Two witnesses have come forward to identify a new suspect in the murder of Dr Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan three decades ago, the Press Association reports.
Michael Stone has been in prison for 29 years having been found guilty of attacking Dr Russell, 45, and her two daughters with a hammer on July 9, 1996, as they walked home from a school swimming gala near Canterbury in Kent. The family had only months earlier moved to the area from the Nantlle valley in Gwynedd.
Stone was convicted of two counts of murder and the attempted murder of Dr Russell’s nine-year-old daughter Josie, who was left for dead with severe head injuries. She survived and returned with her father Shaun to live in Gwynedd, where she works as an artist.
New witness evidence
Stone has continually pleaded his innocence and the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) recently received witness statements from multiple people naming a member of their own family, Raymond Buck, as the killer, according to the Sunday Times.
One of the new witnesses, Ross Shields, 39, was a child at the time of the murders. He told the newspaper he overheard Buck confess to a family member on the day of the attacks: “I’ve done something unforgivable. I’ve killed three people.”
According to the report, Buck was a carpenter and amateur boxer with a history of violence. He reportedly died by suicide in 2000, aged 46, at the Beachy Head cliff in East Sussex.
Solicitor comments on DNA analysis
Stone’s solicitor Karen Todner said the miscarriages of justice watchdog was undertaking reviews on the new evidence and gathering fresh DNA evidence.
She told the Press Association: “I’m much more positive than he has been for the last 29 years. We’re hoping that things are finally, finally moving in the right direction.”
“The CCRC are undertaking further DNA analysis. Because obviously the science behind DNA has dramatically improved since his case, and since the last DNA analysis... and when they’ve done that, then we’re hoping that they will test that against various people, Raymond Buck being one of them.”
Ms Todner acknowledged the new witness evidence was important for her client – who is serving three life sentences – but believes any “conclusive evidence” would come from a DNA result.
Stone and a member of Buck’s family are among those to submit to this new round of DNA analysis.
Ms Todner said: “If DNA comes back as positive for anyone other than Michael, then obviously we’ll be asking the CCRC to send it back to the Court of Appeal. So hopefully we’ll know where we are by the end of this year.”
Josie, who was born in South Africa in 1987, obtained a degree in design and textiles from Bangor University and became a successful artist.
