were

reports of him being very difficult to manage.

People with these combination of difficulties can often struggle to

engage with services, and that makes collaborative risk management quite

difficult. He had a diagnosed personality disorder of the antisocial

type, he'd experienced psychotic symptoms, and he'd also been prone to

violent outbursts. The research tells us that in people who have violence risks,

these factors can contribute significantly to re-offending violently.

All this was coming together to fit into a profile of somebody that would do

this.

Furthermore to that, then you look at everything else that surrounds Michael

Stone. He had access to a car which fitted the description.

To his girlfriend, Stone had access to a white Toyota Corolla and it had been

reported that a light-coloured car had been seen.

Also of concern was that he'd been seen with blood on his clothing around that

time and he'd burned his clothes. Really unusual behaviour if you've done nothing

wrong.

The acquaintance of Stone and his girlfriend had said that... He had

arrived wearing a white T-shirt and he had blood on him and she saw him with

blood on his T-shirt and questioned about it and he said he just had a fight

and he had nothing to worry about.

Stone's friend, who called into Crimewatch to say that he looked like

the E-fit, also said that he'd been behaving strangely just after the

reconstruction aired on the TV.

Kent Police now want to question Michael Stone about the murders of Lynn and

Megan Russell.

On the 17th of July in 1997, some eight days after Crimewatch had aired that

reconstruction, Michael Stone is arrested at his house in Gillingham and

brought into custody for questioning.

Stone just denies he was the man in Cherry Garden Lane that day and

he's quite consistent in protesting his innocence.

Michael Stone is charged with the murders of Lynn and Megan Russell and

the attempted murder of Josie Russell.

Stone was arrested and remanded into HMP Canterbury.

Stone was remanded by the police into custody while they continued their

inquiries. While he was remanded and in prison, he attempted suicide on two

occasions.

He tried to commit suicide twice.

You might suspect that somebody's got a guilty conscience. They think they're

going to do a life sentence.

Maybe he even felt really bad about what he'd done, and that's why he tried to

kill himself, because they'd done what they'd done.

Something quite significant happens in September of 1997 when another prisoner

called Daly reports that Stoners confessed to him via water pipes that

prisoners could talk to each other through the cells.

and gave a statement to police that Michael Stone had admitted to the

murders of Megan and Lynn Russell at the time.

Stone said that these confessions were entirely fabricated. In fact, he asked

to go into segregation to ensure that other prisoners couldn't continue to

make such allegations against him.

The police actually checked Daly's claims that he heard this confession

through the heating pipe connecting their cells, and they went to the

prison. and sort of did a little test, and yes, indeed, you can hear from one

cell to the other through the heating pipe.

Cell confessions can be used, but ultimately there are reasons why

somebody would come forward with a cell confession to gain some advantage for

themselves. So you have to be really careful if you use a cell confession.

They have been used in cases, but if you can use other evidence instead, that's

what will be your preferred route.

There have been so many cases over the years where a person in custody has

said, oh, I heard so-and-so confess or brag or, you know, make a comment which

suggested that he was guilty.

In Damien Ailey's case, the fact that his arson and GBH charges were dropped

shortly afterwards, you know, made it look even more suspicious and the

defence team were bound to seize on it when it came to trial.

But, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that what he said he heard wasn't

true.

The police didn't know what to rely on and whether this was true or not, but

they duly noted the confession. And, in fact, other prisoners came forward and

also said that he'd confessed to them.

There were two other inmates that said that Stone had given cell confessions

about murdering Lynn and Megan and trying to kill Josie.

There was sort of even more things now beginning to make the police and the

prosecutors think we can get a conviction for this guy because he's

done it.

A trial date is set for October 1998.

As the police were preparing for the trial, they were wondering, will Josie

be able to give evidence? She was initially in a terrible state, but she

did make a remarkable recovery and began to recover some of her memory of the

incident. But it was decided that it was not in her best interest or even in the

sort of public interest for her to give evidence.

She wouldn't have, you know, been able to identify Stone as the killer. So she

was not brought on as a witness.

On the 6th of October 1998, Michael Stone stood trial at Maystone Crown

Court for the murders of Lynn and Megan Russell and obviously for the attempted

murder of Josie.

And the trial lasted three weeks.

Stone was 38 at the time of the trials and he maintained that he was not

guilty. The police did have a really strong case, but the case itself was

circumstantial and the prosecution did tell the jury that they didn't have any

forensic evidence.

Based on circumstantial evidence, the lack of any direct evidence linking

Stone to the murders is highlighted by Stone's defence team during the trial.

Three prisoners gave evidence to say that Stone had confessed to them. A

friend of Stone and the friend's girlfriend also gave evidence to say

that they'd seen Stone with bloodstained clothes on.

Much of the prosecution case history was around the description of the blood

-stained clothing the day after. So when the friends asked Stone where the blood

had come from, he said he'd been in a fight, but there were no defensive

wounds or bruises or cuts on him. The defence undermined the case by saying

you couldn't rely on the credibility or the integrity of the cell confessions.

