Stone protests innocence in letters

‘I’d starve to death before confessing to murder I never committed’

The man convicted of the murder of Lin and Megan Russell says he would rather starve to death than confess to the killings.

According to a national newspaper report this week, Michael Stone, has told friends he would “rather starve to death than confess to murder.”

According to the report, Stone, formerly of Skinner Street, Gillingham, makes the claim in newly uncovered letters written from his cell.

He also apparently claims he had been denied some prison jobs and privileges because he has failed to show remorse over the murders.

The letters were obtained by the paper just weeks after his lawyers claimed Milly Dowler’s killer, Levi Bellfield, had recently confessed to the murders.

Lin Russell, 45, and daughters Megan, six, and Josie, nine, and their dog were tied up and bludgeoned with a hammer in a country lane near Chillenden, in July 1996.

Lin and Megan died but Josie somehow survived the attack.

Stone, a former heroin addict, was handed three life sentences in 2001 after a fellow inmate said he confessed while on remand.

In his recent letters, Stone apparently writes: “There is no way ever on this earth I would accept responsibility and guilt for murders that I did not com- Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan; right, Levi Bellfield allegedly confessed

mit. I’d starve to death before confessing to murder I never committed.

“As you know, things can get a bit tight inside.

“The incentive system is geared up to get people to accept responsibility for the offences they are convicted on. So I lose out on many of the privileges and extra cash enjoyed by people who are in prison for committing violent

or atrocious crimes and are loud and proud about it.”

Stone also urges prosecutors to re-investigate so they can “catch the real killer”.

He is currently in the same prison as Bellfield, who is said to have told a cellmate it was “hilarious” that Stone was inside for the killings he carried out.

Stone’s lawyers say Bellfield made a detailed confession to

rapist Richard Baker in Frankland Prison, Co Durham.

Bellfield, 49, is serving life for strangling Milly, 13, in Waltonon-thames and the hammer murders of Marsha Mcdonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, in south west London.

Josie, who recently announced her engagement, and her father Shaun Russell now live in north Wales.

Michael Stone has always denied murdering the Russells