The man convicted of the murder of Lin and Megan Russell in 1996 is to have a new DNA sample taken this week as part of his three decade fight to clear his name. Michael Stone, now 66, was convicted of murdering Lin alongside her six-year-old daughter in the village of Chillenden in Kent while they walked home from a swimming competition. This Thursday will mark 30 years since the murder.
Stone has always maintained his innocence and has demanded further forensics testing be done following scientific advances of the kind that cleared Andrew Malkinson. No DNA evidence linked him to the crime, and he was not picked out by the survivor of the attack, Josie who was aged 9 at the time. At trial, jurors were convinced by the testimony of Stone’s cellmate who said that he had confessed to the crime (for more on cell confessions see the latest issue of PROOF magazine).
Stone applied to the CCRC for a second time in 2023, and at the time his barrister Mark McDonald gave an interview to the Justice Gap. He described the CCRC’s decision not to pursue the case after his previous application as ‘utterly astonishing’. ‘What more can a person do to prove their innocence than another man confessing to the crime,’ he said. ‘There is no identification evidence against Stone, no forensic evidence. His conviction rests on the testimony of one man, Damien Daley, a proven liar.’
The Sunday Times has revealed that the CCRC had instructed a forensics expert to complete new tests, but it was only after Stone’s lawyers threatened the watchdog with High Court action over significant delays in progressing his case that a date for the tests was confirmed. If the DNA of another man is found amongst the crime scene samples, then Stone’s innocence could at last be proven.
In 2022, Levi Bellfield, confessed to the Russell murders. He is serving a whole-life order for the murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002 and another for the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange. He is also convicted of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. He wrote to Stone’s lawyers confessing to the crime that he is serving time for. His lawyer reiterated in 2023 that he is ‘adamant’ he murdered Lin Russell and her daughter.
Pressure has increased on the CCRC over delays in its processing of serious potential miscarriages of justice after it was revealed last month that the number of cases stuck for more than two years with the body has topped a hundred for the first time, more than doubling in the last five years.