The prosecution was saying that Stone really didn't have a solid alibi to go

on, but this was being countered, really, by a defence who said, well, at

the time that this took place, Stone was a drug addict, he had no memory, and

that he was somebody that was not linked forensically to the crime scene, there's

no murder weapon been recovered, and also that he was not going to give

evidence because he had no memory.

If a prisoner chooses not to give evidence, you can't draw an inference

from that.

And it is purely their decision.

And they know that if they do take the stand, that they're going to be cross

-examined. So you then have the opportunity to put those questions in

open court. But sometimes it is better for them that they say nothing. And no

doubt they will be advised by their counsel one way or another as to whether

they feel it's going to benefit the case or not.

The defence were trying to argue that there wasn't enough evidence for the

jury to convict him.

Prosecution bringing a very sort of heavily circumstantial case and the

defence just saying, you know, again and again, well, that's just a coincidence,

that doesn't prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was guilty.

Yes, he's a criminal, yes, he had a drug addiction, but this sort of attack, you

know, on a woman and two children, he's never done anything like that before.

The jury retire to make their difficult decision on whether to convict Stone for

the murders or find him not guilty of the charges against him.

Once all the evidence had been given and the judge had summed up the case, then

the jury of 12 members of the public are sent away to start their deliberations.

It would have been a very nerve-wracking time for the police officers and the

family to think, have we got enough with all the circumstantial evidence?

just lacking that forensic link or that CCTV image or something like that to

take the case to a guilty verdict.

When the jury deliberated, it took them in total 15 hours over two days to come

up with their verdict, and even then, 12 people on the jury, two of them refused

to sort of go along with the guilty verdict, but there was a majority guilty

verdict, and Michael Stone was found guilty.

of both murders and the attempted murder of Josie.

The judge imposed three concurrent life sentences, one for each of the offences.

So that's one for murder, one for another murder and one for attempted

murder.

That would have been as much relief as it could be at that time to Sean Russell

and Josie as well.

And the family and friends and the communities and all their colleagues and

everybody else, there would be some solace that they might have found in the

fact that Michael Stone was found guilty and went to prison.

Michael Stone begins his prison sentence, but the defence team appeals

his conviction on the manner in which it was obtained.

Stone's conviction was widely reported, but soon after the conviction, things

started to change.

There was a lot of sort of disquiet, maybe from some crime reporters and

other sort of miscarriage of justice campaigners, especially those concerned

about cellmate confessions, who thought, you know, at the end of the day, what

evidence have they really got, apart from the whispers of fellow inmates who

are a bunch of wrong-uns anyway?

One of the cell confessional witnesses said that he'd actually lied on the

stand, and Cherie Batts' mother.

said that she'd also lied.

And Cherie Batt was the girl that gave the evidence of the blood being on

Stone's clothing the day after the attack.

When you are relying on evidence from criminals who are in prison about

confessions, this is always something which is usually appealed. And so this

then went to the Court of Appeal and the devastating news came that the

conviction was quashed.

He still insisted that he didn't do it. He said that he was innocent.

There were questions about payments from the media to some of the witnesses and

ultimately the conviction was quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2001 and a

retrial was ordered.

After his original conviction is quashed in 2001, Michael Stone faces a retrial.

The question remains, will justice finally be served or is the real killer

still at large?

February 2001.

Michael Stone faces a retrial for the murders of Lynn Russell and her six-year

-old daughter, Megan, and the attempted murder of nine-year-old Josie Russell,

which took place on 9 July 1996 on a secluded country lane near Chilenden,

Kent.

The verdict came under some scrutiny. During the trial, the defence had asked

the questions about the credibility of the witnesses who were also prisoners.

and after the verdict, one prisoner admitted that he'd lied.

On 5 September 2001, there was a retrial. Michael Stone again stood on

trial for the murder of Lynne and Magda Russell and the attempted murder of

Josie Russell.

Stone faced a retrial at Nottingham Crown Court when he was now aged 41.

The prosecution again relied on all of the circumstantial evidence, but in

relation to the prisoner confessions, they only relied on Daly's evidence.

The key prosecution witness was Damien Daly, and many of the other witnesses

had been discredited, but he was still there.

During cross-examination, Daly admitted that he was a habitual liar, he'd lied

before, he was in prison, he'd committed criminal offences, but he stood by his

account that a confession had been given to him.

Damien Daly, on the stand, admitted to also having a drug problem himself, but

he maintained that that cell confession from Stone was true.

Stone continued to maintain that he did not commit any of those offences.

Again, you have all the other circumstantial evidence about the e-fit,

and all that would have been there as well, but that can all be brushed aside

by defence very cleverly to say, just concentrate on Daly, because that's the

only evidence that links my client to this crime.

The sale confession was the centrally most important fact of that retrial, and

it sort of stood or fell.

on the jury believing whether or not that cell confession was true.

