Where is Maxine Carr now? Her secret life after prison
Channel 5’s documentary Soham: The Murder of Holly & Jessica explores the gruesome murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by Ian Huntley. Ian abducted and killed Wells and Chapman after the girls snuck away from a barbeque party at Holly’s house. Authorities discovered their bodies in an irrigation ditch ten miles from the abduction site.
The police might have linked the murders to Ian Huntley sooner had Maxine Carr not given him an alibi. Maxine claimed that at the time of the girls’ disappearance, he and Huntley were together. In reality, she was at a bar in Grimsby, a town 110 miles away, with another man.
Maxine Carr lives in secret with her husband and child
Maxine Carr and Ian Huntley met at a nightclub in Grimsby in 1999. Carr moved in with Huntley shortly after and secured a job as a teaching assistant in the school Chapman and Wells attended.
After the murders, she helped divert attention from Ian by giving him an alibi and disposing of evidence from their house. The police arrested Ian after finding out that he wasn’t with Maxine at the time of the murders.
Carr turned on Huntley during his trial, referring to the killer as ‘that thing in the box.’ A judge sentenced her to prison for perverting the course of justice. The authorities released Carr in 2004 after she served half of her sentence.
To protect her from harm, a court gave her a new identity and round-the-clock protection. She reportedly lived in 10 different safe houses in two years as the government endeavored to protect her. Several years after her prison release, the High Court granted her a lifetime anonymity order – a privilege she shares alongside three other ex-cons.
Reports claim she gave birth to a son in 2011 and, a year later, started a serious relationship with a man aware of her past. In 2014, Maxine Carr and the man allegedly married at a secret hotel. Outlets reported that despite Maxine’s past, her husband was ‘absolutely besotted’ with her.
A source told The Daily Mail that news of Maxine’s flourishing life angered the mothers of Jessica and Holly, who were robbed of the opportunity to see their children grow. The source said:
“The families of Holly and Jessica will never get to see their daughters marry. They will never get to enjoy their big day. They have nothing to look forward [to]. Why should she?”
Despite the anonymity order, Maxine’s details occasionally appear online. In March 2020, Maxine had to adopt a new identity after her alias, location, work details, and a recent photo surfaced on the internet.
