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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
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Tom Pettifor & Matthew Young & Chris Slater

Levi Bellfield's ex says she believes he did murder mum and daughter after alleged confession

The ex-partner killer of Levi Bellfield says she believes he did murder a mum and daughter after his 'confession.'

Milly Dowler's killer Bellfield allegedly this week also owned up to the murders of Lin and Megan Russell in 1996.

Heroin addict Michael Stone, now 61, claims he was wrongly jailed for the murders.

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Bellfield is said to made the claims in a letter to Stone’s solicitor Paul Bacon - who is now going to ask police to investigate them.

Bellfield's ex and the mother to his four daughters, Rebecca Wilkinson, has now spoken out and said she believed the claims, reports the Mirror.

Ms Wilkinson, who was with Bellfield for six years in the 1990s and who broke up one year before the murder of Lin and Megan said: “Yes, I believe it. I knew he would say it after his mum died.”

“It’s just unbelievable really. I think I’m lucky to be alive" she added.

Stone’s barrister Mark McDonald said he will be writing to Scotland Yard this week and asking them to investigate the case.

Levi Bellfield (PA)

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

Lin and Megan and the dog died but Josie survived.

“It’s time for the Met to review this case and interview Bellfield, that’s what we want" Mr McDonald said.

“We will be writing to the Met this week asking them to take a look at the case.”

Lin Russell and daughter Megan (PA)

Mr McDonald said of Kent Police, who carried out the original investigation: “This is not a police force that should be looking at this.”

Adding: “Michael Stone is innocent and must be immediately released from prison.

“Stone has been in prison for 26 years despite plenty of evidence that this is a miscarriage of justice.”

In Bellfield’s statement to Mr Bacon, he says he was wearing a ‘pair of marigold washing up gloves’ and had the hammer in his right hand as he stopped the Russell family walking along a lane.

He claims his intention was ‘to just attack Lin’, but quickly changed his mind on hearing the screams, presumably of Megan and Josie Russell.

Michael Stone who was jailed for the Russell murders but maintains his innocence (PA)

The 14-paragraph statement then goes into detail about how he led the Russells from a track before killing them, and then drove back to his Twickenham home before heading off to work.

He claims the following day he threw the hammer he used into the Thames near Walton, Surrey.

He ends the statement by saying it was the first time he had ‘committed a crime and another person has been arrested for it’, before apologising to Stone and the Russell family ‘for my heinous acts’.

There are major questions around Bellfield’s “confession” including evidence from his former wife that she was with him on the day of the murders.

A Met police investigation in 2008 received evidence from Jo Collings that they were together for her 25th birthday on the day of the killings in Kent.

Bellfield is currently serving a life sentence for two murders including that of schoolgirl Milly Dowler (pictured) (PA)

Ms Collings, who gave evidence against Bellfield and is described as “the very last person” who would try to protect him, previously said: “He never left my side all day and all night, so there is absolutely no way he could have gone from Twickenham, where I lived, or Windsor, where I kept my horses, to Kent, done what they say he did and got back without me not knowing.

“I hate to say it but, hand on my heart, I can say he didn’t do it.”

Former bouncer and car clamper Bellfield is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, 13, in 2002.

He has also been convicted of murdering Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, and will never be considered for parole.

Mr McDonald admitted there is nothing in Bellfield’s statement which has not previously been in the public domain, raising the possibility he has fabricated it using known facts.

Colin Sutton, the former Met detective who caught Bellfield, said last year when the monster claimed he was in the area at the time of the murders:

“Knowing Bellfield as I do, this could be him playing mind games.”

The Metropolitan Police declined to comment.

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