Child killer Ian Huntley had cancer tests in a security operation costing thousands of pounds and then was given the all-clear.
The double murderer reportedly complained for two years that he was unwell and told fellow inmates in prison he thought it was terminal.
And the 49-year-old was "really relieved and a bit sheepish" when he returned to jail, having finally had tests recently.
He's serving a minimum of 40 years for killing 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire, in 2002.
Sources inside reportedly said Huntley, the former school caretaker, had even decided he would refuse treatment if diagnosed.
"Huntley was really worried before his hospital visit this week," a source told The Sun.
"He was talking about how karma could have got him — and so were other people who spoke to him. He was also complaining about how the prison didn’t seem too concerned about him."
Huntley is locked up at HMP Frankland in County Durham for the murders Holly and Jessica - likely by asphyxiation - before disposing of their bodies in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Their bodies were discovered nearly two weeks later.
A former detective involved in the hunt for Huntley told how he came face-to-face with the murderer who had appeared "like a normal bloke".
Retired Det Supt David Hankins, 71, said the caretaker would meet him each morning at the school hall as cops searched for missing Holly and Jessica.
Mr Hankins was among 400 officers working around the clock to find the schoolgirls after they vanished following a family barbecue on August 4, 2002.
Mr Hankins said: “It’s 20 years ago but it’s still one of the worst cases I’ve ever had to deal with. It was a daunting experience, it was harrowing, it was a lot of pressure.
“I’ve never dealt with anything like that and there’s not many officers who would have dealt with anything like that. There were two girls who had been murdered and it had never happened before, certainly not in my 30 years service.”
The two girls had gone to buy sweets when they were lured into Huntley’s home after he claimed his girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was in the house.
She worked as a teaching assistant at Holly and Jessica’s school and was close to both the girls.
But when the two girls went inside, Huntley murdered them both and hid their bodies.
A massive media appeal kept Holly and Jessica on the front pages of every paper and in every news bulletin and for 13 days no stone was left unturned in the police investigation.
Chillingly, Huntley himself was interviewed by reporters and even helped in the search for Holly and Jessica.
Carr was also keen to speak to the press and in one interview she bragged about how much she had clearly meant to little Holly especially.
Speaking to a TV reporter, Carr said: "No one believes they would ever run away. They were very close to their families. This is something that I will keep for the rest of my life.
"It's what Holly gave me on the last day of term and there's a poem written inside saying 'to a special teaching assistant' and that we will miss her and we will see her in the future. That was the kind of girl she was, she was just really lovely."
Her chilling slip was spotted almost instantly as she had referred to Holly in the past tense and only those who knew what had really happened to the best friends would know that they had been killed.
Carr was jailed for 42 months after giving Huntley a false alibi and was released from Foston Hall prison in Derbyshire in May, 2004, having served half her sentence.
But the strength of public hatred meant she had to be given a new identity by the courts and given round-the-clock protection.
She was moved to more than 10 different safe houses in two years, and in 2011 it was reported that she had given birth to her first child - a son - in a secret safe house.
In 2012 she was believed to have started a serious relationship with a man who is aware of her past.
As of 2014, she was said to have been living in a seaside town but it cannot be named because of the lifetime anonymity order granted to Carr by the High Court.
