The murder of Jodi Jones is a Scottish murder case from June 2003 in which a 14-year-old schoolgirl was murdered in woodland in Dalkeith, Scotland by her 14-year-old boyfriend Luke Mitchell. She was found murdered with a knife behind a wall on a path where she would invariably meet her boyfriend, having set out to meet him that afternoon.
Mitchell, who claimed to have found her almost immediately after a search party set out that evening to find the missing girl, rapidly became the prime suspect and was brought to trial in 2004. It was discovered that a knife that he regularly carried around with him and which could have been the murder weapon had mysteriously disappeared, as had his coat which he had been seen wearing that night and which could have held incriminatory forensic evidence. The suggestion was that these had been disposed of to hide evidence. Equally suspicious had been that these items were then replaced by his mother, who denied the existence of the previous items. The pouch for the missing knife was found, and Mitchell had marked on it Jodi's initials JJ with "1989 – 2003" (her birth and death), as well as a quote saying "the finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came".
At trial Mitchell and his mother claimed he had been at home at the time, but phone records suggested otherwise and his brother admitted (as confirmed by computer records) that he had actually been watching pornography, saying he only would have done so if no one else had been at home. As a result of this, the mother was additionally charged with perjury, although this was ultimately dropped when Mitchell was found guilty of the murder in January 2005. The brother, who originally gave a different account and admitted to having agreed with his mother what to tell police when he first spoke to police, had also initially been charged with perverting the course of justice before telling the account he had given at trial.
Mitchell continues to protest his innocence, and several attempts to overturn his conviction have failed. A large amount of discredited speculation has been made about the case, including inaccurate claims that no DNA linked Mitchell to the murder and that this indicates innocence, and the family of the victim have endured online abuse and false accusations from Mitchell's supporters. Jones' family say they have always remained satisfied of Mitchell's guilt. He had written in one essay about how he questioned God's existence and added "people like you need Satanic people like me to keep the balance", while in another wrote "just because I am more violent than others and cut myself, does that justify some pompous git of a teacher to refer me to a psychiatrist? Just because I have chosen to follow the teachings of Satan doesn't mean I need psychiatric help". However, unbeknown to Jones, Mitchell was actually also in a secretive relationship with another young woman.
Mitchell was also known to have a close and unusually physical relationship with his mother, sharing a bedroom with her.
Jodi Jones
Jodi Jones was born in 1989 in Easthouses, the youngest of three children born to James and Judy Jones. She was born into a working class family, with both of her parents working for the Royal Mail. Jones has been described as a bright, "level-headed" and headstrong child who displayed a flair for painting and poetry and who was particularly close with her older sister, Janine. She was affectionately known by her mother as her "wee mentor".
In 1998, Jones's father took his own life. His death caused great distress to the family and Jones's mother gave up her work in order to care for her three children. Jones's older sister briefly relocated to Mayfield to live with her grandmother to distance herself from the trauma, but soon returned to her family home.
As a teenager, Jones developed a streak of rebellion; she is known to have frequently adjusted her image and to have alternately dyed her hair colours such as pink or green, to have developed an interest in heavy metal bands such as Metallica and, by age 14, to have experimented with marijuana and alcohol. When she entered into a relationship with Mitchell, she initially kept the relationship a secret from her family, confiding only in her sister, Janine. Shortly thereafter, Janine (then 19) informed her mother of her younger sister's boyfriend. In May 2003, Mitchell met the Jones family for the first time.
Jones and Mitchell frequently met via one traversing through a stretch of woodland to meet the other. A section of this woodland is known as Roan's Dyke Path.
In the weeks immediately before she was murdered, Jones's social life—which largely revolved around Mitchell—was curtailed by her mother after she discovered her daughter had begun taking drugs. The restriction on her meeting her boyfriend was lifted on 30 June, the day of the murder.
