Bike tragedy teen was awaiting trial over savage attack on schoolboy
HER name was Jodi. She was 14. She liked music, especially Nirvana, she loved her family and she was popular. Sunflowers were her favourite.
She was described as a typical teenager who was the “sunshine to a lot of people.” On June 30, 2003, she was brutally murdered.
The day she died, I was 4000 miles away with a bad phone signal and no idea about the tragic story unfolding near my home town.
I knew something major had happened when I was given a message by the hotel to contact my boss “urgently”. By this time the missing teenager had become the murdered schoolgirl.
I arrived back in Scotland a few days later and immediately set to work. Rumours had been swirling that her boyfriend, Luke Mitchell, was a suspect but nothing was confirmed. Parents were warned to keep their children at home or close by. I remember thinking there was a smell of fear in the air and immense sadness.
Over the next few months, theories, potential suspects, motives and sometimes rumours kept us busy. Police appeals for information were a regular occurrence.
I’d come across the officers in the inquiry a few times in the course of my work and they were all known as experienced, solid, hard-working detectives.
Contrary to popular belief, the investigation was kept “tight” and any leaks were swiftly denied or stamped on in an effort by police to ensure their investigation remained as confidential as possible.
Of course we heard things from various sources and most of us knew early on Mitchell was a suspect. This was never confirmed by Lothian and Borders Police.
There were no secret briefings about Mitchell to the media.
Nobody was surprised when he was arrested and charged. By the time of his trial I was at our sister paper, the Sunday Mail.
When he was found guilty, I found myself down in England, talking to one of Jodi’s best friends who wanted to pay tribute to the youngster.
Jodi’s mum, Judy, released a statement through Lothian and Borders Police.
To this day, Judy has refused to sit down and discuss her daughter’s death in detail with any journalist. She’s always maintained a dignified silence even when Mitchell and his supporters have been shouting from the rooftops.
I believe Judy Jones felt her daughter’s death and the circus created by Mitchell afterwards became so public that keeping her grief private was the last thing she could do for her child. It was and is her right.
We can only guess how she and Jodi’s family feel each time Corinne and Luke Mitchell protest his innocence but it leads me to think about the day of Jodi’s funeral when Mitchell and his mother turned up at Jodi’s grave with flowers and Judy dumped them back on their doorstep. Sometimes actions speak far
louder than words.