Family’s new plea 21 years on: Find who killed son, 12
IT was the most senseless of murders – a schoolboy bludgeoned by a golf club and drowned under a heavy lorry tyre in a river.
For 12-year-old John Rogers’s family, the only crumb of comfort was police were certain they had his killer.
But more than 20 years after John’s body was found in the River Calder, half a mile from his Lanarkshire home, his family is still seeking justice.
Yesterday, his younger sister Kirsty renewed her family’s appeal for information on the murder in the hope of jogging memories of the day he was last seen alive.
John had gone looking for golf balls on Wishaw golf course on the evening of July 4, 1996 and was found in the river the next day.
Police later arrested a local man who denied the murder but admitted hitting a young boy that night and seeing him unconscious.
But he walked free when his murder trial collapsed on a technicality.
The suspect had severe learning difficulties and should have been accompanied at his police interview by an appropriate adult.
Police Scotland launched a cold case review two years ago but nothing came of it and the family fears the investigation is now in a ‘bottom drawer’.
At one point John’s mother Linda tried to launch a private prosecution against the suspect but was refused Legal Aid.
Miss Rogers, 31, of Wishaw, said: ‘We’ve not got closure so what do you do? Do you just sweep it under the carpet, try to move on? You can’t forget about it. There’s a part of your life missing.’
She added: ‘A lot of things don’t add up. We’re hoping maybe this time somebody will come forward with new evidence.’
John’s mother has claimed there was a catalogue of errors in the police investigation and the subsequent prosecution. At one point she was so distraught about her son’s death and the failed prosecution that she slashed her wrists.
A Crown Office spokesman said: ‘Cold cases such as this remain under regular review and any new evidence that comes to light will be assessed and investigated.
‘There is a risk of prejudicing fresh prosecutions by providing details on how a particular case is being dealt with. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment further at this time.’