Soham murders
Jessica Chapman Holly Wells | |
|---|---|
Jessica Chapman (left) and Holly Wells (right), mid-2002 | |
| Born | Jessica Amiee Chapman Holly Marie Wells Chapman: 1 September 1991 Wells: 4 October 1991 Both: Soham, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Died | Both: c. 4 August 2002 (aged 10) Soham, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Body discovered | 17 August 2002 Lakenheath, Suffolk, England |
| Resting place | Soham Cemetery, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Known for | Victims of child murder |
The Soham murders were a double child murder committed in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, on 4 August 2002. The victims were two 10-year-old girls, Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Amiee Chapman, who were lured into the home of a local resident and school caretaker, Ian Huntley, who murdered them – most likely by asphyxiation – and disposed of their bodies in an irrigation ditch close to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The bodies were discovered on 17 August 2002.
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. Huntley died in March 2026, after sustaining severe head injuries inflicted in an attack alleged to have been carried out by another inmate at HMP Frankland.
The search for Wells and Chapman in the thirteen days following their disappearance has been described as one of the most intense and extensive in British criminal history.