JUSTICE FOR JODIE
Three years on from senseless stabbing, murder victim’s sister makes plea for help in catching killer
SOMEONE is protecting the murderer responsible for Jodie Wilkinson’s brutal death.
That’s the view of the knife victim’s sister, who is pleading for justice.
Tomorrow marks three years since Jodie was killed as she walked down a city street with a group of friends. Yet her savage killer is still at large. Jodie’s devastated sister, Amy, says she will never give up hope that the murderer will one day be put behind bars.
And as she prepares to mark yet another heartbreaking anniversary, Amy has begged anyone who knows anything to do the right thing.
The 29-year-old said: “Someone is walking around now knowing that they are covering for a murderer. I just hope they don’t do it again.
“They need taking off the streets before they stab someone else. They are capable of it and they have got away with it. There is still someone out there who is capable of murder.
“It’s hard enough getting over losing her, but then to know there’s no justice. People are still living their lives, but Jodie has lost hers.”
Popular Jodie was stabbed to death in the
West End of Newcastle during a violent clash between two groups of people, on the afternoon of October 17, 2016.
The 27-year-old was walking along Stanhope Street, in the Arthur’s Hill area with friends when she was knifed during an altercation between one of her friends and a group of strangers, Newcastle Crown Court was told.
The wound to Jodie’s abdomen caused massive internal bleeding, and despite efforts to save her, she died from her injuries.
Amy and Jodie grew up together with their adoptive parents and were incredibly close.
Jodie got into trouble with the police shortly after leaving school and by the time she was 16, she had a criminal record and was homeless.
But she had turned her life around before she was killed.
After receiving help from the Your Homes Newcastle’s young people’s service, Jodie slowly began to get her life back on track.
And in 2010 she was a proud recipient of a Chronicle Young Achiever award.
“It was just me and Jodie, it was like having my arm ripped off when she died,” said mum-of-two Amy.
“We were pretty close. She always looked after us. We didn’t have the best lives growing up, but Jodie was a success. From what she had come from she had turned herself around massively. She could have done anything she wanted.
“She was a survivor, she’d been through a hell of a lot. She tried and she came out the other end and then to think it just got snatched away. She had come through so much.”
David Waterston, of Hamilton Place, Newcastle, was charged with Jodie’s murder, but later acquitted after a trial.
A year after Jodie’s death, four men were jailed for their parts in the violent disorder, which led to Jodie’s death and happened in front of shocked parents and schoolchildren.