Discovery
thumb|right|The end of Roan's Dyke Path, next to which the body of Jones was found. When a search party was sent out to find Jones, Mitchell led the party straight to a gap in the wall on the right of the image, and after climbing over said he had found her body. The ease in which he found the body was later used at court to suggest guilt.
At about 5 pm on 30 June 2003, Jones left her home, informing her family she was going to see Mitchell. Her body was found several hours later on the route she invariably took to meet her boyfriend; she had been bound and murdered. Jones had already texted Mitchell before leaving and he was known to have been aware that she was on her way to meet him, as a relative of Jones had told him so on the phone. Mitchell claimed to find the body, and the ease in which he was able to find it was later used in court to suggest guilt. A search party had been arranged at around 10pm by the family of Jodi Jones, and when Mitchell met up with them he went straight to a gap in the wall bordering Roan Dyke's Path, climbed through it and immediately found the body of the deceased at around 10.30 pm, suggesting that he knew the body was there all along. Mitchell claimed that his dog, which was being trained to track, had stopped at the V-shaped notch where Mitchell climbed through. However, this account was disputed by other members of the search party, who said that he went straight to the V-shaped notch without being notified or led there by the dog at all.
Reports upon the discovery of the body said that it indicated that the killer was likely to have been in a "disturbed and extremely angry state". Police said that Jones had died from "a vicious and frenzied attack involving a knife or a similar weapon".
The injuries sustained by Jones closely resembled those of actress Elizabeth Short, who was murdered in 1947 and was popularly referred to by media as the Black Dahlia. The initials LM and JJ had been carved into a tree near the crime scene. The Jones family made it known that Mitchell was not welcome at the funeral.
Suspicion falls on Mitchell
School authorities cited concern about Mitchell's safety in unsuccessfully attempting to prevent his return to school; two months after the murder he was suspended after objecting to being separated from other pupils.
After the discovery of the body, Mitchell was initially questioned as a witness; he quickly became the main focus of the investigation. Ten months later he was arrested and charged with the crime. He was also charged with the possession of a knife or knives in public places, including St David's High School, and of supplying cannabis. Police were later criticised for infringing his human rights by questioning him without a solicitor present, although it was also ruled that this interview had not affected the key prosecution evidence. and confiscated a copy of The Golden Age of Grotesque by Marilyn Manson containing the short film Doppelherz. It was purchased two days after Jones's death, and Mitchell was known to have subsequently watched it. The film included images of apparently naked women being tied together and abducted. He did not testify.
Prosecution case
A key piece of evidence against Mitchell was the fact that a knife that he was known to regularly carry had suddenly gone missing after the murder, the suggestion being that this was the missing murder weapon.) and "The finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came". The latter was a quote from the lead singer of Nirvana, the favourite band of victim Jones. The prosecution said that he had carved the initials into the pouch after the murder, showing he must have disposed of the knife after the killing had occurred. Additionally, Mitchell failed to provide any explanation when asked for the disappearance of the coat and knife.
