[MUSIC]
These two girls,
wearing their Manchester United shirts,
disappeared on the evening of August the
4th, and probably, they died that same
evening.
Their bodies were dumped about 30 miles
away,
but those two bodies weren't found for
some time.
Now Huntley, to some extent, gave himself
away by his behaviour,
because he assisted with the search, which
is all right, but he also asked a
lot of questions about the conduct of the
investigation, asked questions of police
officers and journalists.
But while the search for the missing girls
was going on,
he also took time to clean his house and
his car
and he also took his car away to change
its tires.
Ultimately, Ian Huntley was convicted of
their murders
and was sentenced to serve life in prison.
So, how was he convicted?
Well, let's look at the timeline.
On the fourth of August 2002 in the
evening, Holly and Jessica
had gone out to buy sweets and they had
never come home.
The last witness saw them at about 6:32.
They last appeared on CCTV at about the
same time.
Their hand phones turned off at 6:46.
The search started at 8:30.
The police were called in and arrived at
10:30.
But
it wasn't until the 17th of August that
their bodies were found.
They were found about 30 minutes drive
away at a place called
Lakenheath, and they were found by someone
who was just taking a walk.
Someone had attempted to destroy the
bodies and they were partially burned.
Now, the partial burning of the bodies
made
it very difficult to determine the time of
death,
so the police turned to botanical methods,
because when you start a fire in the
country,
it kills the local plants which then grow
back.
And a botanist estimated that the plants
that had
grown back had been growing for about 13
days.
So that gives an approximate time of
death,
certainly an approximate time of when the
bodies were dumped.
From the place where the bodies had
been dumped, various types of evidence
were possible.
This place was down the end of a dirt
road.
So of course, if a vehicle had passed
down the road, there would be tire
impressions on
the road, and also any soil or material
from
the road surface would be transferred to
that vehicle.
Further, the pollen from the plants at
that location
might also be present on the person or the
vehicle,
and we've already seen that the regrowth
of the plants told something about the
timing.
Now, let's look at the car.
Recall that Ian Huntley had very carefully
cleaned
and washed his car and put on new tires
even though the village was in the middle
of a search for two missing girls.
So clearly he changed the tires on his
car because he knew that he would
have left tire tracks on that road leading
to where the two bodies were found.
And clearly, he washed and cleaned his car
to remove any traces of evidence.
Nevertheless, it's very difficult to
completely clean a car, and
the police were able to find on his car,
soil deposited.
Now, that track leading to where the
bodies were found
turns out to be made of a quite
characteristic material,
a mixture of chalk and brick dust and
concrete, as well as the dirt,
and the material found on the car matched
the composition of that road.
In addition, they were able to find pollen
that corresponded to the plants of that
location.
So those are fairly good evidence linking
Ian Huntley's car
to the place where the two bodies had been
dumped.
Now, the two girls had been wearing these
characteristic Manchester United shirts,
and these were found partially burned in a
bin in the building in the
school where Huntley was the caretaker and
the two girls were school kids.
Huntley's hairs were found on those
clothes.
Fibres from his carpet were also found on
those clothes,
and a bin bag in the bin had his
fingerprint on it.
And in addition to this, as a school
caretaker, he had access to that building.
So, the evidence is building up to show
more
and more links between Huntley and the two
girls.
Now the hand phones provided some
interesting
evidence, because the hand phones can not
only show
a link between Huntley and the girls, but
we can time when that link was.
Now when you make a call or send a text
using a hand phone,
that signal is transmitted to a receiver
on a mast.
It must be possible for that signal to get
through to the receiver for the signal to
go through.
Now from the village of Soham, most
signals go to a mast at the football club.
But it's not possible for all signals in
the village to go
to the football club, simply because of
the lay of the land.
Part of the village, including in Ian
Huntley's house, send
their signals to a mast at the next
village of Burwell.
So depending on which mast picks up the
signal, you can
tell which part of the village the
signal's being sent from.
Now you don't need to make a call or send
a text in order to send a signal.
Another action that sends a signal is when
you turn off a phone.
When you turn off your mobile phone, the
phone sends
a signal to the network saying that it is
disengaging.
It's like saying bye bye.
That disengagement signal from the girls'
phones was
picked up via the Burwell mast at 6:46
p.m.
This places the girls in the part of the
village
that contains Huntley's house at the time
of their disappearance.
So no single piece of evidence is
compelling, but taken in total,
the evidence is compelling.
The phones link the girls to Ian
Huntley's house at exactly the time they
disappeared.
The soil and the pollen evidence links the
girls' bodies to Huntley's car, and the
clothes
and the forensic evidence of that bin is a
link directly to Ian Huntley himself.
So, as was said at the trial, this evidence
was so strong
that Huntley could not deny at the trial
that the two girls died in his house.
But he created a story that the two girls
came to his house
and had a bath and died by accident, but
as it was said at the trial,
this evidence that had been built up "left
him with no alternative
but to fall back on a final story which
was no
more than a tissue of lies to save his
own skin."
Ian Huntley is currently serving life
imprisonment for these two murders.
[BLANK_AUDIO]

