A Kent police spokesperson said the death was being treated as suspicious. He said: “Officers have attended a location near Minnis Bay, Birchington, where a woman was found deceased. Kent police was alerted by a member of the public shortly after 7pm on Friday 25 August and patrols are currently at the scene. His original trial – held at Maidstone Crown Court in 1998 – hung on the evidence of three men. All had been prisoners in neighbouring cells to Stone while he was on remand. They all claimed he had confessed the crime to them. All the details they revealed had, however, been printed in the newspapers. Damien Daly is alleged to have admitted to have made up Stone’s cell confession. Picture: Kent Police Explains Stone’s barrister, Mark McDonald: “From that meeting, we got a lot more detail. We had the description by Bellfield, of what they were wearing, how he did it, who he hit first, how he murdered them, who he tied up, how he’d killed the dog. He said he knew the area very well. Bellfield wanted to get it off his chest, but Bellfield said we couldn’t tell anyone. That it was just between ‘you, me and CCRC’. Within hours it was leaked to The Sun newspaper. As a result of it being leaked, Bellfield goes up the wall. He writes to Kent Police saying ‘it’s all a load of lies – I’m withdrawing it’

It was about seven in the morning,” says Stone, speaking from HMP Frankland in Durham, as he recalls the moment in July 1997 when he was arrested close to his home in Gillingham. He was 37 at the time. The man who killed her is still on the loose and he is believed to be a serial killer who five months later targeted another young woman in the town, Caroline Pierce. Despite numerous appeals for information and multiple arrests, police have never been able to make any significant progress, leaving his family desperate for answers. The Kent family lived in the peaceful village of Road in Wiltshire. Their home, known as Road House Hill, was an elegant setting for the family of nine and their three servants.In 2017, Stone’s legal team – who admit in the documentary that at this stage they had reached a “dead end” – received a letter from a prisoner who said Levi Bellfield had confessed to the Russell murders. Constance Kent went down in history as a cold, calculating teen killer. But the truth of what happened in Hill House Road the night Francis Kent died may remain a mystery. The area where the victim was assaulted was close to Tonbridge Park and a large number of residential properties. If you think you may be able to assist the investigation please don’t hesitate to call us.” Five years later, Constance Kent confessed to the crime. She had acted “quite alone,” Constance promised, but she never expressed a motive for the murder beyond that it was committed “not out of jealousy.”

Mr Dighton said: "I have still got hope that it will be done and dusted one day and they will catch who did it."

Scotland Yard Investigates The Murder Of Francis Savile Kent

Stone says leading up his first trial, he was so fed up with people claiming he had admitted to the murders, that by the time he was moved to Canterbury Prison he’d asked to be put in an isolated cell. Richard Leivers – the Kent Police officer who saw the dead bodies and carried Josie Russell from the copse when he noticed she was still alive – speaks of the profound impact it still has on him all these years later. “Nothing,” he reflects, “could prepare me for what I saw.”

But once the details are established, it is unease in the police case – which would form the basis of Stone’s conviction – which dominate the storytelling in this documentary. It is, for the most part, a well-trodden path. Chillenden was a peaceful, idyllic hamlet before the crime shattered the peace Kent Police’s only contribution – other than historic clips and comments from former employees – is merely a submitted statement at the end of the programme insisting that Stone has been tried and found guilty on two occasions. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Constance Kent was 16 years old when her brother’s body was found behind her house. In just April this year, the parents of Wendy Knell asked the public for help to establish the identity of their daughter's killer.A full DNA profile, which police believe belongs to the killer, was created from crime scene evidence in 2008 but "a missing piece of the jigsaw has yet to be traced". DI Lee Neiles, of the Kent and Essex serious crime directorate, said: “We thank those who have come forward with information so far and we are continuing to appeal for witnesses. It is crucial that we speak to anyone who may have heard or seen anything suspicious, just after midnight.