The daughter of Soham murderer Ian Huntley reveals she was left ‘disgusted’ after police asked if she wanted to contribute towards the child killer’s funeral.
Huntley, who was serving life in prison for murdering ten-year-old schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in his Cambridgeshire home in 2022, was bludgeoned to death with a ‘spiked metal pole’ during a prison workshop earlier this month.
The 52-year-old was left with catastrophic skull injuries after being struck with the metal weapon and ‘ripped apart like a rat’. He died days later at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.
Anthony Russell, 43, was later charged with murder following the assault at HMP Frankland on February 26. He is set to appear at Newcastle Crown Court for a plea and directions hearing on April 24, and currently remains in custody.
In the wake of Huntley’s death, his daughter, Samantha Bryan was approached by two police officers asking if she would pay for the funeral of a man she had never met – a 30-minute interaction which left her furious.
Samantha from Cleethorpes, Linconshire, only discovered he was her father during a school project on crime aged 14, when she came across a blurry picture of her mother with him online.
Her mother Katie Bryan, 45, was groomed and abused by Huntley at the age of 15, and later became pregnant at 16, before managing to escape his brutal clutches.
When asked about his funeral ten days after the Soham killer’s death, disgusted Samantha has refused to be involved in any way, and also declined to receive his ashes.
She was told she could be held liable for his funeral if the costs totalled over £3,000. Meanwhile, she believes they only asked ‘purely’ because she is Huntley’s biological daughter.
Ian Huntley’s daughter, Samantha Bryan (pictured in 2023) was left furious after police asked if she wanted to pay for her biological father Ian Huntley’s funeral
Huntley, 52, was serving life for murdering 10-year-old schoolgirls Holly and Jessica in his home in Soham, a Cambridgeshire market town made infamous by his vile crimes in 2002
Holly Wells (left) and Jessica Chapman (right) were both murdered by Huntley in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002
‘I had nothing to do with him in life and now I want nothing to do with him in death,’ she told The Sun.
‘They asked if I wanted to take on the responsibility, purely because I am his biological daughter.
‘He does not deserve the dignity of a funeral after what he did. I don’t want any involvement.’
Her mother maintained the proposition from officers was ‘the final indignity’ that Samantha would face of having Huntley, who is one of Britain’s most notorious killers, as her biological father.
She said that even after dying, the Soham killer continued to be a ‘blight’ on her daughter’s life.
The mother and daughter both believe Huntley’s ashes should be hurled into the sea, similarly to that of Moors Murderer Ian Brady in 2017.
She also previously discussed her relief over her father’s death, saying his ‘ashes should be flushed down the toilet’ as she believed the ‘devil is waiting’ for Huntley.
Ms Bryan wrote to him in prison multiple times from 2019 onwards, after she discovered he was her father, asking if they could meet.
He replied, acknowledging her as his daughter and expressing his love for her, but repeatedly denied her request.
She had hoped to have a face-to-face meeting with him, not to give him forgiveness, but to uncover the truth about the 2002 murders.
In a chilling handwritten letter, reported by The Sun on Sunday in 2024, Huntley turned her down, saying: ‘I doubt there will be enough time for a significant shift in circumstances in order for us to ever meet.’
Ms Bryan said at the time it made her give up any hope of discovering the truth – and step away ‘for the sake of my sanity and my future’, after the letter confirmed his ‘s****y’ character.
The nation was left horrified after Holly Wells (right) and Jessica Chapman (left), both 10, were killed by school caretaker Huntley in 2002
She said he did not want to give her any answers about the murders, as ‘that’s the only way he can get attention’.
‘He’s shown he’s a pitiful, twisted, manipulative coward,’ she said at the time.
Although relieved she will never meet him, she is also angry and sad she will never get the answers she craved for Holly and Jessica’s families.
Her mother, also from Cleethorpes, who also has three other daughters from a later relationship, was groomed by Huntley, then 23, when she was only 15.
She alleged he raped, abused, and degraded her throughout the underage relationship.
