MICHAEL STONE EXCLUSIVE WHO REALLY KILLED MEGAN & LIN? Lag’s letters cast more doubt on murder raps
THE man who insists he was falsely convicted of killing Lin and Megan Russell has told pals from jail: “I’d rather starve to death than confess to murder.”
Michael Stone makes the declaration in newly uncovered letters written behind bars.
He writes that he has been denied some prison jobs and privileges because he has failed to show remorse.
And he claims he was the victim of a “deliberate fit- up” that has left him vulnerable to attack.
The letters might throw more doubt on the conviction of Stone, who has been locked up for 20 years.
They were obtained by the Sunday People days after his lawyers said Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield had recently confessed to the 1996 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, Kent. Lin and Megan died but Josie miraculously survived.
Stone, a heroin addict, was handed three life sentences after a fellow inmate said he confessed while on remand.
In his letters, Stone, now 57, writes: “There is no way ever on this earth I would accept responsibility and guilt for murders that I did not commit.
“I’d starve to death before confessing to murder I never committed.”
He added: “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 urges prosecutors to re- investigate so they can “catch the real killer”.
He said: “All the while Michael Stone is wrongly in prison for those hammer murders no one is going to even be looking out for who the real murderer of Megan and Lin Russell is and that real perpetrator is away scot free with his nasty, horrible crime.
“I have stated over and over again that my case is r i ddled with police corruption and 99 per cent of t he evidence was fabricated. When I do eventually win my appeal there will be a big cry out what’s been going on and an enormous public enquiry.
“There is a deliberate hate campaign against me by the Kent police and now it has begun here – on a lesser scale but still a proportion are on the ‘give him a hard time’ buzz.
“At least for the Kent Police there is no doubt they will be exposed for what they have done.
“People say I don’t engender much sympathy even if I am innocent but you could bet your life if they picked out one of the people who say that, they would be screaming for sympathy for themselves.
“I just want true justice and exposure.”
Stone is 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 Walton-on-Thames and the hammer murders of Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22, in South West London.