"Nothing' at Lin and Meghan Russell murder linked to Michael Stone

Investigator says ‘nothing’ was found at scene of the hammer murders of Lin and Megan Russell that linked Michael Stone to the crime as Sky documentary casts doubt on his conviction

• Investigator said ‘There were so many possibilities and not much evidence’

A forensic investigator who worked on the crimescene of the hammer murders of Lin and Megan Russell said ‘evidence was slim’ in a new TV investigation of the case.

The killings – which shocked the nation- saw Lin, 45 and her two daughters, Josie and Megan, six, as well as their dog Lucy tied up and savagely beaten with a hammer in the brutal attack.

Nine-year-old Josie, who sustained horrific injuries, survived and Michael Stone was convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1998.

But he has protested his innocence and insisted Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield is responsible.

And according to new Sky documentary, The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan there was little forensic evidence. 

Investigator Jim Fraser said: ‘There were so many possibilities and not much evidence.

Jim Fraser spoke to new Sky documentary, The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan

Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan were brutally killed in broad daylight in attack

Michael Stone protested his innocence and insisted Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield is responsible

‘I was involved in the case from start to end, so I’d have been made aware of any further forensic cases that opened up.

‘But no murder weapon was ever found.’

Earlier this year, Bellfield reportedly signed a confession to the double murder, which ‘contains information only the killer would know’. 

In April Stone’s solicitor claimed they had received a ‘genuine’ four-page statement from Bellfield in which he details his involvement in the killings – until he withdrew it. 

Bellfield’s solicitor Theresa Clark told the Mirror : ‘This is a new and more detailed one.

‘The statement made last year was never signed by him but he’s subsequently done a written statement which he’s signed.’

Kent Police have always maintained that Stone’s conviction is safe and referenced Bellfield’s troubling history of offering prison officers false confessions. 

Lin Russell, 45, her two daughters, six-year-old Megan (above with her mother) and nine-year-old Josie, were tied up and savagely beaten with a hammer in the brutal attack in 1996

Michael Stone (pictured) is currently imprisoned after twice being convicted of the Russell murders but has consistently insisted his innocence

However, Stone’s legal team have said they will launch legal action to challenge the Criminal Case Review Commission’s (CCRC) decision to refuse to refer his conviction to the Court of Appeal. 

 Mr Feaser added in the documentary: ‘There were multiple pools of blood — more pools than bodies, and they (the investigating team) wanted me to tell them what I could tell about the crime scene from what was left there.

‘They had been tied to the trees, there was a ligature left behind, they had been moved, and the investigating team wanted to know the exact sequence of the events that led to this scene.

‘I was able to tell them some things through my investigation, but not everything, simply because the forensic evidence was slim.

‘There was nothing at the crime scene that forensically connected Stone to it.

‘But then, nothing at the crime scene could connect anybody with it.

‘Items have since been re-examined as recently as 2017, and DNA is incredibly discriminating and sensitive now.

‘The only DNA found was a very common type, and it didn’t directly match Stone.

‘It’s puzzling, because you would expect to find a lot more forensic evidence at this kind of crime scene, and I can assure there were no risks taken here, everything was considered.

Serial killer Levi Bellfield has reportedly confessed to a double murder from 1996 and signed a written statement with ‘information only the killer would know’

‘But the only evidence against Stone was a fairly weak circumstantial case that revolves around his personal characteristics — his past, and the police description.’

Stone’s police record dates back to 1971 when he was 12 years old and continued into his adult life, serving three prison sentences in the 1980s and 1990s.

Stone has previous convictions for crimes including ABH, robbery, burglary and GBH and was known to carry weapons.

He was sentenced to two years’ in prison in 1981 for attacking a man with a hammer during a robbery.

He then received a four-and-a-half year sentence for stabbing a friend while he slept in 1983, an attack that penetrated the friend’s lung and nearly killed him, and he tried to wound a police officer in the eye after this arrest.

Stone was jailed for a third time and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for two armed robberies in Maidstone and Brighton respectively during the same week in 1986.

He was released from prison in 1993. 

After being arrested on unrelated charges a year after the murders, Stone was alleged to have confessed to the murders to prisoner Damien Daley in Canterbury Prison. 

Bellfield is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of schoolgirl Millie Dowler, 13, in 2002. 

He has also been convicted of murdering Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and will never be considered for parole. Bellfield is thought to be the only criminal in UK legal history to be serving two whole-life orders.

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