Bodies found in woodland are likely those of missing girls

LONDON -- Two bodies found in woodland along a country lane almost certainly belong to a pair of missing 10-year-old girls, detectives said Sunday, bringing a chilling end to a two-week manhunt that transfixed Britain.

Meanwhile, the two people suspected of murdering Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman continue to be questioned by police, although they have not been charged with any crimes. The girls disappeared Aug. 4 from their rural hometown of Soham, near Cambridge.

"It may be some days yet before we are able to positively identify the two bodies," Deputy Chief Constable Keith Hoddy said outside the town's Church of St. Andrew, where hundreds of residents gathered earlier to pray for the girls and their families.

"However, we are as certain as we possibly can be tonight that they are those of Holly and Jessica."

He said the girls' parents were told the news and then he called on the assembled journalists to hold a moment of silence.

Hoddy read a statement from Jessica's parents, Sharon and Leslie Chapman, thanking friends, family and police for their support and kindness and appealing for privacy.

Holly's parents, Nicola and Kevin Wells, said in a statement read by Hoddy that they were "still numb after losing our gorgeous daughter."

Police signaled Saturday they had given up hope of finding the girls alive when they arrested two people, reportedly school workers, on suspicion of murder.

The anguish in the children's close-knit community intensified a few hours later when detectives said two bodies were discovered in a wooded area alongside a dirt path in a nature reserve 7 miles away.

The remains were moved to a local hospital Sunday evening for further examination, police said.

Even though police declined to reveal any details about the bodies, residents fearing the worst left floral tributes outside the church and near the woods.

"May you rest in peace. God bless you and your families," read a message attached to one bouquet.

"Soham's heart is broken," read a card left outside the Church of St. Andrew.

Up to 2,000 students were being offered counseling by the local authority in Soham, the British Broadcasting Corp. said.

A magistrate Sunday granted police more time to question a 28-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murder and abduction and a 25-year-old woman arrested on suspicion of murder.

Police have not released the suspects' names.

, but news reports identified them as Ian Huntley, a caretaker at the local secondary school, and his partner Maxine Carr, a former teaching assistant, who worked with the girls' primary school class until July.

In the British legal system, suspects are not charged at the same time they are arrested. Police have 96 hours from the time of arrest to charge or release a suspect.

In this case, that 96 hours expires Tuesday morning.

Detectives would not say publicly whether Huntley and Carr were suspects, but police have searched their home on the grounds of the girls' primary school and the school where Huntley worked.

Until they were taken in for questioning, Huntley and Carr eagerly participated in the search for Holly and Jessica, news reports said.

Huntley reportedly told officers shortly after the hunt began that he saw the girls just before they vanished, when they walked past his house as he washed his dog. He emotionally recounted his story for journalists and the television cameras.

"I must have been one of the last people to see them alive," he told reporters.

Carr, who reportedly was close to both girls, told the media she would always keep a card Holly drew for her on the last day of school.