The heartbreaking true story of two families' thirty-year fight for
justice for their murdered daughters On 9 October 1986, Russell Bishop
sexually assaulted and strangled nine-year-old Nicola Fellows and Karen
Hadaway, in woods near Brighton. He did not answer for his crimes for
over thirty years. Bishop - a petty criminal known to both girls'
families - was charged after his suspiciously close involvement in the
search for the bodies. But a last-minute change of testimony from his
then-girlfriend allowed him to go free, and the Babes in the Woods
murders became one of Britain's most infamous cold cases. Four years
after his shock acquittal, Bishop was convicted of the attempted murder
of a seven-year-old girl. But, with his evil double-murder still
unsolved, the Fellows and Hadaway families endured an endless limbo of
emotional torture - with Nicola's father, Barrie Fellows, even becoming
a suspect as Sussex Police floundered for a conviction - until, finally,
new DNA evidence led to Bishop's being made to answer for his crimes. In
this first book on the case, veteran crime reporter Paul Cheston brings
to life this thirty-year saga of murder, betrayal and injustice - before
three decades of hurt led, at last, to healing, justice and hope for the
parents of two murdered girls. Written with the approval and cooperation
of Nicola and Karen's families, The Babes in the Woods Murders sheds
light once and for all on the awful truth behind what happened on 9
October 1986, and how the courtroom dramas that unfolded over a
generation finally brought down one of Britain's most depraved killers.
