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

[sandra L]

I wonder who if not her boyfriend she climbed a wall into a secluded area with

Interesting point. There was no evidence that Jodi climbed through the V break. That may, of course have been because the V was accessed by so many people that night that evidence was lost or destroyed.

But it's interesting because Alice Walker inserted into the narrative very early the assertion that Jodi would only have gone over the wall with someone she knew, but how could she possible know that? What if she was forced to climb over (maybe by someone threatening her with a large knife?) It's certainly a possibility investigating officers considered - there were a number of references to Jodi being "forced" over the wall, before they were dropped iin favour of the "she went over the wall with Luke" claims.

But Alice's statement appears to demonstrate that she accepts Jodi would have gone behind the wall - why, then, did she claim to find it strange that Luke would think of going over the wall when the dog reacted? She said she would "never have thought" Jodi would be "over there."

If as claimed by Dobbie, Luke and Jodi went behind the wall for "Privacy" to have their argument about the "other girl", why didn't they go behind the wall at the big break at the junction of the paths? If Jodi was going to "confont Luke abouot another girl" surely she'd want to do that at the earliest possibility, rather than walking 500 yards down a path to climb over into the same woodand strip they coulld have accessed at the top?

Then there's the wire fence at the opposite side of the woodland strip, where the barbs had been pushed aside to make a gap so that it was easy to get in and out of the woodland strip from there without getting caught on barbs. It's at least a possibility that Jodi entered the woodland strip from here (perhaps intending to meet someone to pick up cannabis and then climb through the V onto the path to continue her journey to Luke's?) This is the place (in the woodland strip beside the fence with the moved barbs)  where an area of grass had been trampled, and was flagged up as a potential escape route for the killer... then never followed up.

So it's really not a case of askiing "who else, apart from Luke, would she have climbed through the V with?" The questions are, did she climb through the V or not? If she did, did she do so willingly or was she forced? If willingly, with whom, and why?  If she did not go through the V, how did she come to be iin the woodland strip, and why?

[marty]

it is entirely possible that she was forced over the wall. And a big ass knife would do it, stranger or not. Quite simple when you think about it. That's like you say,if she went over the wall.

[sandra L]

Ok, so she accepts Jodi would have gone over the wall in daylight. But now, after 11 o'clock at night, she knows Jodi has not been where she was supposed to be since before 5pm. She thinks Jodi might be "lying hurt somewhere," no-one has seen her, Luke didn't find her on the path on the way up, none of the 4 of them found her on the way back down - why not, knowing Jodi may have gone over the wall in daylight, consider she may have become hurt whilst over the wall, and been unable to attact attention?

Given that they all knew Jodi used the path, given that Alice knew Jodi would go over the wall in certain circumstances (remember, she said jodi would have gone over the  wall with someone she knew, not specifically Luke), given that the search trio had headed straight for the path even though they had no reason to do so, isn't the possibility of Jodi lying hurt on the woodland side of the wall the most obvious consideration?

[sandra L]

Sorry, marty, cross posted.

What's really odd is the original police approach (which stood for quite a few weeks) was that Jodi might have disturbed someone performing a sex act in the woods. For that to be their line of reasoning, they had to be of the opinion that Jodi was on the woodland side of the wall, on her own. Why would they have thought that?

[marty]

To meet someone for pot is the most likely scenario

[marty]

That would provide a possible explanation for her being behind there, but wouldn't she tell Luke she was picking up cannabis before coming to his?

Hard to say really

[sandra L]

Well that's easily explained despite how suspicious you attempt to make it sound.

I was asking what seems, to me, to be a fairly obvious question - if Jodi had been missing for over 6 hours, of which 5 had been broad daylight, why did it not occur to Alice that at any point during those 5 daylight hours, Jodi could have gone over the wall, and become hurt there? She said she thought Jodi might be lying hurt somewhere, but the only place the search trio had any intention of looking was the path itself so basic logic says Alice thought Jodi may be lying hurt somewhere on or near the path - I can think of no other interpretation of ths information, unless I'm missing something?

So, if they thought Jodi might be lying hurt on or near the path, and they hadn't found her on the path (and a second check of the path at that,) isn't it just common sense that places right next to the path would be the next obvious place to look?

[sandra L]

For me, the alternative means that there are unanswered questions which could have (or could have had) perfectly reasonable explanations, but because of the way the police railroaded the entire investigation, those questions were never even asked, and now, we're left wondering why.

Was it too much trouble to ask why the search trio headed straight to the path, when by all accounts Jodi was never supposed to be anywhere near the path that night? Or to ask why they didn't search anywhere else? Or did it suit the police not to ask, because the answers might have got in the way of the case they were already building against Luke?

[marty]

Was the path renowned as a place where certain illegal or bad activity took place. I presume so with the suggestion that jodi wasn't allowed to use it on her own. It also being the first place to look.

[marty]

Had she been caught hanging around there before when she wasn't meant to be?

[marty]

That would be a possible explanation as to why they went there first

[sandra L]

The path didn't have a particularly bad reputation - it was used by a lot of dog walkers, cyclists, etc. Alice spoke of walking the path with the children when they were younger (she didn't clarify whether she meant her own children or the grand children).

Since the junction of the paths was directly behind a school with over 900 students, some of whom used the woodland just inside the big break at the junction of the paths as a hang out, it wasn't a place considered especially "dangerous."