Mitchell was seen as having "guilty knowledge"; in finding the body, the prosecution said he had demonstrated that he already knew where it was. The prosecution cited the accounts of the other members of the search party in describing how Mitchell had taken them straight to the V-shaped gap in the wall as the search party walked along the path, then immediately looked left to where the body was when he climbed over it and apparently knew to explore in that direction, suggesting he knew the body was there. This was further indicated, it was contended, by the fact that he was able to identify the body immediately even in the darkness and in relatively thick woodland, and also as he was able to identify the type of tree Jones was found by in later police interviews even though she was found in darkness. This was deemed significant since it appeared to challenge Mitchell's claimed alibi of being at home, since he would have simply been able to tell the time from a clock on the wall had he been in his house, suggesting that he was lying and instead on his way to meet Jodi at their agreed time of 5pm. The prosecution challenged this, alluding to the fact that "these two youngsters had met up every night, if they could, and she had only once before failed to keep an arrangement". The fact that he had been viewing porn was confirmed by computer records. He also admitted on oath to having gone over the details of what to say with his mother before he spoke to the police on the second occasion, when he changed the time that he said he arrived home. Previously, the brother had been charged with perverting the course of justice before finally giving the incriminating account for the first time at trial. As a result of this testimony at trial, Mitchell's mother Corinne (who herself had conflictingly claimed that her son was at home cooking dinner at the time of the murder) was then charged with perjury for lying to provide him with an alibi. This meant that the sighting did not stand alone and added credence to it as it fitted with the circumstances that Jodi had left home to meet Mitchell, and it was made at a place where such meeting would likely have occurred. It was also heard how Mitchell had plans to go away for a fortnight with his other girlfriend, who did not know that Mitchell had been cheating on her for Jones, only days after the murder. The suggestion was that the revelation of the affair could have been a source of conflict between Jones and Mitchell on the afternoon of the murder. Additionally, the prosecution outlined that Mitchell had made a suspicious comment to a witness on the evening of the murder that Jones would not be coming out that evening, even though Mitchell had earlier been told by Jones' family that Jodi had set off to meet him. It was also heard how he liked horror films and occasionally read porn magazines. It was additionally stated, and confirmed by Mitchell, that his cannabis use had escalated after the murder, to a level Mitchell himself estimated to be around 600 joints a week. Schoolfriends told the court that they had seen both Mitchell and Jones smoke cannabis at lunchtime on the day of the murder. Mitchell's mother agreed at court that her son had a short temper and said that he had told a doctor that he had a short fuse.
Defence arguments
No genetic material from Mitchell, which could not be "innocently explained", was found on her body. but in an agreement between the Crown and Mitchell's defence team the issue of DNA was decided to be made irrelevant to the trial, as the pair were in an intimate relationship anyway. No forensic evidence was recovered from the incinerator. Mitchell was the subject of intense press coverage before his trial. Mitchell showed no emotion upon the announcement of the verdicts. He also commented on Mitchell's lack of emotion during the trial, saying "it may be that a lack of emotional response made you more readily able to inflict harm on others".
Confirmed version of events
The events of the murder as determined at trial and by the forensic evidence show that the attack on Jones would have started with Mitchell punching her in the face several times and then attempting to strangle her with his hands. This would have led to her falling to her knees, at which point the evidence suggests he began to use the knife, severing a major artery in her neck, which ultimately caused her death. Her neck was then slashed another twenty times and then her clothes were removed, with her trousers used to bind her body, at which point he would have stabbed her abdomen, breast and mouth, and slit her eyelids.
Appeals
In March 2006, Mitchell was granted leave to appeal against his conviction (and his length of sentence) at the High Court of Justiciary sitting as the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, on the grounds that the trial judge should have moved the trial outside the city. The prosecution countered that Mitchell's defence team had contradicted themselves by simultaneously claiming that there had been intense press coverage nationally and not just confined to Edinburgh, yet had stated that moving the trial out of Edinburgh would have stopped the possibility of an unfair trial.
Also at the 2008 appeal it was contemplated by the Crown that the reason for Mitchell attacking Jones could have been to do with Mitchell having been having the affair with the other girlfriend, who was unaware that Mitchell had been cheating on her. As heard at the 2004 trial, Mitchell had been planning to go away for two weeks with the other girlfriend days after the murder, and the Crown argued at the appeal: "it offers a possible explanation for conflict with Jodi at the time. If he was going to disappear to Kenmore to visit a girl Jodi didn't know anything about, the potential for conflict was there".
On 2 February 2011, Mitchell's appeal against sentence was refused by a two to one majority. Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, sitting with Lord Hardie and Lady Cosgrove, stated that he had the utmost sympathy for the family of the victim and that he understood entirely why this murder should have caused such public revulsion. Nevertheless, he was of the opinion that the sentencing judge should not have imposed a punishment part of the sentence of such severity on such a young offender. He stated that justice would be done in this case if the punishment part were fixed at 15 years. He did not consider that they were precluded from that disposal by anything said in the guidance given in HM Adv v Boyle and Ors (supra). He regretted, therefore, that he had to differ from his Lordship and her Ladyship.
