The officer is looking in the cops and comes across the three bodies and to all intents and purposes, they all appear to be dead.  On the 9th of July 1996, a mother and her two young daughters set off to walk home along a quiet country lane in the Kent countryside. It was a warm summer afternoon.

 They had been to a school swimming gayla. They were walking back to their cottage along a lane so peaceful, so ordinary that nobody could have imagined what was waiting on it. By the end of that afternoon, two of them were dead. The third, a 9-year-old girl, was left for dead and survived against every expectation to become one of the most quietly extraordinary people in modern British life.

 The killings horrified the entire country. They sparked one of the largest manhunts Kent had ever seen and drew reporters from around the world. And two years later, a man was convicted of the crime. He was convicted again at a retrial. He is in prison to this day, 30 years on. And yet, this case will not rest because that same man has spent nearly three decades insisting from behind bars that he did not do it.

Because another man, one of the most notorious serial killers Britain has ever produced, has confessed to these very murders, then taken it back, then confessed again. And because now, 30 years to the day after that walk along the lane, science has advanced far enough that investigators are going back to the original evidence, taking fresh DNA samples and asking a question that could either confirm everything the courts decided or tear it all apart.

This is the story of the Russell family murders, and it is a story that right now in real time may be about to be rewritten. This is Crime Watch UK. Before we go anywhere near the crime, I want you to know the people at the center of it because they were a real family and everything that follows matters only because of who they were. Lynn Russell was 45 years old.

 She was a mother and by every account a devoted one. The family had roots in Wales, in different Nansel, in Gwyneith, a beautiful rugged corner of Snowonia surrounded by mountains. It was there that her children had spent their early years. Only a few months before that summer of 1996, the family had moved to Kent to the village of Chillindon, a small, close-knit place in the rolling countryside of Southeast England.

 They were in every sense a family beginning a new chapter. Lynn had two daughters. Megan was 6 years old and Josie was nine. There is a photograph taken in an Italian restaurant in early 1996 that survives from before everything changed. In it, the whole family is around a table. Lynn and her husband Shawn.

 Little Megan sitting between her parents. Josie across the table, plates of food, drinks, all four of them smiling at the camera. An utterly ordinary, happy family moment, frozen in time. Hold that image in your mind because it is who they were before the 9th of July. Shawn Russell, Lynn’s husband and the girl’s father, was away that day.

 And it is worth pausing here because what happened to Shawn in the space of a single afternoon is almost impossible to comprehend. He would be told on that day that he had lost his entire family, his wife, both of his children, everything in one blow. That any human being could receive such news and go on living is a testament to a kind of strength most of us will never be asked to find.

 Now the afternoon itself. On the 9th of July 1996, Lynn, Josie, and Megan were walking home. With them was the family dog. They had been to a school event and were making their way back to their cottage along a single track country lane. The kind of lane lined with thick green hedge. The kind of place that feels like the safest spot on earth.

 There was no reason for fear. There was nothing to suggest danger and it was there on that lane that they were attacked. I am going to be careful and restrained about what follows out of respect for this family and for Josie who is alive today. The essential facts as established at trial and reported at the time are these.

 The three of them and the dog were set upon by a man. They were bound. They were blindfolded. and they were attacked with a claw hammer. Lynn, 45, and Megan, just six years old, were killed. Josie, nine, suffered catastrophic head injuries and was left for dead alongside her mother and sister.

 The scene was one of such horror that when help finally arrived, it was assumed that all three had died. And here is a detail that stays with everyone who learns of this case. It was only because a police officer at the scene noticed a small movement. Noticed that Josie, against all odds, was still alive that she was saved.

 A moment’s attention. A flicker of movement spotted. The difference between three deaths and two. Josie Russell survived because someone looked closely enough to see that she was still breathing. The discovery detonated across Britain. The murder of a mother and a small child. the near murder of another child in a peaceful Kent village in broad daylight.

