The murder of 14 year-old schoolgirl Jodi Jones near Edinburgh on 30 June 2003

[John]

It was Luke she identified. She's on record as being unable to identify the female, so not sure what you're talking about or what Sandra's filled your head with.

So if not Jodi, who was the mystery female Luke Mitchell was arguing with not far from Jodi's house at a time which he lied about being at home, the same time Jodi would be in that very area on her way to meet him, around 50 minutes before he was seen alone at the opposite side of the path by Lorraine Fleming who described him as looking like he was "up to no good?"

So many coincidences eh nug.

Sandra would have us believe all these coincidences were real.  A coincidence that a young couple matching Luke and Jodi just happened to have been seen arguing at the Easthouses end of the path a short time before the murder and a coincidence that a male youth identified as matching Luke Mitchell was seen standing at a gate on the main road at the opposite end of the path a matter of minutes after the murder.  I'm afraid it really doesn't cut much ice.

The parka story has always been a bit of a mystery, surely if he owned a parka jacket all his friends would have known about it too?  Poor police work again!

[John]

No, the jury didn't hear all of the evidence - far from it. They didn't hear Ferris's claim that it was Alice Walker who told him not to come forward. They didn't hear that at least 6 members of the Jones/Walker and Dickie families knew they were on the path, and kept schtum for nearly a week. They didn't hear anything at all about Falconer or Kane (including the witness who would have been able to tell them that Kane wore a Parka jacket in the weeks prior to the murder, and how she could be sure of that).

They didn't hear about Joseph and a 9 bar (or anything else about Joseph, in fact). They didn't hear about the forensic report that stated the possibility that a number of semen/sperm samples may have come from one person (further testing required) and that person was not Luke Mitchell. Or the education professionals who were willing to testify that the stuff on Luke's jotters was "tame" and nothing at all unusual, in their experience, or that the claimed "satanic" slogans were lines from a computer game.

They didn't hear that, rather than the finely detailed story about Jodi coming in from school, sitting listening to a song with her mother and brother, then kissing her mother before leaving to meet Luke, Judith had no idea what time Jodi came in or left, where she was going, or what she was planning to do. She hadn't a clue what Jodi was wearing, and told police she remembered Jodi sitting on the settee trying to talk to her (Judith) and Judith was telling Jodi to "be quiet, shoo and go out."

And that's only a fraction of what the jury didn't get to hear.

Even if the jury was warned to ignore the media coverage (experts have since pointed out that this would have been impossible because, after so long, it would not be possible for people to identify, far less erase information which had been absorbed over that length of time) it seems Nimmo Smith himself was influenced by media coverage. At sentencing, three weeks after the end of the trial (when the media had had a field day) he said he thought cannabis had made Luke unable to tell the difference between right and wrong (no expert evidence was given about the effects of cannabis) and that he believed Luke had carried the Dahlia images in his mind (to commit a "copycat" murder), yet there was no evidence whatsoever at trial that Luke had ever seen those pictures - it was purely conjecture by the prosecution. How did Nimmo Smith come to those "conclusions" - it was certainly not on the basis of evidence at trial?

Are you still attempting to implicate Kane?   Hasn't the SCCRC already reviewed all those claims and threw them out?

[marty]

His friends confirmed he owned a parka. The only person saying he didn't have one is Corinne. Sandra, of course, hasn't got a clue what clothing Luke owned. I'll take the word of Luke's friends and teachers over Sandra's speculation.

Fifty witnesses if I remember correctly said he was wearing a green army shirt were they all wrong then

[sandra L]

Sandra would have us believe all these coincidences were real.  A coincidence that a young couple matching Luke and Jodi

That would be a young couple not matching everything known about Jodi and Luke

just happened to have been seen arguing at the Easthouses end of the path a short time before the murder

No time of death ever established,

and a coincidence that a male youth identified as matching Luke Mitchell was seen standing at a gate on the main road at the opposite end of the path a matter of minutes after the murder.  I'm afraid it really doesn't cut much ice.

please refer to previous posts... did not match luke, time changed, location changed... time wasting tactics here

The parka story has always been a bit of a mystery, surely if he

He? We are talking about Mark Kane here, I presume?

owned a parka jacket all his friends would have known about it too?  Poor police work again

Since it took police investigators 3 years to trace Mark Kane, they wouldn't have been in a position to ask "all of his friends" what he habitually wore three years previously? Yes, poor police work - he was on their doorstep - Dalkeith police could have traced and eliminated him within 48 hours (like they did with Ferris and Dickie) - why didn't they?

[sandra L]

Sandra I cringe every time you bring up Mark Kane. He's completely irrelevant to this case.

