Ah, the infamous V that has come to symbolise this horrible and tragic case (SL even has it on the front cover of her book, IB). Furthermore, to establish LM was lying and was the killer they even had a full scale reconstruction of the wall and the V built in one of the rooms at Edinburgh High Court (do a google image search and see it for yourselves). LM claimed that he walked some 40 ft past this V in the wall with his dog Mia and the dog reacted here and began jumping up at the wall and air sniffing. However, the search trio refuted L’s claims and said L never walked past the V at all, but went directly to it, handed the dog leash to AW, went through the V n the wall l, immediately turned left, and within about 10 seconds found a body, in the pitch black! LM met up with this search party at 2310 and fnds the body about 20 mns later! Doesn’t tha make you suspicious?!!?!! To me, it is an indication of Luke’s ‘guilty knowledge’ (he tried to deny any knowledge of the the existence of the V before that night, and yet he had inscribed/carved he & jodi’s initials on a tree near to the locus). And, yes, I’m aware that they all agreed with LM initially about him walking past the v and the dog reacting like lm said it did in his statement, but after the trauma of finding the body had worn off they remembered what actually happened (i.e., that LM never put a foot past that V, but walked directly to it and went through the V). It was also very telling that LM was able to describe all of Jodi’s clothing that was strewn around, 20 feet away, in the dark, with only a standard torch, right down to that red scrunchie in j’s hair.
As regards the spot where the attack happened and finished behind the wall — the most common theory is that it began behind the wall, near the V. The attacker hit J initially with a blunt object such as a large tree branch and then grabbed J’s hair (some of her hair was pulled out of its roots) and kicked her about the face and head. It has been suggested that at that point of the attack, J tried to run away, towards Easthouses, but was quickly overpowered, strangled, dragged back westwards out of sight into thicker woodland, strangled unconscious, and then her throat slit, stripped naked, partially tied up, and then mutilated in some kind of ritual/calling card. Jodi sustained over 300 injuries during the attack, which proves just how much of a temper LM had (he openly admitted to having a short fuse, inherited from CM and gran Ruby, and we know of his previous behaviour with ex-girlfriends and old school friends, and that teachers had suggested psychological or psychiatric intervention) and this was likely excacerbated with excessive cannabis use. Cyclist Leonard Kelly heard strangling noises as he cycled past RDP at approx 1710/1715 and the noises gave him a fright to the extent he slowed down to listen more closely; when he slowed down, the noises stopped, which proved that the person behind that wall knew LK was there and acted accordingly to suppress any noises so as to not draw further attention to what they were doing behind there. LK also said that he could hear a motorbike in the distance (in the fields north of the rdp woodlands), so this rules out any involvement of Ferris & Dickie. All this talk about the moped being spotted at the V riderless is not accurate; the boys were certainly in or near the area of the V at the time of the murder (there’s no doubt LM would have heard them on the moped as he was murdering Jodi in a rage) but the moped kept cutting out, so the boys had to push the bike often along that path going home and would naturally place the bike on the wall now and again for a rest (the bike was never at the V but quite near to it; the eyewitness who claimed to have seen the bike at the V were several hundred yards away when they made this claim, so it was impossible for them to see exactly where the bike was). Besides, these two lads were alibied by eyewitnesses that evening, DNA tested, and eliminated accordingly. (Another myth is that JF ‘hacked’ his hair off in a desperate attempt to change his apoearance; he made it clear that he did not like his thick hair when it was getting long, so he tried to cut it himself to try and tidy it up but he made a mess of it and had to get it cut the following day by a proper barber). After LM murdered J and inflicted the mutilations post-death between 1715-1735, he proceeded west down that woodland strip behind that wall until he emerged on to the nbattle road for the F&W sighting at 1740 (the timings fit in nicely, so already we have very strong evidence in the times of the sightings alone). He tried to set his alibi in place as he proceeded west down that woodland strip l, by phoning AO at 1738 feigning concern (interestigly, lm tried to call the Jones landline at 1732 but the call never connected ... was he interrupted by someone or something?). LM would have been hoping that no one spotted him that day when he emerged on to the nbattle road from the roan’s dyke woodland strip so he could get over that fence and into the cover of the Eskbank woods to begin clean-up and disposal of clothing (initially cleaning at the small rivers there). F&W noted his strange behaviour standing at that gate: not making eye contact, staring at the ground, looking suspicious and cheesed off, wearing a parka type jacket, looking a bit similar to Liam Gallagher’s style and the hair a similar length and style; likewise the evidence from scottish executive emoloyee Carol Heatlie, who spotted a similar looking youth (but in a bomber jacket) standing at the barondale cottages, also looking suspicious, turning away from the woman, not making eye contact as she slowed down in her car to try and get a look at this young boy who she also said was acting strange; Carol Heatlie said in court that the person in the dock looked ‘similar’ to the person she saw on the nbattle rd that day. It’s important to note that no other youth fitting this description was reported on the nbattle rd that day. Mark Kane was wasn’t on the nbattle rd until just before 2200 hrs that evening, running to get the off-licence for alcohol before it closed; the off-licence’s cctv was analysed and MK was eliminated accordingly. Also, MK was about a foot taller than Luke (6ft 3” tall). Furthermore, years later, mk’s dna as tested and he definitely couldn’t be implicated in the murder.
The amount of circumstantial evidence against LM makes me feel uneasy. Definitely guilty, imo.
ps: apologies for any typos, etc ..... I’m typing from an iphone.
