Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman
Ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were murdered by school caretaker Ian Huntley in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in August 2002. Huntley was convicted in December 2003 and given a 40-year minimum term; he died in March 2026 after an attack in prison. The case led to major reforms in criminal record checks for people working with children.
- Status
- Conviction
- Type
- Homicide
- Date
- August 4, 2002
- Location
- Soham, United Kingdom
- Age
- 10
- Gender
- Female
- Decade
- 2000s
- Open
- Partly resolved
- Charges or trial
- ClosedConviction
At least one person was convicted in connection with the case.
Case background and investigation
On August 4, 2002, ten-year-old best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappeared from a family barbecue in Soham, Cambridgeshire. They were last seen walking past the home of Ian Huntley, the caretaker at their school.
Huntley, 28, publicly appealed for information and gave media interviews while secretly knowing the girls were dead. His girlfriend Maxine Carr provided him with a false alibi.
Huntley had lured the girls into his house and murdered them. Their bodies were found two weeks later in a ditch near RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Huntley was convicted of two counts of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 40 years. The Bichard Inquiry that followed revealed that Huntley had previous allegations of sexual offenses that were never properly recorded, leading to the creation of the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check system.
Timeline
-
August 4, 2002Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman go missing.
-
August 17, 2002Their bodies found.
-
December 17, 2003Huntley convicted; sentenced to minimum 40 years.
-
March 7, 2026Ian Huntley dies aged 52 after being attacked in prison, allegedly by another inmate.
Sources
References used for this entry. ColdCaseIndex is an index of public information. To report an error, email info@coldcaseindex.com.
About this entry
This case is recorded as conviction and is kept in the index for its historical and investigative significance. At least one person was convicted in connection with the case.
To report an error on this page, email info@coldcaseindex.com.
Entry last updated September 29, 2026.
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