Serial killer and sex offender Levi Bellfield has reportedly admitted to murdering Lin and Megan Russell in 1996 in a chilling four-page confession letter.
Bellfield, who is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Amélie Delagrange, 22, and 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell, is said to have revealed graphic details of killing mum Lin and daughter Megan, six, in Chillenden, Kent.
Lin and her daughters Megan and Josie were on their way home from a swimming gala at the time when they were brutally attacked with a hammer.
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Josie was the only one to survive the attack but suffered such horrific injuries that emergency services initially thought her dead when they arrived on the scene.
Bellfield's alleged confession, first reported in The Sun, means that Michael Stone, who was convicted of murdering the Russells in 1998, could have suffered a miscarriage of justice, the Mirror reports.
Stone's lawyer Paul Bacon said he has received a four-page statement from Bellfield in which he claims to have carried out the attacks.
The letter is said to include details of what he was wearing and how he escaped.
Mr Bacon told the Sunday Mirror: “The statement Bellfield has made, I believe is the truth.
“It now needs the police to interview Bellfield under caution and we can then establish Michael Stone’s innocence at last."
He added: “My intention is to deliver the (Bellfield) statement to the CCRC and Cressida Dick for the Met to investigate."
In his confession letter Bellfield, who is now known as Yusuf Rahim after converting to Islam, recounts the bloody attack and reveals macabre details such as how he took a hair scrunchie as a souvenir and killed the family dog after it bit him.
He is said to have written that "there was blood everywhere" and described the clothes he was wearing that day which included "marigold washing up gloves".
He continued: “The situation just got out of control and the more she complied it just gave me more confidence. I walked all three of them off the track. I forced Lin to sit down.”
In gruesome detail he reportedly goes on to explain how he killed the pair and left Josie for dead.
He claimed that after the attack he washed the blood off at a petrol station on the M25 in Surrey, went home, got changed and went to work as a nightclub bouncer.
The hammer he used for the sick attack, he said he threw into the River Thames the next day.
If true, this confession means Bellfield is responsible for at least six murders, meaning he is one of Britain’s worst serial killers.
The 53-year-old is already serving life for the murders of Millie, 13, Amélie Delagrange, 22, and 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell.
On top of that, he was also convicted of the attempted murder of 18-year-old Kate Sheedy.
In the statement he also confessed to killing a woman called Judith Gold in North London, in 1990.
The confession document will now be sent on to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, who can order re-trials.
Stone has always protested his innocence but was found guilty of the Russell murders in 1998.
These convictions were later quashed but he was found guilty again at a retrial in 2001, based partly on a confession he is said to have made in prison.
Stone launched another appeal in 2004 which failed.
Barrister Mark McDonald said on Twitter on Saturday: “For over 21 years I have represented Michael Stone who was wrongly convicted of the Chillenden murders.
“Tomorrow it will be announced that Levi Belfield has made a full written confession to the crimes.
“Michael Stone is innocent and must be immediately released from prison.
“Stone has been in prison for 26 years despite plenty of evidence that this is a miscarriage of justice.”
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