Days after he was attacked by another prisoner, one of the United Kingdom’s most notorious child killers is dead, according to reports.
Ian Huntley was removed from life support on Saturday, March 7. The former school caretaker, 52, was serving a life sentence for the 2002 murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
Huntley was bashed in the head with a metal bar on February 26 by a fellow inmate at Frankland Prison in England.
Huntley met the best friends on August 4, 2002, as they were making their way to a store to buy candy.
He lured them into his home in Soham, Cambridgeshire, where he killed them.
The girls’ bodies were found 10 miles away in a ditch nearly two weeks after they were last seen alive.
Huntley aroused suspicion after reluctantly speaking to reporters who were covering the murders and did not want to be photographed.
During one interview, Huntley said he thought he was one of the last people to see the girls alive.
He also speculated about how the girls may have reacted if approached by a stranger.
“He said that he thought Holly would probably get in the car and quietly go, but Jessica wouldn’t. She’d put up a real fight and a real struggle,” explained the reporter who spoke to him. “I think the way he described how Holly and Jessica would react is exactly how they did react.”
He was later recognized by a man who told police Huntley had been accused of rape during the 1990s.
Huntley long denied his involvement in the murders and argued at trial Holly had suffered a nosebleed and somehow drowned in the bath. He said he killed Jessica to stop her screams.
Jurors convicted him on two murder counts.
His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was also jailed in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice for providing him with a false alibi.
The asphyxiation murders led authorities to question how Huntley could have been successfully vetted for employment at the school following the prior rape allegations.
The case also prompted the strengthening of legislation to protect children and required mandatory criminal background checks on any person who applies to work at a school. It also led to the creation of a Police National Database in the U.K which launched in 2011. It maintains data on convicted criminals, suspects and victims of crime, as well as the details of people who have been questioned by police but not charged.
UPDATE — 2/2/26 at 5:28 p.m. ET: After deliberating his fate for nearly nine hours, jurors reached a verdict on Monday, January 2, finding Brendan Banfield guilty of two counts of aggravated murder. As the verdict was read, Banfield remained largely stone-faced. Banfield will be sentenced on May 8 and faces a life sentence without […]
After being sentenced, Huntley was repeatedly targeted by other inmates who were intent on killing him.
He almost died in 2010, after robber Damien Fowkes slashed the left side of his neck in a failed murder attempt.
It has been reported he was attacked by murderer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43.
The killer’s only daughter, Samantha Bryan, spoke to the Sun after this most recent attack, and said that “there’s a special place in hell waiting for him.”
