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One of the United Kingdom’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, has died after being attacked in prison while serving a life sentence, police confirmed on Saturday.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, a crime that shocked the nation.
The 52-year-old sustained serious injuries when he was assaulted at HM Prison Frankland, a maximum-security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham, on February 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement.
A spokesperson for the government’s UK Ministry of Justice said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families”.
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham on August 4, 2002.
Their disappearance triggered a massive search operation involving hundreds of police officers and nationwide appeals for information. A photograph of the girls wearing matching Manchester United shirts quickly became one of the most recognisable images in Britain.
Their bodies were discovered nearly two weeks later in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, drew police attention after giving media interviews in which he claimed to be concerned about the missing girls.
Although he denied the murders, he was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr, a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, provided Huntley with a false alibi and was imprisoned for perverting the course of justice. She has since been released and now lives under a new identity.
The case led to the introduction of stricter background checks for individuals working with children in the UK after it emerged that Huntley had previously been the subject of rape and sexual assault allegations.
Huntley had been attacked several times during his imprisonment, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
Police said an investigation into the latest incident is ongoing and that prosecutors will consider whether charges should be brought against the attacker.
