Soham murders 20th anniversary: What happened to killer Ian Huntley and families of girls he killed
Today marks 20 years since schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells vanished from a family barbecue and later turned up dead.
The 10-year-old friends left the gathering to buy sweets in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Sunday 4 August 2002 but never returned.
Their burnt bodies were found in a shallow grave near an RAF air base in Lakenheath, Suffolk, two weeks after they disappeared following a desperate search.
It later transpired Ian Huntley, a caretaker at Soham Village College, had invited the girls into his home as they walked by.
He was eventually found guilty of their murders, while his girlfriend Maxine Carr was convicted of perverting the course of justice by giving him a false alibi.
On the 20th anniversary of the schoolgirls’ murders, we have taken a look at what happened to those connected to the case and where they are now.
Huntley was a caretaker at Soham Village College, a secondary school in Soham, Cambridgeshire, at the time of the girls’ disappearance.
The killer, originally from Grimsby, was arrested after their bodies were found on 17 August 2002.
He was convicted the following year in 2003 and handed a double life sentence with a minimum of 40 years in jail.
Huntley has been serving his time at HMP Frankland in Durham since 2008 where he is locked up alongside killers Levi Bellfield and Wayne Couzens.
Before that, he was in HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire where he was scalded with hot water by North Yorkshire serial killer Mark Hobson.
The child killer was targeted by another inmate again in 2010, when convicted armed robber Damien Fowkes slashed his throat.
Huntley won’t be eligible for parole until 2042.
Following his conviction, details were revealed of how Huntley had previously been investigated for sexual offences and burglary.
It also emerged he had a daughter, Samantha Bryan, born following his turbulent relationship with a teenage girl who was eight years younger than him.
Huntley’s girlfriend Maxine Carr was jailed in 2003
The mother, Katie Bryan, moved in with Huntley when she was only 15 and he was 23.
Huntley had been married to Claire Evans in 1995 but they later divorced.
She started a relationship with his brother Wayne and the pair married in 2000 but they too divorced in 2005.
The pair divorced in 2005 and she later married again and had two children.
Huntley gave such suspicious answers in an interview with reporter Brian Farmer that the journalist raised his concerns with police (Toby Melville/PA)
Holly’s father Kevin Wells said the stress following their daughter’s murder almost led to the break-up of her parents