It was the kind of crime that shakes a nation’s sense of safety to its foundations. The media descended. The story led every bulletin and Kent police launched an enormous manhunt for whoever had done this. Let me take a moment to talk about that investigation and the world it happened in because it matters enormously to where this story now stands.

 In 1996, DNA forensics existed, but it was nothing like the tool it is today. The techniques of the mid90s needed relatively large and wellpreserved biological samples to produce a usable profile. Trace amounts, a few cells, a faint smear, degraded material were often simply beyond what the science could read. So while investigators gathered physical evidence from that lane with great care, the ability to squeeze a full genetic identity out of the smallest traces was still years, even decades in the future.

Remember that because it becomes the crux of everything. The investigation was vast and for a long time it struggled. There was no obvious suspect, no clear motive, no witness who had seen the attacker’s face and could name him. A community and a country waited and then attention turned to a local man named Michael Stone.

 Now I want to be scrupulously fair and precise here because this is a live legal matter and a man’s liberty is at stake. Michael Stone was a local man with a history of drug use and a criminal record. In 1998, he was tried for the murders of Lynn and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie.

 He was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to three life terms. But his conviction did not stand cleanly. In 2001, the Court of Appeal quashed that first conviction, citing doubts over a prosecution witness. Michael Stone was tried a second time and a second jury hearing the case again also found him guilty. He was convicted for the second time and returned to prison where he remains today.

 So on paper, the case was closed twice over. Two separate juries had reached the same verdict. And yet from the very beginning, Michael Stone has protested his innocence. For nearly 30 years now, he has insisted he did not commit these crimes. And crucially, he is not alone in raising questions.

 His supporters and his legal team have long pointed to what they see as the fragility of the case against him. Here is the heart of their concern. A central piece of evidence against Stone, his supporters would say the only real evidence came from a man named Damian Daly, who claimed that Stone had confessed to him while they were in prison together.

 A jailhouse confession, in other words. Stone’s lawyers have argued for years that this was deeply unreliable. And they point to a striking fact. Damian Daly was himself later convicted of a separate murder. As one of Stone’s solicitors put it, the only real evidence against their client came from a man serving life for murder.

A man whom in his own separate case, a jury had disbelieved. There was, they argue, nothing else of substance tying Michael Stone to that lane in Chillindon.  Now against that it must be said plainly two juries heard the evidence in full and two juries convicted. Appeals and applications to review the case were rejected in 2010 and again in 2011 when an attempt to seek a judicial review also failed.

 For years the doors closed on Michael Stone one after another. But then the story took a turn that almost no one could have predicted because another name entered the picture and it is a name that sends a chill through anyone familiar with British crime. Levi Bellfield. To understand why Bellfield’s involvement is so seismic, you have to understand who he is.

 Levi Bellfield is one of the most notorious serial killers in modern British history. He is serving whole life tariffs, meaning he will never be released for a series of horrific crimes. He murdered 13-year-old Millie Dowler in March 2002, a case that gripped and horrified the entire nation. He murdered 19-year-old Marcia Macdonald in February 2003.

 He murdered 22-year-old Amily Deerrange in August 2004. and he was convicted of the attempted murder of Kate Sheet in May 2004. He is a man who prayed on women and girls and he is one of the very few criminals in Britain who will die in prison with no prospect of release. And Levi Beleffield has confessed to the murders of Lynn and Megan Russell.

 Let me be careful and honest about the nature of that confession because it is not simple. Belellfield confessed to the Russell murders. Then he retracted that admission and then he confessed again. His solicitor has indicated he is willing to cooperate with investigators. He has separately confessed to a string of other attacks on women at least six other assaults in London and Suri where the victims survived detailed in a document handed to prison authorities.

and he has claimed responsibility for the disappearance and murder of a woman named Elizabeth Chow who vanished from a West London street in 1999 and has never been found. But, and this is essential, there is genuine and serious doubt about the credibility of Levi Beleffield’s confessions.

