Babes In The Wood Killer Russell Bishop Has Died Aged 55

Child murderer Russell Bishop has died in hospital after being rushed there from a top security prison.

According to The Sun, the 'Babes in the Wood' killer was taken from HMP Frankland, Co Durham, but it's believed he passed away alone and was watched over by prison officers.

The 55-year-old sexually assaulted and strangled to death nine-year-old friends Karen Haddaway and Nicola Fellows in Brighton woodland back in 1986.

Alamy

Bishop, a 20-year-old roofer at the time, was charged with killings but later acquitted in court.

It took more than 30 years and a change in the law, fought for by the girls' families, before Bishop was convicted at a retrial in 2018. 

Last year, it was revealed that Bishop had been diagnosed with bowel cancer and despite having surgery the disease spread quickly.

By October, it emerged that he was being given palliative care, with the families of those he murdered pleading with him to explain why he committed the attacks.

Despite being initially acquitted, experts suggested that his guilt was obvious after they looked at old interview footage:

In a TV interview following his original trial in 1987, it's believed there are physiological signs that he is hiding something.

Body language expert, Dr Cliff Langley, appeared on a series called Faking It, where he said: "There's an anxiety that's beneath the surface and this is indicated by an increase in blink break.

"That means that he's thinking hard, because blinking, when it increases in rate, is an indication of cognitive load."

Police Handout

He went on to say: "If we also watch his chest, we see an increase in upper chest breathing. Normally, when we're comfortable, we breathe from the stomach. This is why on a polygraph, they have two straps, they have one around the abdomen, and one around the chest. And so they can determine if the breath changes, to the upper chest, which signals anxiety.

"Now, we don't need a polygraph, because we can watch that breathing, from the chest here, with the rise and fall of his clothing. So, combined with rapid blinking and the upper chest breathing, we can be fairly confident that anxiety has increased at this point."