Relevance - Fleming and Walsh saw a male (irrespective of changing descriptions) somewhere on the Newbattle Road that evening in a fleeting drive-by sighting. They did not know the male they were "identifying." How can anyone, anywhere, be sure that they were not seeing a completely innocent Mark Kane on the same stretch of road as they were seeing a "suspicious" Luke Mitchell?

This is not rocket science - I am not accusing Mark Kane of anything, and never have.

The relevance is in the claimed "positive identification" of Luke at the Newbattle end of the path - if witnesses may have seen someone else who was not Luke, the prosecution case disintegrates.

[sandra L]

Fifty witnesses if I remember correctly said he was wearing a green army shirt were they all wrong then

more than fifty witnesses, for accuracy!  Green army shirt, with descriptions that matched Luke "to a T" - not a single one of them called to give evidence - and not a single statement from any of them in the defence papers.

Where did they go? What happened to them? How do we account for "evidence" in august 2003 changing so dramatically by April 2004?

[maggie]

Not to mention the "absolutely striking resemblance" you keep talking about is non existent. Did anybody witness a lanky college student with a bowl cut and blonde highlights?



Can you tell me why you had a mod delete this picture when I posted it before?

What are you talking about a mod deleting this picture, when was that?  I cannot believe anyone removed the link, unless the message with it was removed for a reason.

[maggie]

A while back when I first posted Mark Kane the picture was edited out at Sandra's request. I've asked her a few times why she asked for this to be removed and she hasn't answered. Mark Kane's identity wasn't any secret in regards to the case, and even if it was - not Sandra's "property", and it's a screenshot from a public YouTube video. I would like her to justify this. Surely if she believed the resemblance was so absolutely striking, she'd want everyone to see it.

I don't know anything about this, I would guess it was a while ago but there must have been a good reason.

[sandra L]

We're talking about different things. I was talking about the witnesses who confirmed Luke had a parka that mysteriously vanished off the face of the Earth.

And Baz and I were talking about the 50 plus witnesses the police said, in August 2003, had seen Luke tht evening in a green army shirt. Those 50 plus descriptions, they said, matched Luke "to a T."

So what happened to them? And why, when they had such strong descriptions in August 2003 did they go looking, in April 2004, for a Parka jacket? Did they suddenly accept that all 50 plus were mistaken? If so, why?

[sandra L]

There's no evidence it was MK....  Continually bringing him up speaks volumes about your case

There is circumstantial evidence that he was on the Newbattle Road that evening. Why did he tell a witness he'd been seen running there, and as a result had been spoken to by police, when he had never been spoken to by police?

My point, the one I keep making with monotonous regularity, is that the eyewitness identifications of Fleming and Walsh are further undermined by the existence of another youth on the Newbattle Road - their evidence was that there was one, and only one youth. This was a fleeting, drive-by glimpse, thir initial descriptions did not match Luke - it's reasonable to assume it may have been someone else they saw.

I am not implicating MK in any wrongdoing, I'm saying his presence on the Newbattle Road seriously undermines the safety of the identifications by Flemig and Walsh.

[sandra L]

A while back when I first posted Mark Kane the picture was edited out at Sandra's request. I've asked her a few times why she asked for this to be removed and she hasn't answered. Mark Kane's identity wasn't any secret in regards to the case, and even if it was - not Sandra's "property", and it's a screenshot from a public YouTube video. I would like her to justify this. Surely if she believed the resemblance was so absolutely striking, she'd want everyone to see it.

I have never shared this picture because I believe it is morally wrong to do so. Talking about the connection of Kane to the case in respect of his undermining other witnesses is one thing, plastering his face all over the internet is another entirely. To have used images of him could have caused exactly the same prejudice as was raised against Luke because of media images, and that was something I was not prepared to risk, especially as I have repeatedly said I am not accusing him of any wrongdoing.

The reason I asked for it to be moderated out when I did was partly for these reasons and partly because the case was with the SCCRC, and the picture had never been made public in relation to the case - it could have had implications for the SCCRC review.

If you're trying to help Kane, posting pictures of him is not, I would suggest, the best way to go about it.

[marty]

We're talking about different things. I was talking about the witnesses who confirmed Luke had a parka that mysteriously vanished off the face of the Earth.

It was a green army shirt before the picture in the paper with luke wearing a parka, then it changed to he was wearing a parka, that's my point. All the witnesses who saw him in a green army shirt must have been wrong then.