The judge gave the jury almost like a warning to say, look, this is all

hanging on David's evidence. You have to believe it or not.

He was so crucial that the judge at one point told the jury that, you know, if

they did not believe him, they could not convict Stone. You know, he was that

central to the prosecution case.

On 4 October 2001, the jury came back again with a 10-2 majority verdict of

guilty on all counts.

The judge imposed three concurrent life sentences with a minimum term of 25

years. That means that Stone has to serve 25 years before he can be

considered eligible to apply for parole.

There's always a sentencing criteria and they use certain things that...

allow them to give a longer sentence if appropriate that's what matters to

people will they serve their life in prison or will they have a chance to

actually have a life outside of that for me certainly in policing and having

dealt with a number of murder inquiries is quite a light sentence for something

like that i don't think any officer would say that was suitable however the

judge felt that was the suitable sentence in those circumstances

In 2005, Stone's legal team make a fresh appeal to have the conviction against

their client quashed.

Stone's defence team appealed the conviction, saying that the judge hadn't

adequately warned the jury about the perils of relying solely on the cell

confession.

This appeal ultimately failed.

The case, however, is now with the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who

look into potential miscarriages of justice.

But Stone remains lawfully convicted of two murders and the attempted murder of

the Russell family.

Some years later, Damien Daly, who was obviously the central prosecution

witness, was himself convicted of killing someone. He was convicted of

manslaughter and given quite a long sentence. Nobody ever really doubted

that he was a criminal. That doesn't necessarily undermine what he said in

evidence.

Michael Stone continues to maintain his innocence following the verdict in the

second trial.

But doubts still remain about his role in the murders and over time, other

potential suspects are linked to the case.

Many years later, after the second trial, another name begins to be sort of

floated as a possible suspect.

In 2017, a documentary was aired.

on TV called the Chinenden Murders and it gave a suggestion that another

notorious serial killer in the UK, Levi Belford, may have been responsible

because he fits the description and nature of his attacks with a hammer on

some of his victims in London and out in Surrey.

Stone's legal team received word that a man named Levi Belfield, a convicted

murderer, had made confessions about the murders of the Russell family.

Belfield had said that he'd killed the Russells and then he retracted that he'd

said that and then he said it again.

It's not known whether this is a cynical attempt by Belfield to get into the

press.

Maybe he's sort of bored in prison, wants a bit of attention.

The MO, totally different.

There was a sort of sexual motivation in the teenage young women that Belfield

attacked and that, you know, he would have had no interest in Lynn Russell and

her daughters as targets.

Levi Belfield had what was described as a fairly solid alibi by his girlfriend,

who had given evidence against him in the murder trials before that he was

found guilty of, which gave her some credibility, saying that he was with

her. At the time, these mirrors were 100 miles away from where they took place.

One factor that suggests that it's more likely to be stone than Belfield,

Josie's recollection was that it was a sort of robbery scenario, that this man

demanded money from her mum, and Lynn initially sort of said, I'll go back to

the house and find some because I don't have any on me, and then he launched

into the hammer attack.

There's no suggestion that Levi Belfield...

was ever sort of somebody who conducted muggings or robberies, whereas Michael

Stone was known for a sort of acquisitive crime. He needed money for

his drug habit.

With Stone now safely behind bars, Sean and Josie Russell rebuild their lives

following the tragic events in Cherry Garden Lane.

Since those horrific murders and all the trials they had to go through, Sean and

Josie have essentially got to rebuild their lives and carry on as best as

possible, obviously with a memory of Lynn and Megan. But they've moved on,

they've moved away from the area.

In December 1996, Sean and Josie returned to their previous home in North

Wales, where they have been living ever since, and Sean returned to his academic

life.

Josie is known to have received intensive health care to help her

recover. With extensive support, Josie gradually regained some of her

abilities. She returned to school. She's now married and works in textiles.

The senseless murders of Lynn and Megan Russell and the savage attack on nine

-year-old Josie Russell still affect everyone involved with the case.

When this case occurred in the 1990s, it was a huge case. It was on the news

quite often. The Crimewatch appeal was massive and that helped solve the

murders.

It sticks with you because it's such a horrendous crime. Attack on children,

attack on innocent families walking along back from school. It's just

something that will stick with anybody around that time.

This crime is absolutely horrendous on every level. No apparent real motive

apart from wanting some money.

And he even slaughtered the dog as well.

You're not always given CCTV and forensic evidence and eyewitness and,

you know, the police had a tough time with how they had to build a trial

against Michael Stone and using evidence which is contested. It's a tough time

for a family, a tough time for the police to do what they want to do, which

is get justice for that family.

That something like this could happen in Chilenden, an idyllic place where people

love to live, was really shocking.

The community has taken a long time to move forward and consider and reflect on

what occurred.

Community will never forget it. The community is known for it, which is a

sad thing, isn't it, when you live in a nice quaint town in Kent like that. So

it's a tough one and it's one that will always be remembered.