Levi Bellfield confessed to murdering Milly Dowler and two others but may have killed more. Photo / Supplied
Levi Bellfield confessed to murdering Milly Dowler and two others but may have killed more. Photo / Supplied
For more than 20 years, the family of Lin Russell and her daughter Megan have believed one story.
They have been convinced that the man who bludgeoned the 45-year-old British mum and her 6-year-old daughter to death with a hammer was a drug addict named Michael Stone.
Stone, who has a history of violence, was jailed for the grisly murders in 1998 – two years after the pair were set upon while walking home through woodland in Kent, southeast England.
The knowledge that the killer was behind bars was some small comfort to Lin's other daughter Josie who, as a 9-year-old, was the only survivor of an attack that rocked the country.
But two decades on, a chilling four-page confession has emerged from serial killer Levi Bellfield – responsible for three murders including that of Millie Dowler, a 13-year-old schoolgirl, in 2002.
Bellfield, who shares a prison with Stone, says police got the wrong man.
Paul Bacon, a lawyer representing Stone, says the confession contains details only the Russell family killer would know.
Levi Bellfield claims he killed at least five women, including a young girl. Photo / Supplied
"It is a full and frank confession. I believe what he is saying and I think if the police were to interview him he would finally admit the murders," Bacon told Sky News.
"It's a remarkably detailed account of what's happened and what went on the day," he said.
"Some of the tiny pieces of information are such that you wouldn't have thought to make it up. I'm totally convinced it's a genuine confession."
He said there are elements of the confession that he will be "asking police to corroborate".
French student Amelie Delagrange was murdered by Levi Bellfield. Photo / Supplied
It is being reported that Bellfield used the confession to apologise to Stone and to the Russell family. But it begs the question: could police and prosecutors have got it so wrong?
Serial killer a 'horrible, arrogant, narcissistic person'
Bellfield wrote the confession with the full knowledge he will never be eligible for parole whether convicted of the Russell family killings or not.
A former detective who spent 10 days trailing him as part of the investigation into other murders in 2004, said it was entirely plausible that Bellfield had killed the mother and daughter – and tried to kill Josie, too.
"He's a horrible, arrogant, narcissistic person," Neil Lancaster told Sky News.
"An evil, horrible man – the worst I ever saw. Somebody who goes to that level of offending doesn't start there. He works up to it.
Schoolgirl Kate Sheedy survived an attacked by Levi Bellfield as he went on a killing spree.
"He'd always been an abusive person. I wouldn't be in any way surprised if he had killed before."
A former nightclub bouncer, Bellfield was behind the kidnap and murder of Milly Dowler in 2002.
He managed to evade capture for that crime only to carry out more murders.
In 2003, he beat to death Marsha McDonnell, 19, as she walked home and in 2004 he murdered French student Amelie Delagrange, 22.
He had tried to claim more victims but a pair of young women survived. Irma Dragoshi was ambushed while she waited for a bus in West London and suffered injuries but got away.
Kate Sheedy was run over after being approached by Bellfield in the same area.
Sky News published extracts from the statement, which Bacon said he would be forwarding to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the police, which apparently detail how the attack was carried out.
Stone's conviction for the murders was partly based on another prisoner's account of him confessing.
Stone won an appeal against the initial conviction but was then found guilty again in a retrial.
Killing method similar in all five murders
Lin Russell, her daughters Josie and Megan and the family dog were walking through a country lane in Chillenden, Kent, after a swimming carnival when they were attacked.
The lane was secluded and as they walked past a parked car the killer emerged demanding money.
The girls and their mother were tied up, blindfolded and beaten with a hammer. Josie, who was blindfolded with parts of her swimming costume, miraculously survived but suffered significant injuries.
The killer even took his rage out on the family dog.
In his four-page confession, Bellfield, 53, writes: "Something like this has never happened to me, in the sense I've committed a crime and another person has been arrested for it. I apologise to Stone and the Russell family for my heinous acts."
He mentioned weapons he had in his car that Stone's legal team say could free their client.
"In my car I had a screwdriver, a lock knife, a hammer, yellow Marigold gloves and a very long black bootlace," Bellfield writes.
Stone's criminal history includes attacking a man with a hammer during a robbery in 1981, stabbing a former school friend in the chest with a knife and gouging the eye of a policeman.
He was jailed for the murders without DNA evidence linking him to the crime scene.
