New prime suspect in Lin and Megan Russell murders: Carpenter ‘confessed to killings on same day’ as son volunteers for DNA test

Detectives investigating the 1996 murders of Lin Russell and her daughter Megan have identified a new prime suspect: a carpenter who reportedly confessed to the killings on the day they took place. The development comes as the suspect's son has voluntarily offered a DNA sample to police, potentially reopening one of Britain's most notorious unsolved miscarriages of justice, after Michael Stone was controversially convicted for the attack.

Lin Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter Megan were bludgeoned to death near Chillenden, Kent, in July 1996, in an attack that also left Lin's other daughter, Josie, seriously injured but alive. Michael Stone has always protested his innocence despite being convicted of the murders, and questions over the safety of that conviction have persisted for years; the emergence of a carpenter said to have confessed to the killings, combined with his son's cooperation in providing DNA, marks a significant new lead for investigators.