Double child killer Ian Huntley has died after a gruesome prison attack left him brain damaged. His mother couldn’t even recognise her son when she secretly visited him on his deathbed.
Ian Huntley’s funeral plan has been revealed from his dead body mystery to his lonely “disposal”. He died today, just over a week after a savage prison attack left him blind and ‘unrecognisable’.
The Soham murderer was rushed to hospital last Thursday after a fellow inmate allegedly bludgeoned his head with a metal pole. Huntley was initially assumed dead when prison officers found him lying on the ground in a pool of blood at HMP Frankland, otherwise known as ‘Monster Mansion’.
The child killer sustained severe injuries – including skull fractures, brain damage and a broken jaw. His grim final days were spent in a medically induced coma, with a ventilator to help him breathe. His mother Lynda Richards, who snuck in to visit her dying son, apparently couldn’t recognise Huntley after the attack, reports the Mirror.
On Friday night, medics reportedly withdrew the ventilator that was keeping him alive, following consultations with his mother. Sources told The Sun that the decision was taken at around lunchtime after brain tests showed he was in a vegetative state.
They also claimed his mum was by his bedside. Today, the Ministry of Justice confirmed the killer’s death, aged 52.
Prison sources claim that Huntley was working in waste management with other lags when he was targeted. The brutal attack allegedly happened in Wing A, an area of HMP Frankland reserved for inmates who are kept separate from the general prison population for their own protection.
For Huntley, who suffered a spate of violent attacks during his 23 years inside, even a maximum security facility wasn’t enough to shield him from a gruesome fate. As the killer bent down to tie some string on a recycling crate, his attacker took his moment, smashing him in the head with a metal pole up to 15 times. He was left in a pool of blood after his head was split open.
Triple killer Anthony Russell, 43, has been widely named as the prime suspect, with reports suggesting he unleashed fury following a row in a workshop. Other lags are said to have cheered as Russell was led away in handcuffs shouting: “I’ve done it, I’ve done it. I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him.”
The killer’s miserable death may bring a slither of peace to the families ripped apart by his heinous crimes. Huntley had been serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years for the murders of 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on August 4, 2002. Former school caretaker Huntley then dumped their bodies in a ditch.
Nusrit Mehab, a former superintendent with the Metropolitan police and a senior lecturer in criminology and criminal justice, said that the fate of Huntley’s remains all depends on what he declared before his death.
Next of kin mystery
Huntley was largely estranged from his family, but his mother was reportedly by his side on his deathbed. Lynda Richards, 71, reportedly told friends she couldn’t even recognise her son when she first saw him after the attack, because his injuries were so severe.
Meanwhile, the killer’s daughter Samantha Bryan said before his death that “there’s a special place in hell waiting for him”. The 27-year-old beautician only learned she was Huntley’s daughter when she was taking part in a school crime project when she was just 14.
She then came across a pixilated photo of her and her mum Katie in connection with Huntley. Her mum Katie, 45, fled Huntley’s brutality after becoming pregnant at 16. Despite being one of the most reviled murderers in modern Britain history, Mehab says he will still be entitled to a funeral.
Bleak funeral plans
Former superintendent Mehab warns that if his family do decide to hold a funeral, there will likely be serious security concerns given Huntley’s vile crimes. She said: “If his family are next of kin, they can take the body, do a private funeral, a cremation, whichever they want.
“It will be a very high profile death, so there will still likely be security concerns. So they might want a private burial in an undisclosed location, which usually happens, with minimal attendance. They might even just choose a cremation. It will be very low key, from what I can tell.
“If nobody claims the body, then the prison service [and] local authority will arrange it, depending on where he’s from. So that will be a low cost funeral or cremation – on the taxpayer. There’d be no public ceremony and it will likely be a quiet cremation rather than a funeral, in my experience.
“They do a cremation because they don’t want to give him a grave. His ashes would go to the family if they are next of kin. If not, they could be scattered by the local authority. Or – and this has happened before to my knowledge – they just get stored and put down as unclaimed.
“With high risk criminals, they receive anonymous, unpublicised disposals, that’s the term, to avoid public attention. So it will be done very quietly if they do dispose of them.”
Investigation
The crime expert notes that as the attack reportedly happened in front of other lags while Huntley was working – not at night under the blanket of darkness – it’s likely that there will be CCTV footage to trawl through.
It’s believed life inside HMP Frankland would be back to business as usual, despite the horror attack. Serious assaults inside prison aren’t a rare occurrence, but the suspect would have likely been locked inside a segregation unit after the incident.
It emerged last week that Huntley was so close to death after an inmate battered him that he had to travel by road rather than by air to hospital.
A paramedic and a doctor flew to Durham’s Frankland jail and stabilised him at the scene. They placed him in an induced coma because of the severity of his injuries, allegedly at the hand of a triple killer.
An ambulance took him to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle so medics could continue working on him en route if his condition deteriorated. The air ambulance took off from the prison and landed at the RVI to collect the medics after Huntley reached the hospital following the 30-minute, 19 mile journey.
Armed police formed an escort at the front and back of the vehicle. Two prison guards and an armed police officer were inside the ambulance during the high security operation.
Huntley was convicted in December 2003 following a trial at the Old Bailey. His girlfriend Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant at the girls’ primary school, was also jailed in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
She was freed from jail and given a new identity in May 2004. After his arrest, it emerged Huntley had been able to work with children despite facing rape and sexual assault complaints.
Huntley was scalded with boiling water at HMP Wakefield in 2005. He was moved to Frankland, where robber Damien Fowkes slashed him in 2010. The neck wound was seven inches (18 cm) long and required 21 stitches. Fowkes asked a prison officer: “Is he dead? I hope so.”
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