One of Britain's most shocking murders is being reinvestigated by the miscarriage of justice watchdog, it can be revealed today.
Lin Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter Megan were battered to death with a hammer in a country lane not far from their home in rural Chillenden, Kent in 1996.
Megan's older sister Josie, then nine, miraculously survived the bloodbath in a crime that horrified the nation.
Michael Stone, a drug addict with a previous conviction for a separate hammer attack, was arrested – despite no DNA evidence linking him to the scene.
He was later convicted and jailed for the murder of Lin and Megan and the attempted murder of Josie.
Now that conviction is potentially in doubt as the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) opens a probe into the evidence that convicted Stone.
One of the key prosecution witnesses at his trial was Damien Daley, who claimed that Stone detailed the murders to him in a jail-cell confession.
Such was his significance that the judge, Mr Justice Poole, told jurors at the end of a 2001 retrial that the case 'stands or falls' on whether they believed his evidence.
Stone has professed his innocence ever since, implicating Milly Dowler killer Levi Belfield in the attack and accusing Daley of lying.
The CCRC – which has the power to refer convictions back to the Court of Appeal – is looking to visit Daley in HMP Full Sutton, where he is serving life for a 2014 murder.
It forms part of a three-pronged probe into the case on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the murders.
The commission will also test items from the crime scene using modern forensic techniques, and analyse the possibility that Bellfield could have been the real culprit.
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In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Stone said he would 'never' admit to the killings.
He insisted Bellfield was involved and branded Daley a 'lying lowlife… who created a miscarriage of justice'.
The CCRC first rejected a submission by Stone in 2010 but have kept open a subsequent application made in 2017.
The watchdog's previous analysis of drug-addict Daley's reliability had been centred on his bad character and claims from former friends and cellmates that he had admitted he invented the Stone confession.
Now the CCRC is looking deeper into career criminal Daley's medical records to understand if his evidence should have been admissible, the Daily Mail understands.
Daley, from Folkestone, Kent, was jailed for life in 2014 aged 39 for murdering Gus Allman, a 20-year-old from London, during a drug-related dispute.
Leading barrister Mark McDonald, who has represented Stone for 27 years, said looking at Daley was a crucial step.
'He's withdrawn his testimony a number of times by telling other inmates that he lied,' McDonald told the Daily Mail.
'His credibility is now being looked at properly by the CCRC and they are focusing on areas not previously investigated, as well as some that will be re-analysed with the modern eye.
'There is a strong possibility something will be found that will undermine his testimony and help us get referred back to the Court of Appeal.'
In September 1997, Daley was on remand at HMP Canterbury in Kent when he was moved to the segregation unit for trying to bite off another prisoner's nose. Stone was in a neighbouring cell, and Daley claimed he had confessed to him through a heating pipe.
A crucial testimony
Stone says he was there after asking to be isolated to avoid the risk of other inmates claiming he had confessed to the Chillenden murders.
A copy of a newspaper, dated the same day as Stone's alleged confession and found in Daley's cell, contained details of the murders, leading to doubts over the truthfulness of Daley's evidence as information was already in the public domain.
After Daley and two other inmates claimed he had confessed, Stone was convicted of the murders by a majority decision at Maidstone Crown Court in 1998.
But within a day of his conviction, one of those witnesses, Barry Thompson, gave an interview saying he had made it all up. A second prisoner, Mark Jennings, admitted taking money from the media and being offered more in the event of Stone's conviction.
Stone's conviction was quashed and his case was sent for retrial in 2001 and only one prisoner, Daley, testified. Again, Stone was convicted on a majority verdict at Nottingham Crown Court.
An appeal by Stone saying Daley's evidence was 'unreliable' failed in 2005.
In May 1998, five months before he first testified against Stone, Daley was arrested for criminal damage after a two-day drinking binge on an anniversary of his father's death.
During that episode, he bit the headrest of an ambulance, dialled the telephone number of his deceased mother and smashed a prison phone across his head while 'hearing things', he said in interview.
Three years after being the key witness in the Stone retrial, Daley was jailed for four years for drug-dealing offences. A probation report from 2003, referenced in Stone's failed 2005 appeal, stated Daley had been a drug addict for five years prior to the 2001 retrial.
Daley had inhaled solvents at the age of nine, the report said, and was taking LSD and smoking cannabis aged 13, before graduating to cocaine a year later. At 20 he experimented with heroin and became addicted when in prison in 1996.
Neither jury was aware of his drug-addled history.
'I think all of these things speak to the drugs and to his state of mind, as he was addicted to class-As,' said McDonald. 'There are aspects relating to Daley that have never been looked at and which now will be.
'There has been a sea change when it comes to jail cell confessions, they are not used any more whereas they frequently were years ago.'
Stone and his legal team have persistently claimed Daley had ulterior motives for testifying, including that inventing the claims would get him off the segregation wing and alleging he had grievous bodily harm and arson offences against him dropped in favour of giving evidence.
The CCRC is also being urged to probe Daley's behaviour since his 2014 incarceration.
The critical forensic questions
Another key element to the CCRC submission is an 18-page dossier by Angela Gallop, one of the country's leading forensics experts, which the Daily Mail has seen.
