A new forensic test – that can get DNA when others in the past could not – is being carried out to look for other suspects.
A man serving life sentences for the brutal murders of Lin Russell and her daughter Megan is having a new DNA sample taken to find another suspect and prove he was never at the scene.
Michael Stone, 66, will be visited in prison by an investigator from the miscarriage of justice watchdog, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, on Thursday, according to the Sunday Times.
The test, which includes taking his saliva, coincides with the 30th anniversary of the two murders which took place in July 1996.
Stone has repeatedly asked for new DNA tests since new techniques have been developed, including one where they can now separate male DNA in mixed samples.
If new male DNA is found, it could be compared to serial killer Levi Bellfield, who has previously confessed to being the real killer behind the two murders.
Stone is currently in HMP Frankland in Co Durham, serving three life sentences for what was seen as among Britain’s most brutal murders.
Dr Lin Russell, 45, was walking her two daughters Megan, six and Josie, nine, home from school, along a country lane near the pretty village of Chillenden in Kent.
A car pulled up and a man got out, tying them up, dragging them into a copse and beating them with a hammer. The mum and her youngest child were killed. Josie was the only survivor after suffering severe head injuries. The family’s dog, Lucy, was also killed.
According to the Sunday Times, a new forensic strategy by a scientist at the laboratory Eurofins was shared with Stone’s lawyers last week.
Samples from a bloodstained plimsoll lace which was used to tie Lin Russell’s wrist are of particular interest to the new scientist on the case, they say.
Tapings taken from Lin and Megan’s bodies are also marked ‘top priority’ according to the Sunday Times, because they were recovered directly from the victims’ skin and have not been tested since 1996, reducing the risk of contamination.
Some exhibits including a plastic lunchbox with a bloody fingerprint on it, have gone missing while others were contaminated. Many of the items were tested for DNA in 1996 but no matches were found for any suspects.
One of the items put under the microscope could be a boot lace, which was stained with the victims blood and found 45 metres from the horrifying murder scene. In 2010 the lace was said to be missing, with just an empty envelope left. It was also claimed at one point it had been tested to destruction.
But it was then discovered in 2020 by police and this is thought to be one of the items which will be looked at again.
It is believed some other items of evidence have not been tested at all, including fingernail scrapings from Lyn’s left hand and samples from the family dog, from its teeth and its back.
Stone, a former heroin user with previous convictions for violence, has always protested his innocence over the murders and his conviction for the attempted murder of Josie Russell.
One year after the attack an e-fit of the suspect was shown on the BBC’s Crimewatch. It led to Stone, a heroin user with previous convictions for violence, including a previous hammer attack on a man, being identified as a possible suspect by his psychiatrist.
He was put in an identity parade, but Josie did not pick him out. However Stone had no alibi and said he could not remember what he was doing at the time of the attack.
At his trial fellow prisoners testified they’d heard him confess, one through the heating pipe. But a day after the trial one inmate said he’d made it all up.
Stone appealed and a retrial was ordered and he was convicted again despite there being no DNA evidence linking him to the crime. Stone had an appeal against his conviction turned down in 2019.
According to the Sunday Times the new specimen from Stone is needed to conduct newly developed tests that isolate male DNA even if a sample is a mixture of DNA from a female victim and an unknown man.
The same advances in DNA testing were used to prove the innocence of Andrew Malkinson, who was in prison for 17 years for rape, a crime he didn’t commit.
In this case scientists tested for new DNA from the victim’s clothing and this helped quash Malkinson’s conviction in 2023 and the real culprit was later jailed.
Stone’s legal team believe that if the DNA of another man is found, it could lead to another suspect being identified in his case.
Levi Bellfield, the serial killer who murdered the schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002, allegedly confessed that he was responsible for the Russell murders but later retracted the claim.
Since then, he is said to have made a further detailed written confession after talking to prison psychologists. It was claimed Bellfield wanted relatives of those who were killed to have ‘resolution’.
The CCRC, the only body with the power to send cases back to the Court of Appeal, has said Bellfield’s claims were not credible and that he had made false confessions to other crimes.
Mark McDonald, Stone’s barrister, told the Sunday Times: “Michael Stone has been in custody for 29 years for a murder he did not commit. He is innocent.”
The new forensic investigation will rely on two techniques. The first is DNA-17, a test that only became commonplace in 2014 and can isolate male and female genetic material.
The chance of two unrelated individuals sharing the same DNA-17 profile is less than one in a billion.
The saliva from Stone is reportedly needed for another test called Y-STR, verifying male line relationships. This can separate even trace amounts of male DNA from a mixed sample. Results from this cannot be searched on the police database but can be used to search against specific alternative suspects.
If scientists find male DNA that does not match Stone or Lin Russell’s husband, Shaun Russell, it could lead a new suspect.
If the CCRC wants to compare the sample with Bellfield’s DNA, it has been advised that it might need to obtain a new sample from him – or use old material from cases where he was convicted.
Stone’s lawyer pointed out to the Sunday Times, how his client had been pushing for more forensic work on the case for decades, saying: “A guilty man doesn’t do that”.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login