The Crimes

In the early evening of 4th August 2002, two 10-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, were on their way to buy sweets, after leaving a family barbecue when they walked past Huntley's rented house in College Close. Huntley saw them and asked them in, claiming that Carr, who was known to the girls through her work at their school, was also at home. Carr, in fact, was away visiting relatives at the time, and within a short time of Holly and Jessica having entered the house, Huntley had murdered them both.Huntley used his car to transport their bodies some 20 miles away, where he dumped them in a ditch and set them alight, in a bid to destroy the forensic evidence.

Later that evening, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells were reported missing and a police search began at around midnight. Over the next two weeks the search escalated to become one of the most widespread and publicised in British history.

Several witnesses came forward, including Huntley, who claimed to have seen the girls shortly before they disappeared, and his home was searched routinely in order to eliminate him as a suspect. Huntley also granted television interviews to the press, and his unusual interest, together with his emotional involvement, made investigators suspicious, leading to a wider search which revealed the half-burned remains of Holly and Jessica’s shirts, in a storage building at Soham College where Huntley was employed.