A police officer has revealed how he spotted a flicker of life in hammer attack victim Josie Russell - before cradling her in his arms and rushing her to hospital.
Retired Kent Police officer Richard Leivers says he is haunted by the blood-stained scene of the Chillenden murders in 1996. He believed there were no survivors after Dr Lin Russell, 45, and her two daughters, Josie, then nine, and Megan, six, had been bludgeoned. But as he surveyed the woodland on Cherry Garden Lane in the idyllic Kent countryside he noticed Josie’s shoulder “twitch”.
Re-living the nightmare Mr Leivers said: “You could see that three people were laying on the floor and the dog a little later on. I went in and shone the light, there was blood from the top of their heads and blood on their faces down their clothes. Their lives were over. They had been tied to the tree and the rope was cut and they fell to the floor.”
Lin Russell with daughter Josie, who miraculously survived the attack (PA)He added: “My brain was telling me they weren’t real, they were shop dummies. “As I shone the light on Josie I saw her shoulder twitch, just slightly. She was alive. I swooped her up in my arms and we walked down the path with her. She was screaming, she was bleeding out on my arm. I held her tight and the doctor drove like a madman to the hospital. They said to prepare ourselves because she probably wouldn’t make it to the morning.”
Josie was the sole survivor of the frenzied attack and was rushed to Kings College Hospital in London. After the attack, Josie had to learn to speak again and had a titanium plate in her head.
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Dr Marion Crouchman, a consultant neuropediatrician at King’s College London, helped treat Josie when she arrived. In a new Sky documentary due to air this week, The Russell Murders: Who Killed Lin & Megan, she said: “I never heard her shout, I never heard her cry. She didn’t actually behave like any other head injury child I’ve ever seen. She used to suddenly want to walk, and she would start walking and she’d head to the door. It was extraordinary.”
Josie, pictured in 2008 (PA)Defying the odds, Josie made a slow recovery and pursued a career as an artist. She graduated from Coleg Menai in Bangor with a degree in graphic design in 2009 and went on to marry a fire alarm engineer, Iwan Griffith. But like Josie, Mr Leivers has lived with the horror of what he saw for nearly three decades.
He said: “Two very vulnerable children and a vulnerable woman, bludgeoned to death with a hammer, that’s just inconceivable.” He added: “I’ve suffered for it mentally. And I just want to get some closure and I want to get over it. I don’t think I ever will fully, but I’m trying.”
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