The Soham Murders UK – 2002 Part 2

While returning to 4 Redhouse Gardens, Wells and Chapman walked past the College Close home of Ian Huntley, the senior caretaker at the local secondary school.

Huntley evidently lured the girls into his house, stating that his girlfriend, Maxine Carr the girls' teaching assistant at St Andrew's Primary School—was also present in the house. (Carr was actually visiting her mother in Grimsby, Lincolnshire on this date.

The precise chain of events to occur after the girls entered 5 College Close is unknown, although investigators believe sections of Huntley's later claims in initial interviews granted to the media prior to his arrest and his later trial testimony, such as that he had been cleaning his dog at the time the girls passed by his house at approximately 6:30 p.m. and that one girl had been suffering from a mild nosebleed—may have been true.

In any event, the cause of death of both girls was later ruled to be asphyxiation.

The girls' bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002. in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk.

Huntley was convicted of the murder of both girls on 17 December 2003 and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment, with the High Court later imposing a minimum term of 40 years.

His girlfriend, Maxine Ann Carr—the girls' teaching assistant—had knowingly provided Huntley with a false alibi.

She received a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for conspiring with Huntley to pervert the course of justice.