Russell Bishop
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Russell Bishop (9 February 1966 - 20 January 2022) was a British man responsible for the 1986 rape and murder of two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway. He was tried for the crime in 1987 but was acquitted due to lack of evidence. He was later re-tried in 2018 based on DNA evidence, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Biography edit
Bishop was born in Brighton on 9 February 1966. At 15, he was sent to a special needs school due to dyslexia and behavioural problems but ran away and hitch-hiked home. Growing up, he was often in trouble with the police for theft and burglary and was described by friends as a habitual liar, having once claimed to have been arrested as a suspected member of the Irish Republican Army. At the time of the murders, he was working as a roofer in Brighton.
On 9 October 1986, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway were playing together and decided to go to Wild Park, where they were not allowed to go. The last time they were seen alive was at 6:30 PM, when they were seen passing by a police box. Russell Bishop was also seen nearby. When the girls failed to return home, Karen's mother Michelle called the police and a search party was organized. Bishop joined in the search, claiming his dog was a highly trained tracker dog. The two girls were found dead in a makeshift den in Wild Park on 10 October, having been raped and strangled.
Bishop was the main suspect in the murders due to his close involvement in the search. When interviewed he gave an inconsistent account of his location on the night of the murders. He also claimed to have felt the girls' pulses when they were found in order to check if they were dead; however, witnesses reported that Bishop hadn't even gotten close enough to see the bodies. Police assumed he was lying in order to explain potential trace evidence left on the bodies. He was arrested on suspicion of murder on 31 October.
The case against Bishop was surprisingly weak due to a series of errors by forensic teams. The girl's body heat when they were found had not been recorded, so the time of death (and, by extension, whether or not Bishop had a solid alibi for that time) could not be established. Furthermore, hand marks on the girl's necks had not been measured or tested for fingerprints and blood discovered in Karen's underwear was never analysed. The prosecution's case mainly rested on the recovery of a blue sweatshirt matching the description of the one Bishop was wearing when seen in Wild Park on 9 October, which had been disposed of near the murder scene and which had traces of paint and ivy hairs on it linking it to the scene. Bishop's girlfriend Jennifer Johnson told police it was Bishop's, only to change her story when called as a witness, claiming she had never seen it before the police showed it to her and that the police had fabricated her earlier claims (she would later admit this was a lie). Bishop was acquitted after only two hours of jury deliberation and went on to sell his story to News of the World for £15, 000.
In December 1990 Bishop was charged with a similar attack on a 7-year-old girl. He had dragged her into his car, sexually assaulted her and attempted to strangle her. He was convicted of kidnapping, child molestation and attempted murder and was ordered to serve a minimum of 14 years in prison; he was not released after 14 years and was still serving his sentence at HMP Frankland in 2016.
While Bishop was serving his sentence, the British government removed double jeopardy for murder cases so that previously acquitted murders like Billy Dunlop and Gary Dobson could be tried. This meant that, should new evidence arise, Bishop could be re-tried for the murders. The High Court declared in 2006 that there was not enough evidence to re-try Bishop, so police performed DNA testing on the sweatshirt and found Bishop's DNA on it. Bishop's DNA was also extracted from skin cells found on Karen's forearm.
In May 2016, Bishop was removed from his cell at Frankland and transferred to HMP Belmarsh to await trial for the murders. After the Court of Appeal overturned Bishop's original acquittal, he was brought to trial at the Old Bailey. Bishop's defence was to claim he had been set up and that the real killers were Nicola's parents. He was convicted on 10 December 2018 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 36 years.
In October 2021 Bishop was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and placed in palliative care. In January 2022 his condition deteriorated and he was rushed to hospital from his cell in Frankland. He died from cancer on 20 January 2022.