Soham killer Ian Huntley has died in hospital after he was attacked in the workshop of a maximum security prison by an inmate.
The 52-year-old suffered severe brain trauma in the attack at HMP Frankland, Durham, on 26 February, The Sun newspaper first reported.
He was reportedly blinded and was not expected to regain consciousness after being beaten over the head with a makeshift weapon at the high security prison.
Huntley was convicted of murdering 10-year-old schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002. Holly and Jessica were murdered after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
His life support machine had reportedly been turned off on Friday after consultations with his mother Lynda Richards. Brain tests have shown that Huntley was in a vegetative state, the paper reported.
The Sun quoted a source saying: “This is it, this is the end of Huntley. He is effectively dead and, at the best, is drawing his last breaths”.
They added: “He never really recovered from the beating he took, and never stood much of a chance of doing so. Huntley had been attacked loads of times in prison so the day he was killed was always likely to arrive.”
Murderer and rapist Anthony Russell, 43, reportedly shouted “I’ve done it, I’ve done it” after Huntley was attacked in the recycling area of the prison.
Durham Constabulary has not identified the suspect, but it said on the day of the attack that a man in his mid-40s had been detained.
Huntley was jailed for life with a minimum 40-year tariff in December 2003.
The Frankland attack was the latest attempt on Huntley’s life, and he was thought to have been kept under close observation to prevent such attacks.
In 2005, an inmate threw boiling water over him while he was in Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire.
In 2010, robber Damien Fowkes slashed him with a homemade weapon, causing a “severe, gaping cut to the left side of his neck” with a 7in (18cm) wound that required 21 stitches.
Following the latest attack, Huntley’s daughter Samantha Bryan, 27, told The Sun on Sunday that “there’s a special place in hell waiting for him”.
She told the paper: “I started crying because I thought he was dead – it was an overwhelming sense of relief. Being his daughter has been a heavy burden. It felt like I could breathe again. I felt if he died, that burden died with him.”
The Ministry of Justice was contacted for comment.
