One of Britain's most notorious child killers died Saturday, days after he was attacked by a fellow inmate in the workshop of a maximum-security prison. Ian Huntley, a 52-year-old former school caretaker convicted in 2003 for the murder of two 10-year-old girls, had been on life support after being hit repeatedly over the head with a metal bar at Frankland prison in northeast England on Feb. 26, the AP reports. The slayings of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman transfixed Britain for two weeks in August 2002 after the best friends vanished from the village of Soham in eastern England after leaving a barbecue to buy candy.
For 13 days, police searched for the pair. A photo of the girls wearing matching red Manchester United soccer shirts, taken just before they disappeared, became a fixture of front pages and news broadcasts. Thousands visited Soham in an outpouring of concern, leaving hundreds of bouquets outside the church. The search ended when a group of hikers discovered the girls' remains beside a dirt path in a wooded area a few miles from the village. "The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation's history, and our thoughts are with their families," the UK Ministry of Justice said in a statement.
Huntley denied killing the girls but was convicted in 2003. His life sentence recommended he serve at least 40 years. While in prison, Huntley survived repeated attempts on his life, and he was kept under close protection along with other notorious killers. In 2010, his throat was slashed by another inmate. At the time of the murders, Huntley lived with Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant at the girls' grade school. Carr gave Huntley a false alibi, at one point saying she would always keep a card Holly had drawn for her, and was subsequently jailed for 21 months for perverting the course of justice. She is now living under a new identity.
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