Police study hammer attack link

Detectives investigating the murders of Lin and Megan Russell are studying details of a hammer attack on a woman yesterday in similar circumstances. Police have said it is too early to say if there are any links but information about the attack has been passed to the incident room investigating the murders. The married woman, in her forties, was walking along a country lane from her home in Cliffe Woods, near Rochester, Kent, to a nearby farm shop this morning when she was attacked by a man wielding a hammer.

He grabbed her from behind but the woman fought him off and he fled the scene near Mockbeggar Farm, Cliffe Woods. The woman was uninjured and raised the alarm at a nearby house. Lin Russell, 42, and her six-year- old daughter Megan were killed in a hammer attack as they walked home, with older daughter Josie, along a quiet country lane on 9 July last year in woods at Chillenden, near Canterbury, Kent. Josie nine, survived the attack.