Attorneys for the man jailed over the murders of Lin and Megan Russell say fresh information has raised the possibility that another suspect may have been behind the notorious killings.
The new focus centres on Ray Buck, after a witness alleged he heard Buck admit to the attacks on the very day Lin Russell, 45, and her six-year-old daughter Megan were assaulted on a rural lane in Chillenden, Kent, in 1996.
Buck died by suicide four years later. It is now understood that one of his sons has agreed to submit a DNA sample as the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body that investigates possible miscarriages of justice, carries out a new forensic review.
Michael Stone was first convicted in 1998 after an alleged prison-cell confession that he has always disputed. He was convicted again following a retrial three years later.
Stone has now supplied a fresh DNA sample from HMP Frankland in County Durham, where he is being held.
Levi Bellfield, the serial killer responsible for the 2002 murder of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, has also provided a sample for comparison.
Bellfield previously made a written confession claiming responsibility for the Russell murders, though police rejected his account.
This week, the Daily Mail’s Crime Desk reported that Bellfield had claimed he was confident his DNA would be discovered on evidence connected to the Russell murder scene.
Lin Russell and her daughter Megan were bludgeoned to death on a country lane in 1996
Ray Buck, a carpenter who killed himself in 2000, has been put forward as the new prime suspect by lawyers acting for the man convicted of the murders
Criminologists have previously warned Bellfield could be making a false claim for attention.
Lin had been walking with Megan and her then-nine-year-old daughter Josie, who survived the attack, from the girls’ primary school in Goodnestone down a country lane.
This month marks 30 years since the pair were bludgeoned to death in broad daylight during the attack which left Josie with catastrophic head injuries but did not kill her.
New suspect Buck was questioned by detectives during the original investigation but was not treated as a suspect.
Then aged 42, Buck was living with his ex-wife and their three children in Folkestone, 15 miles from the lane.
A distant relative who contacted police in 2017 and Stone’s lawyers in April claimed that on the day of the murders he was at Buck’s sister’s house when he arrived and confessed to killing three people and a dog.
The Russells’ dog was also killed during the attack.
A source close to the new witness told The Sun: ‘It was apparently the same day Ray received divorce papers from his ex-wife Irene and he came flying through the door.
‘Ray went into the kitchen and said ‘I have done something unforgivable. I have killed three people. I could not stop, I could not stop’.
‘Ray also said he had killed a dog and had lost his shoelace.’
Michael Stone, pictured in 2005 after judges threw out his second appeal, was convicted of the Russell murders but the case is now being probed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Serial killer Levi Bellfield confessed in 2023 to committing the Russell murders, but police did not believe him
The track leading towards where Lin, Megan and Josie were stopped by the killer
Buck was said to have driven a car which matched the killer’s, had a history of violence and was known to police.
The source said Buck, who was a carpenter, usually had a hammer in his car.
Four years after the murders, in 2000, Buck jumped off Beachy Head near Eastbourne and died aged 46.
An inquest heard he suffered from depression after his ex-wife blocked access to their children.
But it was also claimed Buck had left a suicide note in his van saying he ‘could not live with the guilt’.
Sources in Kent Police said there were inconsistencies between the witness’s current account of events and their previous evidence in 2017.
Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kimber said all information provided was ‘comprehensively examined in full by the investigation team’.
He added: ‘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.’
