Two decades on from the disappearance of Holly and Jessica
The impact of their disappearance continues to affect the locals.
Last updated 4th Aug 2022
It's been 20 years since schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman disappeared sending shockwaves through communities here in the East and across the world.
The 10 year-old's vanished, seemingly out of thin air, on the 4th August 2002.
They'd left a family BBQ to go and buy sweets.
The community immediately came together with widespread searches carried out for the girls over the days that followed.
It was just under two weeks later that the girl's bodies were found in a ditch near Mildenhall.
And it was a man who'd been active in helping search for them that was responsible.
College caretaker Ian Huntley was convicted of their murders and is still serving a life sentence to this day.
His former-girlfriend Maxine Carr was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in 2003 after being found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice after giving him a false alibi.
At the time, PA news agency reporter Brian Farmer, interviewed the Huntley and his then girlfriend, Maxine Carr, at their home while the search for the girls was ongoing.
The reporter became weary of Huntley after he gave suspicious answers in an interview with a journalist.
Maxine Carr had been Holly and Jessica's teaching assistant, and so was being questioned whether 'stranger danger' was something the girls had been taught and aware of.
During this interview the reporter re-accounts Huntley jumping in to answer the question.
Huntley was also reluctant to be photographed.
Not only this but Huntley told Brain Farmer he had spoken to the girls while washing his dog outside his house. According to Mr Farmer, Huntley said the girls made no comment about the pet dog.
The reporter then went to the police with his concerns.
“I simply couldn’t believe there were two children on earth who wouldn’t see the dog and be saying ‘oh that dog’s so cute, he’s so wonderful’,” he said.
“I didn’t think what he was saying could be true.”
Mr Farmer, 61, said he had knocked on their door, Carr opened it and they spoke with the door ajar.
“Then I remember Ian Huntley kind of poked his head into the gap behind Maxine Carr and kind of looked over her shoulder,” he said.
“I persuaded them after a few minutes to let me in so they could have a chat.
“I was slightly surprised because Ian Huntley didn’t seem keen to talk, which slightly surprised me because normally if children are missing people will help.
“It did slightly surprise me but I didn’t think anything particularly dramatic.”
He continued: “The first thing that seemed strange, I remember quite distinctly, was that I asked Maxine if at school they’d done stranger danger, and ‘don’t get into cars’.
“I asked her from her knowledge of Holly and Jessica how she thought they might have reacted if, for example, a man had pulled up alongside in a car and said: ‘Would you like a lift, girls?’
“The odd thing was that she didn’t answer the question because Ian Huntley jumped in straight away and he answered the question.
“He said that he thought Holly would probably get in the car and quietly go, but Jessica wouldn’t.
“She’d put up a real fight and a real struggle. He was quite agitated and emotional.
“I remember thinking: ‘Why is he so agitated? Why is he so emotional?’
“The main thing that struck me when he answered the question was, well, how can he possibly know how they would react?
“He’s the caretaker of a secondary school in Soham.
“They don’t go to the secondary school. He doesn’t appear to know them at all.
“That kind of switched my attention a bit more to him.”
Mr Farmer said Huntley “used this very strange phrase that I’ve never forgotten – he said even his mother didn’t have a photograph of him because he hated being photographed so much”.
“Methinks the reason people don’t want to be photographed generally is because if their picture is published someone will recognise them,” the reporter said.
He said he did not believe what Huntley was saying.
“I didn’t understand how he could know how they’d react,” Mr Farmer said.
“I started to think: ‘Well, he appears to be the last man to have seen them.
“’In all likelihood the person who’s responsible for their disappearance or death will be someone living locally and I don’t think he’s telling the truth.’
“Maxine Carr had not said anything herself that made me think that she’s not telling the truth, but I did think: ‘Well, if he’s not telling the truth, she’s not telling the truth either.’”
The reporter, who was called as a prosecution witness during Huntley’s trial, said: “I think the way he described how Holly and Jessica would react is exactly how they did react.
“That’s why he knew how they’d react, because that’s how they reacted when he killed them.”
The reporter said that a week after he raised his concerns with police, he had a call from detectives saying that Huntley and Carr had been arrested and they needed to interview Mr Farmer.
It's something the community of Soham will never forget.
We spoke to a few people who told us their memories of that dark time: "Obviously everybody was very concerned...It was a very shocking occasion.
"It's just a tragic event, everybody knows the situation. Even when you tell people where your from, that's where they know the place from."
"It never should of happened."
One man who was the same age as the girls spoke to us ahead of today's anniversary: "It was just tragic to know that it was somebody was my age, that it had happened to.
"And to this day, knowing, that they could of just been turning 30 years old and still have a long life ahead of them."
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