 This is a man who has confessed and retracted. A man whose claims have in at least one case been actively disbelieved by the police. When Bellfield claimed to have murdered Elizabeth Chow and said he had buried her body at a specific spot in West London, the Metropolitan Police did not believe him and declined to excavate the site.

 So, we are dealing with a confessed serial killer whose word cannot simply be taken at face value. A man who may have genuine knowledge or who may be manipulating the system for reasons of his own. Nobody yet knows which. and Michael Stone’s own team, interestingly, do not rest their entire case on Bellfield. In Stone’s application to review his conviction, his lawyers actually name a suspect other than Bellfield.

 One of his solicitors has offered a very human explanation for Belellfield’s confessions, suggesting Belellfield may have simply built up a story over years spent in prison absorbing the details of a famous case. So even among those fighting for Michael Stone’s freedom, there is caution about the serial killer’s claims.

 So where does that leave us? With two men, one convicted twice and insisting on his innocence for 30 years. One a confessed serial killer whose confessions may be true or may be worthless. And a case that despite two guilty verdicts will simply not stay closed. Which brings us to the present day and to the development that could finally after three decades provide an answer.

 In 2023, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the independent body in England and Wales that investigates possible miscarriages of justice, confirmed that it was reviewing Michael Stone’s convictions. This followed Belellfield’s reported admissions. The CCRC’s job is very specific and worth understanding. It does not decide guilt or innocence itself.

 Its task is to examine a case and determine whether there is a real possibility that the court of appeal would overturn the conviction. If it finds that possibility, it refers the case back to the appeal court. That is a high bar. A bar the CCRC has pointed out that was not met in any of Michael Stone’s earlier applications.

 But this time something is different. This time there is the science. In the years since 1996, DNA technology has advanced almost beyond recognition. The techniques that now exist can extract a full genetic profile from samples that would have been utterly useless 30 years ago. Tiny traces, degraded material, the faintest biological whisper left at a scene.

 And this is the key that has reopened everything because there is DNA at the heart of this case that has never been explained. Stone’s legal team have said that DNA testing carried out in earlier years revealed two categories of male DNA at the murder scene. Some of it could be identified. It belonged to Shawn Russell, Lynn’s husband, the girl’s father, which is entirely expected.

 But there was other male DNA at that scene that has never been identified. It belonged to someone. And for nearly 30 years, nobody has been able to say who. New techniques, Stone’s lawyers argue, may finally allow that unidentified male DNA to be matched to a specific person. And so, 30 years to the day after the murders, on the 9th of July, 2026, investigators moved.

 A fresh, highquality DNA sample was taken from Michael Stone himself. His solicitor, who has represented him for two decades, said he was very hopeful the review and the DNA testing would eventually lead to the real culprit being found and expressed the hope that Stone could one day be brought before the Court of Appeal and, in his words, regain his freedom after all these years of incarceration.

 And the CCRC has confirmed something extraordinary. It intends to obtain a DNA sample from Levi Bellfield as well. Belellfield’s own solicitor has said she is sure he would agree that he is going to cooperate. Think about what that means. For the first time, investigators may be able to take that unidentified male DNA from the scene at Chillindon and compare it using modern science against both men, against the man who has served nearly 30 years, insisting he is innocent, and against the confessed serial killer who says he did it. The

physical exhibits still exist, at least in part. Among the items preserved from the original scene, is what is believed to be part of a shoelace, material the attacker used to bind his victims, as well as sticks recovered from the lane. Stone’s team had pointed back in 2021 to that shoelace as a potential source of DNA evidence, noting that in recent testing, no DNA belonging to Michael Stone had been found on key exhibits, including the lace.

 It is not all intact, though, and this is a sobering reminder of how fragile justice can be across the decades. According to Stone’s solicitor, a lunchbox found at the scene on which a bloody fingerprint had been discovered has now been lost. Lost. A piece of evidence in one of the most infamous murder cases in British history, simply gone.