Cadder appeal refused
On 15 April 2011, Mitchell's bid to challenge his conviction for murder following a human rights ruling by the Supreme Court in the Cadder case was rejected. His lawyer told the Appeal Court in Edinburgh that his trial was unfair because he had no access to a lawyer during an interview. Lord Osborne sitting with Lord Hamilton (Lord Justice General) and Lord Kingarth told Mitchell that the application for leave to lodge the additional ground was refused. The appellant's appeal against sentence was finally disposed of on 2 February 2011 and in such circumstances there did not exist a live appeal in respect of which leave could be granted under section 110(4).
In November 2011, Mitchell was refused leave to take his appeal to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, on the basis that his previous appeal had been dealt with before the Cadder ruling and could therefore not be re-opened.
SCCRC
On 20 July 2012, lawyers acting for Mitchell launched a fresh bid to have his conviction overturned when a 300-page dossier was delivered to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The dossier included claims that a Mitchell lookalike may have confused eyewitnesses. The lawyers donated their services free of charge.
In July 2014, the SCCRC ruled that police officers breached Luke Mitchell's human rights when they questioned him over the murder of Jones, but determined he was not the victim of a miscarriage of justice. The SCCRC report stated that, despite Mitchell's claims that he was innocent, there are no grounds to challenge the guilty verdict. Immediately after the decision by the SCCRC, it was announced that Mitchell would take his case to the European Courts; the competency of such a move was questionable since the ECHR has a strict six-month deadline for applications. In 2017, Mitchell was reported to be working on another appeal.
In 2019, GoFundMe deleted an appeal to raise funds for Mitchell led by alternative-therapist Sandra Lean, saying it breached their terms of service. Lean has been criticised by the family of Jones for spreading "misinformation" about the case and for selling campaign T-shirts with slogans on them such as "open your eyes to the lies" and "justice for Jodi and Luke". was found to connect Mitchell to the murder and that this indicates his innocence, though these claims have been disproved by his DNA having been actually found on Jones' bra and hers on his trousers. Defence and prosecution agreed not to make DNA part of the case, as the pair were in a relationship and each's DNA would be expected to be found on the other,
A Freedom of Information request was sent to Police Scotland in response to media claims that a knife found at a farm in Newtongrange in 2003 had not been forensically tested, but Police Scotland confirmed it had been.
After the airing of a 2021 Channel 5 documentary about the case titled Murder in a Small Town which speculated that Mitchell was innocent, a number of criticisms were levelled at its selectiveness. Criticisms were also made of the fact that the programme had failed to mention how Mitchell had made the call to the speaking clock at 4:54pm that afternoon when he was supposedly at home, apparently disproving his claimed alibi, and also how Mitchell could offer no explanation of this. In response it has been confirmed that the police checking the whereabouts of all family members is routine in helping developing a timeline of what happened and is routine in all murder investigations, and that no other family members were ever considered suspects. The family of Jones have been subjected to a number of false accusations on social media, as well as regular abuse from "amateur sleuths" and supporters of Mitchell, which they have described as "soul-destroying".
Imprisonment of Mitchell
In June 2023, it was revealed that Mitchell had failed two random drugs tests while imprisoned at HM Prison Greenock. He had been moved to Chrisswell House in Greenock Prison in 2021 in preparation for progression to an open prison, but after failing the tests plans to allow him community visits were shelved, and his supporters claimed he could as a result face at least three more years in prison before parole is considered. Professor Busuttil had in fact also given evidence at trial that there were "major similarities" between the Black Dahlia and Jones cases, such as the locations and the injuries inflicted.