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 February 26.
The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had transfixed Britain for two weeks after the best friends vanished from the village of Soham in eastern England on August 4, 2002 after leaving a barbecue to buy candy.
For 13 days, police searched for the pair, holding out hope they might be alive. 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 as detectives mounted a huge hunt.