 It is a stark illustration of why the careful preservation of evidence matters so much and of how much can slip away in 30 years. Now, I want to be completely honest with you about the uncertainty here because this case does not have a tidy ending. Not yet and maybe not ever. The DNA testing may produce a clear answer. It may not.

 Even if that unidentified male DNA is matched to someone, interpreting what it means is far from simple. A scene can carry DNA for all sorts of innocent reasons. A match would not automatically overturn a conviction, and the absence of Stone’s DNA does not by itself prove his innocence. Juries convicted him on other grounds.

 The CCRSC has been careful to say only that its review is exploring all the possibilities to determine whether Michael Stone may have suffered a miscarriage of justice. It has stressed that considerable work has been done on the forensics and on other aspects of the case, but that it would be inappropriate to comment further while the review is ongoing, and there is one more shadow hanging over all of this.

 The CC itself has faced heavy criticism in recent years for serious failings. Most notably in the case of Andrew Malinson, a man wrongly imprisoned for 17 years for a crime that someone else has now been convicted of. That history matters because it cuts both ways. It is a reminder that miscarriages of justice are real, that innocent people do go to prison, and also that the very body now reviewing this case has at times gotten things badly wrong.

 The stakes could not be higher, and the margin for error could not be smaller. On the 9th of July 1996, a mother and her two young daughters set off to walk home along a quiet country lane in the Kent countryside. It was a warm summer afternoon. They  had been to a school swimming gala. They were walking back to their cottage along a lane so peaceful, so ordinary that nobody could have imagined what was waiting on it.

 By the end of that afternoon, two of them were dead. The third, a 9-year-old girl, was left for dead and survived against every expectation to become one of the most quietly extraordinary people in modern British life. The killings horrified the entire country. They sparked one of the largest manhunts Kent had ever seen and drew reporters from around the world.

And two years later, a man was convicted of the crime. He was convicted again at a retrial. He is in prison to this day, 30 years on. And yet this case will not rest because that same man has spent nearly three decades insisting from behind bars that he did not do it. Because another man, one of the most notorious serial killers Britain has ever produced, has confessed to these very murders, then taken it back, then confessed again.

 And because now, 30 years to the day after that walk along the lane, science has advanced far enough that investigators are going back to the original evidence, taking fresh DNA samples, and asking a question that could either confirm everything the courts decided or tear it all apart. This is the story of the Russell family murders, and it is a story that right now in real time may be about to be rewritten. This is Crime Watch UK.

Before we go anywhere near the crime, I want you to know the people at the center of it because they were a real family and everything that follows matters only because of who they were. Lynn Russell was 45 years old. She was a mother and by every account a devoted one. The family had roots in Wales, in different Nansel, in Gwyneith, a beautiful rugged corner of Snowonia surrounded by mountains.

 It was there that her children had spent their early years. Only a few months before that summer of 1996, the family had moved to Kent to the village of Chillindon, a small, close-knit place in the rolling countryside of Southeast England. They were in every sense a family beginning a new chapter. Lynn had two daughters.

Megan was 6 years old and Josie was nine. There is a photograph taken in an Italian restaurant in early 1996 that survives from before everything changed. In it, the whole family is around a table. Lynn and her husband Shawn. Little Megan sitting between her parents. Josie across the table. Plates of food, drinks, all four of them smiling at the camera.

 An utterly ordinary, happy family moment, frozen in time. Hold that image in your mind because it is who they were before the 9th of July. Shawn Russell, Lynn’s husband and the girl’s father was away that day. And it is worth pausing here because what happened to Shawn in the space of a single afternoon is almost impossible to comprehend.

 He would be told on that day that he had lost his entire family, his wife, both of his children, everything in one blow. That any human being could receive such news and go on living is a testament to a kind of strength most of us will never be asked to find. Now the afternoon itself.