Three-quarters of Daily Mail readers believe the miscarriage of justice watchdog should reinvestigate the murder convictions of a man jailed for killing two people.

Lin Russell, 45, and her daughter Megan, six, were killed near their home in rural Chillenden, Kent, in 1996 – but Megan’s older sister Josie, then nine, survived.

Michael Stone, a drug addict with a previous conviction for a separate hammer attack, was arrested – despite no DNA evidence linking him to the scene.

Stone was later convicted and jailed for the murders of Lin and Megan and attempted murder of Josie following the crime that horrified the nation.

But that conviction may now be in doubt as the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) probes the evidence that convicted Stone.

In the Mail’s Poll of the Day yesterday, readers were asked ‘Do you believe Michael Stone’s murder convictions should be reinvestigated?’.

Responding to the survey as the Daily Mail launched its new true crime channel The Crime Desk, 74 per cent of respondents said ‘yes’ while 26 per cent said ‘no’.

Michael Stone was arrested over the attacks despite no DNA evidence linking him to the scene

Lin Russell (left), 45, and her daughter Megan (right), six, were beaten to death with a hammer

You can read more about the case in these two articles from the Mail’s Crime Desk:

• Why the man convicted of the murders of Lin and Megan Russell may be the victim of Britain’s most grotesque miscarriage of justice;
• Lin and Megan Russell’s murders were two of the UK’s most brutal. Now, as the Mail launches The CRIME DESK, we exclusively reveal it’s being reinvestigated after 30 years – with an already notorious killer in the frame… 

One of the key prosecution witnesses in the case was Damien Daley, who claimed Stone detailed the murders to him in a jail-cell confession.

Such was his significance that the judge, Mr Justice Poole, told jurors at the end of a 2001 retrial that the case ‘stands or falls’ on whether they believed his evidence.

Read More

Why the man convicted of Lin and Megan’s murders may be victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice

Stone has professed his innocence ever since, implicating Milly Dowler killer Levi Bellfield in the attack and accusing Daley of lying.

The CCRC, which has the power to refer convictions back to the Court of Appeal, is looking to visit Daley in HMP Full Sutton, where he is serving life for murder.

It forms part of a three-pronged probe into the case on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the murders.

The commission will also test items from the crime scene using modern forensic techniques, and analyse the possibility that Bellfield could have been the real culprit.

In an exclusive interview from prison with the Mail, Stone said he would ‘never’ admit to the killings. He insisted Bellfield was involved and branded Daley a ‘lying lowlife… who created a miscarriage of justice’.

In September 1997, Daley was in a neighbouring cell to Stone at HMP Canterbury in Kent and claimed he confessed to him through a heating pipe. His testimony was enough to put Stone behind bars.