Shocked town mourns dead girls

Residents of Soham attended a church service for the girls

SOHAM, England -- The police statement that the two bodies found near their town are those of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman confirmed what most people in he small town of Soham already feared to be true.

The small eastern England community, already close knit before August 4, when the girls were last seen alive, had rallied round in the past 14 days to offer support to the girls' parents and help the police in the search.

The focus of the community throughout was St Andrews Church, where on Sunday -- with forensic teams investigating the site where the bodies were found just 10 miles away -- the residents gathered in a special service.

During the packed service, the Reverend Tim Alban Jones, vicar of Soham, said there was not a single member of the small community who had not been moved by the girls' disappearance.

"The whole town feels violated by the disappearance of Jessica and Holly," he said.

EXTRA INFORMATION Timeline: Hope, grief and despair

He also spoke of the "pain and anguish" of the parents after the discovery and the "difficult and searching questions that have no easy answers."

"Where and how does God fit into all this? Does the Bible have anything to say to us in this situation?" he asked.

The events raised questions about "the depravity to which humans can sink."

Alban Jones said the girls had been "our first thought in the morning and last thought every night."

A distraught woman leads her daughter away from Sunday's church service

He added: "Throughout this devastating fortnight we have had the images of Holly and Jessica etched on our minds. Pictures of their happy, smiling faces have been displayed in just about every window in town."

During the frantic search, residents, police officers and Britain as a whole, clung to the hopes that Holly and Jessica would be returned to their families alive.

But as forensic teams arrived at nearby Mildenhall in Suffolk -- where the two bodies were found -- on Saturday afternoon, people in Soham spoke of their shock and despair. (Full story)

Anna Sleight, 28, a former cleaner at St Andrew's Primary School, where the girls' were pupils, told the Press Association: "The jigsaw puzzle is finally fitting together, it's just that one more piece is needed and that's to confirm it is the two girls.

"The atmosphere is quiet here. No-one would want the bodies to be of the two girls, I think people have this belief that they are still alive.

"If it isn't them we are back to looking for them again and everybody is trying to hold on to a little bit of hope."

Soham's Methodist minister Alan Ashton said: "I think if the bodies that have been discovered this afternoon are confirmed to be the bodies of Holly and Jessica then certainly the despair and anger that the town has felt, which is nothing to the distress and anger of Holly and Jessica's parents, will be intensified.

"It is bound to have that effect. It is almost like drawing a line across, which wouldn't be an ending but would be an answer to the whereabouts of these two dear children."

Geoff Fisher, headteacher of St Andrew's Primary School, said: "I'm devastated. I have been clinging for the last two weeks to the hope that Jessica and Holly would be found alive, clinging to the hope that they would be starting school in September.

"We have been through the rollercoaster of the last fortnight and the news this morning was just devastating, I felt totally numb."

Soham Village College principal Howard Gilbert said he had also been left devastated.

Flowers are being left at St Andrews Church in memory of the girls

He said: "I was distressed, shaking. We have all been following the story of the girls and hoping for a happy ending... It's a nightmare."

The Bishop of Huntingdon, the Right Reverend John Flack, said he had been impressed with the support shown to Holly and Jessica's parents by the community.

But he said he feared the worst was perhaps yet to come for them.

He told Sky News: "As they come to terms with the permanent fact of the murder of Jessica and Holly, which no-one can undo, coming to terms with all that for the family and the community will be very, very difficult.

"Time will help to lessen the pain but that's going to be a fair while ahead, I think."