Huntley poured scorn over this account in his letter to his daughter in 2024, denying he ever laid a finger on her mother.
It left Ms Bryan stunned when she read it, but she said she would never doubt her mother and feels he was trying to manipulate her.
‘It had nothing to do with my mum, and there was no need to bring her into it at all,’ she said.
The news of Huntley’s attack in prison came to Ms Bryan’s mother via a call from a family friend, who had read of it online.
It left her sick to her stomach – but she immediately phoned her daughter to let her know too.
Ms Bryan said: ‘Genuinely for a second I felt like the little girl I was before I knew anything about him.’
She even went as far as to compare her father to notorious serial killers Fred and Rose West and prolific murderer Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper.
Both Ms Bryan, who now works as a beautician, and her mother, a finishing operative, think Huntley was attacked as revenge for his horrific crimes.
She said she also attributes it to what she sees as his inherently cowardly and evil nature.
HMP Frankland on February 26, after Ian Huntley was attacked inside by another inmate with a metal pole. He died days later
Anthony Russell (pictured in a court sketch), 43, has been charged with murder following Huntley’s death
Her mother, who has previously been brutally attacked for her links to Huntley, fears that in his final moments, he will ask for his daughter to visit him at his hospital bedside.
Despite her best efforts to put it from her mind, she has always hoped the pair would never meet, as she does not want her beautiful daughter to be tainted by him.
And she said she prays Huntley never wakes up, so it never has to happen.
This latest attack on Huntley is at least the third time he has been attacked behind bars. He has also tried to take his own life twice.
Ms Bryan’s mother said it sickened her that he might take the truth about Holly and Jessica’s murders to his grave.
The girls’ parents, she said, deserve to know what really happened, and they are always in her thoughts.
But she said that even if he does not die from this attack, she thinks it is unlikely he will ever confess what really happened.
Ms Bryan previously told the Daily Mail, in 2023, she was ‘begging’ her father ‘to find the courage to finally tell the truth’.
‘I have asked to meet face-to-face so he can tell me in his own words,’ she said.
She told of how her life had been poisoned by the Soham murders.
‘I’ve undergone counselling and it has impacted everything from my jobs to relationships,’ she said.
‘I have suffered constant nightmares. People still stop me in the street and say, “Your father is a monster”, or, “I know who your dad is”, so by meeting him I have nothing to lose.
‘The main comment that I used to get was, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, which has always cut very deeply because I am the absolute opposite.
‘When I was younger, I worried that everyone would think that and I would become isolated.
‘Even with relationships, I’ve had people leave me and make comments about him [Huntley] and my connection to him. It was hard.
‘From the moment I discovered the connection he has become a bogeyman, like the Yorkshire Ripper or Fred West.’
Huntley (left) was convicted of the murders after pleading not guilty. His girlfriend at the time Maxine Carr (right) gave him a false alibi but turned on him in the witness box
Ms Bryan said she wanted to ‘know for myself’ if her father feels any remorse.
‘I want him to tell the truth, so I can pass that on to the families of Holly and Jessica as they are very much on my mind,’ she said.
‘Knowing their families have never been given the truth causes me profound sadness. I think about it far more than I should.’
After Huntley’s trial and conviction in 2003, Jessica’s father, Leslie Chapman, said: ‘I hope the next time I see him, it will be like we saw our daughters – and it will be in a coffin.’
Meanwhile, in a 2003 interview with the Mail on Sunday Holly’s parents, Kevin and Nicola Wells, said his cowardly refusal to tell the truth had left them in a never-ending torment of uncertainty as to what really happened in their daughter’s final minutes.
They had many questions, the kind which – unanswered – can eat away at one’s soul.
In court, Huntley said both girls died accidentally, claiming Holly drowned in his bath and that he inadvertently suffocated Jessica while trying to stifle her screams.
But in 2018, he confessed to deliberately killing Jessica to stop her from raising the alarm. He still insists Holly’s death was an accident.
Ms Bryan was just four years old when he killed the schoolgirls.
An inquest into the death of Ian Huntley is scheduled to begin next month.
