Jodi was spotted arguing with Luke on one side of the path,
The girl was never identified as Jodi - even the appeal judges could only say the jurors were entitled to infer she "may have been" Jodi. The descriptions were nothing like Jodi or Luke. The "identification" of Luke from the polaroid photo has been criticised by top experts and lawyers. The witness who "identified" Luke from the polaroid failed to identify him in court. Before the argument that Luke looked completely different by the time it got to court, this witness said she never so the guy's face and would only be able to identify him by his clothing. The clothing in the polaroid was nothing like the clothing she described the guy she saw wearing.
Stocky man, seen following Jodi just after she left home, was identified (he wasn't Luke), but the police never released that information to the police. One of the witnesses to stocky man knew Jodi. If the stocky man sighting is correct, the people seen at the entrance to the path couldn't be Luke and Jodi because Jodi hadn't left home by then.
Luke was then spotted by more than one person acting suspicious alone on the other side of the path after the time of the murder.
A youth was seen standing against a gate, looking at the pavement. What's "suspicious" about that? He wasn't agitated, trying to flee or covered with blood - just standing there looking at the pavement. If he was the murderer, how and where did he get cleaned up within half an hour of the murder? (And that's not allowing any time for the stripping and mutilating of Jodi's body). The witnesses said they never saw his face but were taken pictures of Luke in the media, by the police, and asked if he was the person they saw. We now know there was another youth on the Newbattle Road that evening and he is probably the person the witnesses saw - a simple case of mistaken identity of another youth who was acting perfectly innocently.
Luke was seen at the end of his street (also on the Newbattle Road, sitting on a wall, acting perfectly normally. The people who saw him there knew him and positively identified him.
He phoned Alan Ovens who told him Jodi was on her way to meet him,
Who told him either Jodi was "out" or had "just left" according to his own statements. No mention of going to meet Luke.
but despite this still went and met a friend and told the friend Jodi wouldn't be coming out because she was grounded.
Met a friend who says Luke told him "Jodi's not coming out." (Nothing about being grounded). The other two friends who were there deny that that was said.
Why would he say that?
The friend? Because, like so many of the kids involved in this case, he was bullied, browbeaten and threatened until he said what the police wanted him to say.
