Kent Murders (Sutton True Crime History)

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In 2017, Stone’s legal team – who admit in the documentary that at this stage they had reached a “dead end” – received a letter from a prisoner who said Levi Bellfield had confessed to the Russell murders. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Constance Kent was 16 years old when her brother’s body was found behind her house. Yet it was there his cell neighbour, Damien Daley – held on charges of arson and robbery – claimed to have heard Stone admit to the crimes again. His testimony, would, eventually, see Stone jailed. Twice. As a result of it being leaked, Bellfield goes up the wall. He writes to Kent Police saying ‘it’s all a load of lies – I’m withdrawing it’.” And while the weapon used to beat Miss Knell to death was never found her parents Bill and Pam still hope the man responsible will be found and brought to justice.

Ashley Dighton was last seen at Sainsbury's Bybrook in Simone Weil Avenue, Ashford on June 11, 2007. Explains Stone’s barrister, Mark McDonald: “From that meeting, we got a lot more detail. We had the description by Bellfield, of what they were wearing, how he did it, who he hit first, how he murdered them, who he tied up, how he’d killed the dog. He said he knew the area very well.

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The judge at Maidstone Crown Court instructed the jury that if they did not believe Daley’s testimony, Stone should be acquitted. After a month of desperate searching, the 19-year-old’s decapitated body was eventually discovered buried beneath branches in woodland adjoining the nearby Warren Retail Park. As his barrister concludes, it comes down to which of three men – all found guilty of murder – do you believe: Stone, Bellfield or Daley?

However, the programme features an interview with an anonymous former cellmate of Daley’s – apparently filmed in Folkestone – who claims Daley admitted lying in the Stone case. “He looked me in the eye,” says the former con, “and said it was all lies. You can’t get any clearer.”Hulton Archive/Getty Images Detectives initially did not suspect Constance Kent of killing her brother — attention focused on the nanny and the boy’s father.

Stone was proven to be in Medway four hours before the crime took place (he signed a timed receipt in a branch of Cash Convertors) and he did not closely resemble the photofit circulated by Kent Police, as described by a witness who saw a man exit the lane the murders took place in a car. Mr Dighton said: "I have still got hope that it will be done and dusted one day and they will catch who did it." The answer is ‘probably not’ but it does do a very fine job in highlighting the key elements of such a grisly crime. And it is the long-held anxiety over the strength of evidence which convicted him which has prompted the latest TV documentary on the case.A full DNA profile, which police believe belongs to the killer, was created from crime scene evidence in 2008 but "a missing piece of the jigsaw has yet to be traced". Five years later, Constance Kent confessed to the crime. She had acted “quite alone,” Constance promised, but she never expressed a motive for the murder beyond that it was committed “not out of jealousy.” Claire Knights was last seen in Upstreet near Canterbury on Wednesday. It is believed she was walking her dog in the village to Minnis Bay in Birchington, where she was reportedly seen that afternoon.