Michael Stone (murderer)

Michael Stone (born Michael John Goodban in 1960) is a British man who was convicted of a notorious double murder in 1996. He has continued to assert his innocence. His original conviction was overturned on appeal but a second trial resulted in another verdict of guilty after another prisoner claimed that Stone had confessed to the killings while on remand in prison. His most recent appeal, in 2004, also failed. He is serving three life sentences and must spend at least 25 years in prison.

One of five children, Stone was born in Tunbridge Wells in 1960. He had a turbulent childhood, with his parents separating and his mother marrying a total of four times. He was placed into a care home where he was physically and sexually abused. Stone's police record dates back to the age of 12 and he became involved in shoplifting and burglary which continued into adulthood. Once leaving the care system Stone began using heroin.

Stone served three prison sentences in the 1980s for robbery, burglary, grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

On 9 July 1996, in a country lane in Chillenden, Kent, England, Lin Russell, aged 45, her two daughters, six-year-old Megan and nine-year-old Josie and their dog Lucy, were tied up and savagely beaten with a hammer in a robbery attempt. Lin, Megan and their dog Lucy were killed but, despite appalling head injuries, Josie survived and went on to make an excellent recovery. Josie's recovery and the way she and her father, Shaun Russell, coped with the aftermath of the tragedy were the subject of a BBC documentary. Father and daughter had by then moved to the Nantlle Valley in Gwynedd, Wales.

The crime received a great deal of publicity and in July 1997 police arrested and charged 37 year-old Michael Stone with the crimes. Stone pleaded not guilty at his original trial in 1998 but was convicted on the strength of testimony from a witness who claimed that Stone had confessed to him while in prison. Stone was sentenced to life imprisonment.

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