You're listening to the mens rea podcast and this is the story of Holly and Jessica. Oh, Soam is a small, quaint, and typically English town in East Cambridgeshire.

It's north of London, about a two hour train journey away, and sits between the two larger towns of Newmarket to the south and Eli to the north.

About 10,000 people live there.

Its high street has a small war memorial on one end and is otherwise dotted with the normal

shops and takeaways with St Andrew's Church on the far end. It's a normal middle-class looking town, a nice place to live.

The Wells and Chapman families were well established in Soam.

Kevin and Nicola Wells were both from the area.

Kevin running a successful window cleaning business and Nicola working as a legal secretary. They were very social and often had

neighbors and friends around for parties. Leslie and Sharon Chapman were a quieter couple both from the area but not from Soam itself

Leslie worked as an engineer and Sharon worked as a learning support teacher at St Andrews Primary.

In 2002, the Wells's youngest child, Holly, was 10.

She had an older brother, Oliver Oliver who was 12 that year. She was a model child and an excellent student enjoying writing and art. She was musical and played the coronet and sang. She was responsible and kept in touch with her mother when she was out of the house and was always polite.

She had pretty shoulder-length blonde hair and enjoyed indulging in her girly side. She was a majorette and liked dressing up and having her hair done, that sort of thing.

Jessica was the youngest of three girls in the Chapman family.

Her sisters were 16 and 14 in 2002. Even though she was a few years younger, she was one of them, and followed their lead in behavior.

She was very well-beh behaved and mature for her age, responsible. She kept in contact with

her mother via mobile phone and made sure to ring her, to let her know where she was throughout the day.

She was a sporty girl.

She liked football and swimming and was a bit of a tomboy.

She never wore dresses or girly things and preferred track suits. She wore her brown

hair and ponytails or covered it with a baseball cap. She was good in school and her favorite bands were S Club 7 and

Steps. She was loud and bubbly and popular at school. The two girls met aged four in the local nursery in

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