Ian Huntley: Meet Soham Killer’s Crazy ‘Girlfriend’ Joanna Rutledge
IAN Huntley, the man who murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, is dating one Joanne Rutledge, 27. The Sun says she is his girlfriend. They’ve been exchanging letters for about a year.
Huntley has no chance of ever leaving jail. Her will be locked in one institution or another until he dies. This lover might be just what the prisoner officers at Category A Frankland jail, Co Durham, who have to keep the killer alive need to make their lives easier.
But Andrew Parker, the Sun’s writer, isn’t interested in that. Rutledge is a way to get Huntley back on the front page and stir easy emotion in readers:
Besotted Rutledge gushed sickeningly last night about her bizarre love for Huntley – the evil killer she claims lusts after her.
He isn’t dating her. They’ve not actually met. She is not his girlfriend. Such are the facts. Says she:
“Ian’s lovely. I sent him some photographs of myself and he said I looked really good. He fancies me. Things have progressed with him, we’ve spoken on the phone and there’s a visit on the way.”
By own reckoning she will have to visit him. And he will need approval for the visit. Love may yet be stymied by metal bars, high walls and the law. Says Rutledge:
“I want to see this through and I want to meet him. I’ve come this far to meet Ian Huntley. I first contacted him because I’m interested in true crime and I want to meet him.”
So. Not a besotted lover but a woman interested in “true crime”. Although calling him “lovely” seems to be a misuse of the word, unless she’s trying to win him over?
“He’s had thousands of letters since he got convicted and he can make phone calls to anybody but I’m the first stranger he’s contacted. Frankland do a check on you and they know he rings me and they are recorded. They know what he writes to me and what I write to him. They have to verify each person he contacts. He’s told me he doesn’t expect to get out of prison ever and nor does he think he deserves to get out of prison.”
Rutledge seems to be pleased with her connection to Huntley. As for her being a stranger, she contacted him first. Her letters to a killer have got her on the front page of the Sun. It’s got her noticed. What else do we know about her? Barker is informative:
Pals said Rutledge has a “twisted” obsession with sex killers and had posted a picture of herself on a social networking site alongside American murderer and rapist Ted Bundy.
Pals says she’s twisted? No wonder she’s looking to make new friends, even if one of them is a child killer. And she’s not actually with Bundy. She’s just put his photo on her Facebook page – the one on which she bills herself as “CRAZY”. Here’s Barker again:
Rutledge said hated Huntley warned her to be careful in case people begin to see her as the “new Maxine Carr” and target her.
Maxine Carr was the woman who dated Huntley when the story of the missing girls broke. It was never proven that she knew he was a killer. Her crime was protecting him. She went to jail for conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Rutledge is woman with a carrier bag full of letters and opinions on Baby P (his abusers should have got longer in jail) and Jon Venables, one of James Bulger’s killers she says gets fairer treatment than Huntley, a ludicrous comment given the media frenzy on the child who killed a child.
But Barker has space to fill and the opinions of a “crazy” and “sick” woman who is “besotted” with child killer are worthy so long as they hit the keywords on a slow news day…
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Holly Wells (left) and her best friend, Jessica Chapman. The parents, relatives, friends and people in the home town of Holly and Jessica were coming to terms with the devastating news that two bodies found in remote fenland were those of the missing youngsters. PICTURE ADVISORY 03/11/03. Attention Picture Editors and Chief Sub-Editors. Justice Moses, presiding over the trial of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr at the Old Bailey, has requested that this picture of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, or any similar verson of it, is not used until further advise. *Police revealed last night they were "as certain as we possibly can be" that the bodies discovered near the Lakenheath airbase, close to Mildenhall, Suffolk, were those of the 10-year-olds. The grim task of formal identification was now underway but detectives said that could take some days. 16/04/03 Soham suspects Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr were appearing together in court, for the first time. They were due in the dock in Court One at the Old Bailey where they were due to enter their pleas to a number of charges. Caretaker Huntley, 29, is accused of murdering Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, both aged 10, who disappeared from Soham, Cambridgeshire, last year. He is further charged with conspiring with Carr, 26, to pervert the course of justice. 16/12/2003: The jury in the Soham murder trial was continuing to consider its verdicts for a third day, Tuesday December 16, 2003. The seven women and five men have deliberated for about 11 hours in total since they were sent out on Friday, but have failed to reach verdicts. Huntley denies murdering Holly and Jessica on Sunday August 4 last year but has admitted a single charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Posted: 29th, October 2010 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