The evening Jodi was murdered, there were at least 12 people on the path or in the woodland strip around 5pm - a teenage couple, 2 sets of dog walkers, a couple of kids playing in the woods, a cyclist, Ferris and Dickie, and Dickie senior - those are the people we know of.

There was nothing in the statements to suggest Jodi had been caught there when she wasn't supposed to be there - the place Jodi was caught on a few occasions was Yvonne Walker's flat, where she'd been banned from going because she'd skipped school and hidden out there, and had failed to return home to her Gran's one evening due to smoking cannabis at Yvonne's - if anywhere shoud have been the first port of call, in my opinion, it should have been Yvonne's, especially as she'd lied to cover for jodi before.

But no, there was nothing to suggest Jodi had been "caught" using the path - Janine admitted on the stand that her mother knew "perfectly well" that Jodi used it. That could have been the reason for heading straight there, except that, as far as the family was aware, Jodi was not going to Newbattle that evening, Luke was coming to Easthouses/Mayfield. That was the information they had when they left Alice's house. It also doesn't explain why they didn't look anywhere else on the way.

[John]

Jodi set out to meet Luke after having her grounding lifted, it was only natural that when she didn't turn up that they search the shortest route between Easthouses and Newbattle.

What is revealing however is that the Mitchell's German Shepherd called Mia failed to scent Jodi on the first pass according to Luke Mitchell yet did so on the return journey with Alice, Janine and Stephen in tow.  Any dog handler will tell you that such a thing would never happen which only means one thing and that is that Luke Mitchell lied.  He knew exactly where Jodi lay but pretending to find her on his own would have attracted suspicion.

[John]

There are some claims that Luke didn't return home after school, because he went straight to the woodlands strip to "wait" for Jodi. There are several problems with this theory (not least the witnesses who saw him walking his usual route home).

Firstly, either he would have had to be carrying the weapon with which Jodi was killed throughout his day at school, or he had "stashed" it somewhere in advance. It was never the prosecution stance that the murder had been pre-planned - their approach was that a fight had spontaneously erupted when Jodi allegedly confronted Luke about another girl. From all of the forensic and pathology evidence available, the knife used to murder and mutialate Jodi was a large knife - where did Luke "conceal" such a knife on his person throughout the school day?

The claimed spontaneous fight came about because, the prosecution claimed (without a scrap of evidence), Jodi had found out at lunchtime about another girl. So, staying with the "he didn't go home after school, he went straight to the woodland strip" theory,  Luke had no reason to leave the house that morning carrying a large, concealed knife. He didn't go home at lunchtime, so when did he acquire the knife in order to take it straight to the woodland strip after school?

Then there's the point you make, marty - if the ungrounding that day story is true, Luke would then be waiting in a woodland strip for someone who wasn't going to be out of her house that evening.

Next, there's the curious question of why he would have come out of "hiding" to put himself in full view at the Easthouses entrance to the path (as per the Bryson sighting) - why didn't he just wait at the junction of the paths until Jodi happened along there? If he'd hidden for over an hour, why choose to come out of hiding at all... and what a coincidence that he came out of hiding to be at the entrance to the path in the one minute window available to Andrina Bryson to make her sighting!!

(For clarity, the Bryson sighting was timed at 4.49 - 4.54. It could not have been 4.49, because Jodi did not leave her home until 4.50. It could not have been prior to 4.52:40, because the walk from Jodi's house to the Easthouses entrance to the path was timed at 2 minutes and 40 seconds, so there is just 1 minute 20 seconds for the Byrson sighting to have happened, accccording to the official timings.)

And we still have the mystery of the landline making an outbound call at around 4.15pm, and a dinner that cooked itself by 5.15pm

It's good to see that you are at last considering these questions Sandra instead of blindly claiming that Luke Mitchell is innocent without the slightest scrap of evidence to support it.  All those elements you raise above are indeed very possible and if he is guilty would have come together as the prosecution suggested.

Luke Mitchell was not seen going into his house after school neither thereafter was he seen leaving it later that day.  That in itself is just a tad surprising given that his house was near to the entrance of the housing estate and would have been passed by many residents at various times.  When I visited the Mitchell estate some years ago I carried out several observations and took many photographs.  My conclusion was that Luke Mitchell could not have returned home or departed again unseen unless he was intentionally avoiding attracting attention.

You and I know very well that there is a secluded route across a stream which runs from the end of Roan's Dyke to a point very near the Mitchell home.  A route which coincidentally exits at a field gate on the main road where two women in a car saw a youth matching Mitchell's description loitering suspiciously a matter of minutes after Jodi's murder.  A route which was mentioned at trial having been the subject of some searching by a local resident with some gun dogs.  So the mystery of how Mitchell got home and managed to reemerge back out onto the main road again by 4.50pm is not really a mystery after all is it?

[Baz]

Jodi set out to meet Luke after having her grounding lifted, it was only natural that when she didn't turn up that they search the shortest route between Easthouses and Newbattle.

What is revealing however is that the Mitchell's German Shepherd called Mia failed to scent Jodi on the first pass according to Luke Mitchell yet did so on the return journey with Alice, Janine and Stephen in tow.  Any dog handler will tell you that such a thing would never happen which only means one thing and that is that Luke Mitchell lied.  He knew exactly where Jodi lay but pretending to find her on his own would have attracted suspicion.

If "any dog handler will tell you" and it's important in showing Luke's guilt..... Did the prosecution call a dog handler to the stand to show this?