It details how Gallop suspects a bloody fingerprint found on one of the girls' lunchboxes could hold vital answers – but the item vanished before the trial.
Mr McDonald thinks Kent Police lost the lunch box, adding: 'We don't even know for certain what exhibits they have locked away. The CCRC is yet to ask them but we know some still exist.'
In 2020 a shoelace stained with the victims' blood re-appeared in police storage after being missing for 14 years, and that can now also be re-tested.
In Gallop's report, put together with the help of fellow forensics expert Dr Philip Avenell, she recommends a number of next steps:
- Items used by the attacker should be re-analysed: Lin's shoe lace, Josie's tights and torn up pieces of towels used as blindfolds or gags. Heavily blooded sticks found near the scene should also be reinvestigated.
- She says previously untested items should be analysed using modern techniques, including examining the heels of Josie's jelly shoes for DNA traces as they could have been handled by the offender.
- Sampling should also be taken for the first time from Lin's trouser legs, which may have been grabbed as the killer moved her.
- The murderer is also likely to have touched a string bag found in a nearby hedge with the towel strips, and should also be tested.
- Fingernail scrapings from Lin's left hand were said to have never been tested and so should undergo an examination, in connection with 'any cellular material that could have come from the offender'.
- Blood from the back of the family dog, Lucy, who was also killed and found next to the bodies, should be tested, as should swabs taken from around the dog's teeth, neither of which were previously analysed.
Gallop has a wealth of experience, with her team working on several high-profile cases including the murders of Stephen Lawrence, Rachel Nickell and Damilola Taylor. She says in the report that the use of new 'Y-STR' forensic techniques 'might well be useful' in yielding results, as it they can detect a male DNA profile even in the presence of excess female DNA.
The Levi Bellfield connection
As well as forensics and Daley, the CCRC is taking another close look at Bellfield, McDonald said.
In July 2023, the CCRC rejected an application from Stone's legal team for referral to the Court of Appeal after Bellfield made a detailed confession to the Chillenden murders.
McDonald threatened the body with a judicial review of its decision and in October of the same year it agreed to carry out a new analysis, including the forensic testing.
Gallop also notes how a balaclava found half a mile from the murder scene needs to be examined. It contained hairs not belonging to the victims but fibres that matched clothes they were wearing.
Stone believes Bellfield – who was known to wear balaclavas – was the killer and McDonald thinks the same. Bellfield is currently serving a whole life sentence for the murder of Milly Dowler, who went missing from Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 2002.
He has also been convicted of murdering Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, and of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and will never be considered for parole.
In April 2023 he wrote another confession and his solicitor Theresa Clark said her client wanted relatives of those who were killed to have 'resolution'.
'We still say that Bellfield did this,' said McDonald.
'It's been a long road'
With regard to the crucial forensic testing, McDonald and Stone are growing frustrated at the CCRC's pace.
'We know it's a resource issue and they are trying their best but the length of time is of course a concern,' said the barrister. 'Gallop's report was given to them in the summertime and so it's in the hands of the CCRC and the lab to start testing.
'Michael is calling me every day, he is pulling his hair out. He's screaming "please start the testing".'
Stone said there was 'no way' he was going to admit the murders or engage with parole – he was eligible to apply in 2022 – because he thinks it implies guilt.
Speaking of Gallop's report, Stone told the Daily Mail: 'The professor knows what she's talking about and she has come up with new ideas about how to solve the case, highlighting the flaws in the previous scientist's work.
'There was stuff which came completely out of the blue that we did not know about.
'It's not about being free, but about clearing my name, exposing the truth and showing what Kent Police and the judicial system have done against me and the original victims in the case.
'Recently the two remaining victims were asked to do impact statements to a parole hearing which I had refused to take any part in.
'To this date Josie and her father are still being told untruths, being misled and given misinformation about me and facts and details about the case.
'Then there's the lying, conniving, squirming low-life Damian Daley, who cashed in on the case and created a miscarriage of justice by giving a cell confession evidence that definitely never happened.'
For his sister Barbara, a 63-year-old registered mental health nurse from Kent, she fears time is running out.
'I wrote my will to make sure that Mick still gets his monthly cash from me, if I go first,' she said. 'Everyone has died in the 30 years he has been in jail - parents, aunts, uncles.
'I speak to Mick every day and so he still very much a part of my day-to-day. It's been a long road and we're still here. We're running out of life.'
A Kent Police spokesman said: 'Following two trials at which Michael Stone was found guilty by a jury on both occasions, and an appeal to the High Court, he remains convicted of the murders of Lin and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie Russell in 1996.
'Stone made an application to apply for a Judicial Review in respect of his conviction in September 2012. The Honourable Mr Justice Blake ordered that permission for the application should be refused.
'Kent Police has supported the Criminal Cases Review Commission by providing all the relevant information required throughout its ongoing review of Stone's conviction and will continue to do so.'
A CCRC spokesperson said: 'A review into this application is ongoing.
'We are exploring all of the possibilities the application raises to determine whether Mr Stone may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
'Our test for referring a case is that there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would overturn his conviction, a test which was not met in any of the earlier applications. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss the case or make any further comment while the application is being reviewed.'