[sandra L]

On August 14th 2003, police believed Luke was wearing a german army shirt on the night of June 30th. They believed this, they said, because 50+ witnesses had described it. They bombarded Luke with questions about a green army shirt and how it had "disappeared" until they were forced at accept that it had, indeed "disappeared" - into police possession directly from Luke's home.

In April 2004, they searched Luke's home again after he was arrested. Now, they discovered, a Parka jacket was missing. Wait. Rewind.

On August 15th 2003, the world and its big brother was treated to media pictures of Luke in a Parka jacket. Why, if police thought this was a "replacement" for a jacket which had "disappeared," did they not search for it in August 2003? Why did they not even mention it, not one single time, in August 2003? Why did they wait another 8 months before thinking, hey, that's a bit odd - the parka jacket he had in June 2003 is missing, especially when they'd been handed the receipt, the week beginning July 7th,  for the Parka Luke was wearing in those pictures in August 2003?

It doesn't make any sense. Dobbie claimed it was the "missing parka" which added to their suspicion of Luke, but, by all accounts, the story of the "missing parka" didn't even come into existence until after he was arrested, after his house had been searched twice already, and after he'd been questioned for a total 19 hours without a solicitor and without a single mention of a parka. Did it really take them all that time to ome up with a story that would "fit" their explanation for why not a single piece of forensic evidence connected to the murder was found on the clothes taken from Luke that night, or on his body, or anywhere in his house or his mother's car, or his father's house, or in the garden.......

[sandra L]

There was! And there was partials for him on the body!

No there was/were not! One DNA sample on a pair of trousers completely unrelated to the murder and no partials "for him" anywhere. A number of mixed samples were found from which a number of males "could not be excluded."

DNA profiles in the UK are made up of 10 sets of two number "markers" - like this:

Marker 1   Marker 2   Marker 3   Marker 4   Marker 5   Marker 6   Marker 7   Marker 8  Marker 9   Marker 10
 9:12           11:13        5:8          23:28        15:18        33:35        17:20        10:14       29:31        14:16


All of us have "markers" in common with other people - there were, from memory, something like 9 males known to the investigation with the same numbers at marker 9 - none of them could be excluded from a sample in which the only available data was Marker 9 data (even SIO Dobbie himself!)

To complicate the matter even further, some of the partials had only one number recovered in a marker so, for example, a sample might recover number 11 at marker 2, and number 33 at marker 6 - now, not only can anyone with the same numbers as those shown here in these two markers "not be excluded" as a contributor, but anyone with one number the same, but the other different (e.g. 11:18 at Marker 2 and 33:39 at Marker 6) also can't be excluded.

One thing that can exclude someone is if a partial sample is recovered, but both numbers at a particular marker are different from that person's profile, then it can safely be said that the sample did not originate from the person in question (so, for example, if a sample turns up the numbers 7:9 at marker 3, then the person from whom our hypothetical profile above originates cannot be a contibutor to that sample, because his numbers at marker 3 are 5:8 )

There was a suggestion that the other semen samples on the t shirt could have originated from one male. Guess what the DNA reports said about that? If they did (originate from one person), then that male was not Luke Mitchell, because there were markers in the samples that were not present in Luke's profile.

[sandra L]

There has been a longstanding campaign of misinformation surrounding the case, Curly Wurly, and this claim of "partials" has been repeated more times than I can count. Every single time, I correct it, and try to give a reasonaby simple explanation of why those "partials" cannot be claimed to have originated from Luke (or anyone else, for that matter) - there is simply not enough information contained within them to make such a claim.

But where partials were recovered that had markers which were not in Luke's profile, we can safely and categorically state that Luke was not a contributor to those samples. This also explains why so many samples recovered from the scene were labelled "Jodi Jones and unknown male."

One mixed sample in the DNA reports was labelled "Jodi Jones, Luke Mitchell and unknown male." That labelling has been utterly discredited by renowned DNA experts who have pointed out (a) there was no full DNA sample for any male recovered, (b) the markers which were recovered could have, in fact, been attributed to a number of males known to the investigation, and therefore could not, in any way, be claimed to be "Luke Mitchell" and (3) an assumption had been made that some of the markers attributed to Luke's profile, could, in fact, have belonged to the "unknown male." The reason they had to include the unknown male reference was because there were markers in this sample which were not in Luke's profile.

I know it get's very complicated, but, similar to my last post, the markers recovered in this sample which were claimed to be Luke's (3 from memory) could, in fact, have belonged to any other person with the same numbers at those marker points. One report suggested that this sample should, in reality, have been labelled "Jodi Jones and unknown male" because of the high possibility that the male markers recovered had all originated from one person and not, as the report had tried to dishonestly suggest, from two different males.