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CNN Live Sunday

British Police Find Bodies of Two Missing 10-Year-Old Girls

Aired August 18, 2002 - 18:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: British police believe their search for two missing 10-year-old girls is now over. They say they are almost certain two bodies found yesterday belong to them. CNN's Diana Muriel spoke with members of a community gripped with fear and sadness.
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DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They came to pray together and to mourn together. Two weeks to the day since the 10- year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman went missing, the villagers of Soham gathered at their ancient church to pray for the families in their grief and loss.

REV. TIM ALBAN, ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH: In spite of all our hopes and prayers, this is what we have been fearing. And we are now staring in the face the outcome which we were most dreading.

MURIEL: Hopes of finding the two girls alive were all but extinguished after the discovery of two bodies beside a woodland track just 10 miles east of Soham early Saturday afternoon.

(on camera): Local people have come to lay flowers here as close as they can, in the belief that the bodies are those of Holly and Jessica. The police have cordoned off the area more than a mile from where the bodies were found. A detailed forensic search has been in progress, and a British government pathologist has been at the scene.

KEITH HODDY, DEPUTY CHIEF CONSTABLE: It may be some days yet before we are able to positively identify the two bodies found at common drove near Lakenheath (ph) in Suffolk yesterday lunchtime. However, we are certain as we possibly can be tonight that they are those of Holly and Jessica.

MURIEL (voice-over): Police are continuing to question two suspects arrested on Saturday for the abduction and murder of the two girls. Their names have not been released. But British media reports have identified them as 28-year-old Ian Huntley, a caretaker at the girls' school, and his 25-year-old girlfriend, Maxine Carr (ph), a former teaching assistant there. Both of them knew the girls, and Ian Huntley even reported seeing them on the night they disappeared.

IAN HUNTLEY, CARETAKER: It doesn't help the fact that I was one of the last people to speak to them, if not the last person to speak to them.

MURIEL: These latest developments have left this close community in shock. The emotion clearly etched on people's faces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people have really come together. I think it will do good, but it's going to take a long time to heal.

MURIEL: Life goes on in the village of Soham, and children continue to play by the village church. But the events of the last two weeks have touched everyone here, leaving many parents bewildered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's only so much you can look after your children, which is the frustrating part. No matter how much I look after them, I can't be with them 24 hours a day.

MURIEL: These watchful parents guard their children even as they come to mourn the loss of two innocent girls.

Diana Muriel, CNN, Soham, Cambridgeshire, England.

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