The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan? is a three-parter that promises a “definitive” and “granular” account of the horrific events that occurred on a quiet country lane in Kent in the summer of 1996, and the subsequent police investigation into it. In 2017, the BBC broadcast its own documentary, The Chillenden Murders, in which a team of experts re-examined the evidence that led to the conviction of Michael Stone, but given the true crime boom of recent times, it’s surprising that there have not been even more documentaries about such a shocking and unforgettable case.
Little wonder, then, that this documentary series has arrived now. Stone was convicted of murdering Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter Megan, who was six, and attempting to murder her other daughter, Josephine, who was nine. He has served 25 years of a life sentence, but he is launching a fresh attempt to clear his name; earlier this year, the serial killer Levi Bellfield signed a statement “to take responsibility” for the killings, though Bellfield has previously confessed and retracted his statement. In July, the Criminal Case Review Commission said that they saw no real possibility that Stone’s conviction would be overturned.
The documentary features an interview with Stone in a later episode, which is its main selling point, but it begins with an examination of what happened on the afternoon of 9 July 1996 and the massive police operation that followed, tasked with finding the culprit in a crime that appeared to be so incomprehensible. After a swimming gala, Lin Russell had collected her daughters, Megan and Josie, from primary school. They walked back towards their house with the family dog, down a remote country path. When they failed to return home, Lin’s husband Shaun phoned the police and reported them missing.
Nearby, the now retired police officer Richard Leivers had been called to a murder scene, and came across what he thought to be “three dead people”. For this film, he returns to the scene of the crime for the first time since 1996, in an attempt, it seems, to exorcise some of the trauma that he has been left with. “I’ve suffered for it, mentally,” he says, as he recalls the horrific sight that he encountered then. Talking about it today, he is palpably shaken. Leivers is the officer who noticed that Josie Russell was actually still alive, and carried her away from the scene. “It felt personal,” he says here.
Other experts offer their own testimonies. The neurosurgeon who operated on Josie Russell speaks about Josie’s recovery, and how the hospital became a haven for Shaun. Jim Fraser, the former head of forensic investigations at Kent Police, offers his opinion on the “tsunami” of reporters that descended on Chillenden, and admits that, unusually for him, he attended the postmortems, as he wanted to do whatever he could to help solve the case. It is evident that most of those involved in the case and its aftermath, at least the ones who speak here, feel that same personal connection to it as Leivers does.
As well as examining the murders and the investigation, reporters and editors from the era recall their part in delivering the news to the public. The former Sky News reporter Eve Richings talks about the difficulties of reporting on the case, such as when the villagers began to reject the cameras filming kids walking to school. The Sky News correspondent, Martin Brunt, explains that, as a crime reporter, “every story I do is bad news for somebody”. The Sun’s former crime editor, Mike Sullivan, says he knew the murders would be the next day’s front page, rather apologetically offering the old newspaper adage that “if it bleeds, it leads”.
This collection of interviewees means that, for the most part, the story is delivered soberly, and largely without the tasteless affectations that tend to accompany a lot of true crime documentaries by default. There is little sensationalism in this opening episode. Martin Brunt says that the village was “another victim” of what had happened. When this touches on the locals’ discomfort about the attention they received, it does so mostly in the form of journalists talking about how people were uncomfortable with the presence of journalists.
But the brutality of the attack, the lack of a motive, and, for the first year, the lack of a suspect, left the murders looming large in the public psyche, and the questions over Stone’s conviction have kept them there over the subsequent decades. Without the involvement of the Russell family, though, the reliance on old news footage and clips released by the police at the time mean it’s hard not to wonder whether this series ultimately serves a purpose, or whether it simply dredges up a traumatic story, once again.
The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan? aired on Sky Documentaries and is available on NOW
