PCSO’s murder has chilling echoes of notorious Chillenden killings

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The body of murdered PSCO Julia James was found on Tuesday on a path at the edge of Akholt Wood in Snowdown, near Aylesham in Kent. 

This is just two and a half miles from Cherry Garden Lane in the neighbouring village of Chillenden, where Lin Russell, 45, was murdered alongside her six-year-old daughter Megan in July 1996.

Ms James, a 53-year-old mother of two, was attacked while out walking her dog, with police fearing she could have been targeted by a random attacker.

 Meanwhile, Dr Russell and her two daughters were ambushed while walking home down a quiet country lane from a swimming competition. 

The eldest, Josie, nine, survived the attack and is now a successful textile artist who lives with her partner and ‘soul mate’, Iwan, at their home in the Welsh hills. 

Wayne Davis, who was with Mrs James for 13 years before their split in 2009, drew a comparison between both tragedies. 

‘It immediately reminded me of what happened with Lin and Megan Russell in Chillenden, which is just 2.5miles away,’ he said. 

Michael Stone was later convicted of murdering Dr Russell and Megan and seriously injuring her nine-year-old sister, Josie, on July 9, 1996.

Stone tied them up with strips torn from Josie’s swimming towel, a bootlace and a pair of tights before blindfolding them and beating them to death with a hammer. 

Josie survived the brutal attack, leaving her traumatised and unable to speak for a whole year. 

Stone also killed the family dog, Lucy. Meanwhile, Ms James’ Jack Russell terrier stayed with her body until it was found lying on a path

The random attack shocked the nation and sparked one of the biggest manhunts in British police history, with heroin addict Stone, then 37, arrested more than a year later and charged.  

He was given three life sentences being found guilty at two trials – he also lost an appeal. The basis of his conviction was a confession to a fellow prisoner. 

Stone has always protested his innocence and insisted Milly Dowler’s killer Levi Bellfield was to blame. He lost his latest bid to have his conviction overturned in 2019. 

Josie went on to rebuild her life after the tragedy, and in 2009 graduated from Coleg Menai in Bangor with a degree in graphic design. She started a greeting card business before moving on to producing textile landscapes, which now sell for up to £500 each. 

Josie appeared on Lorraine in 2018, 22 years on from the attack, where she said: ‘I’m not a victim, I’m not a survivor, I’m just me.’

Josie revealed her fiance Iwan knew nothing about her past when they met at university in Caernarfon on December 31, 2005.

She said: ‘I don’t remember very much. We didn’t really talk about anything. We just carried on with life. We went out and did normal teenage stuff.’

Asked how she has managed to overcome her life-changing ordeal, she said: ‘I think just being really, really busy. My work is doing really well.

‘That’s just making me focus on that and the future and everything.’

Describing him as her ‘soul mate’, she also told of how they live together in the house she grew up in with her father after her mother and sister died.

After Josie’s discharge from hospital, her father Shaun Russell, a botanist, took her back to the secluded Nantlle valley in North Wales where the family had once lived, and where they could focus on dealing with their grief and her recovery.

She told the show: ‘I feel like I’ve always lived in that house. We’re just making it how we wanted it to be now, a little bit more updated, because it’s a very old house.

‘Yeah definitely, happy times, I remember playing in the garden and things like that.’

During her appearance in 2018 Josie said she was unsure when she was going to have children.  

Described as being so positive by Lorraine, Josie said: ‘I’ve just got to get on with life and just carry on. I love my job, it’s all fine. Happy.’

Josie’s relationship with her father and her mother’s old horse Rosie has helped her through her struggle.   

Today police urged the public to be vigilant as they continued to investigate Ms James’ murder. 

The PCSO, who had worked for the police for nearly 15 years and had been commended for bravery for chasing a shoplifter, was found dead with serious head injuries. 

Her body was found lying on a path at the edge of a field in Akholt Wood on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm. She was last seen by a neighbour leaving the house an hour earlier.

Her ex-partner suggested that her work in Kent Police’s domestic violence unit is also being looked at in case she was attacked by someone with a vendetta.

Wayne Davis, who was with Mrs James for 13 years before their split in 2009, had earlier in the day texted son Patrick a Facebook link about a woman being found dead on a local path.

He asked Patrick if he knew what was going on and his son messaged back that he did not but said there was a ‘load of police’ around the village.

However, when Patrick returned to the home he shares with his girlfriend hours later in Dover he was told the awful news and rang Mr Davis in tears to say ‘that woman is mum’.