RedHanded - Episode 214: Jodi Jones: Murder in Midlothian

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

On the 3rd of June 2003, 14-year-old Jodi Jones ran home from school and begged her mum Judith to let her go out. Eventually, mum relented and Jodi rushed out saying she was off to meet her boyfriend, a local 14-year-old boy Luke Mitchell. 6 hours later Jodi's naked, mutilated body was found in the woods just a mile from her house, by the very same boy.  UK TOUR 2021 - new dates added! Get your tickets here: https://linktr.ee/RedHandedthepod Book: https://linktr.ee/RedHanded_Book Patreon: patreon.com/redhanded Subscribe to our new YouTube Channel: YouTube - Subscribe Pre-order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Signed copies - US & Canada Pre-order on Wellesley Books Pre-order on Amazon.com Pre-order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Signed copies - UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus Pre-order on Amazon.co.uk Pre-order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Facebook Sources: Website Contact us: Contact See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to Red Handed. And hopefully we just sound different not worse because my friends the day has arrived we're out of the boxes we are this is Red Handed Unboxed Red Handed Unboxed but still plugged hopefully well we will find out um yes we have made our own little studio in our office and we feel like it's pretend and like someone's going to come and tell us to stop doing it at any moment. Yeah, I think what an evolution we've gone from being literally under duvets. If anyone thought that was a joke, no, no, no. For about a year or two, it's not short lived.

Oh, no, no. Quite a long time under duvet forts. Then we bought ourselves little boxes that we recorded in we did yeah and now we are in a studio that we have built in a we work in east london yep no one showed us how to do it we just figured it out and it's all thanks to you i i this is such a like a random episode to be having such a an emotional moment with all of you but uh it's thanks to all of you and we're just so excited so happy my back feels immediately better I'm sat down oh my god Stools for Cerruti is here Stools for Cerruti has finally reached its crowdfunder target of just getting her dragging her by her hair into an office as your

reward you are gonna get a fucking banger of an episode today I think most certainly are um by the time you're listening to this we'll know if we're a bestseller or not thank you so much to everyone who bought a copy of the book who bought a copy of the audiobook it means the world to us like it it was just such a passion project a labor of love etc etc and we couldn't be more grateful so that's it I think thanks out the way shall we I think we bloody better absolutely let's do it all right so everyone ready we're off to Scotland today Scotland in our glass studio box we're gonna fly it like Charlie's magic elevator let's go so on Monday the 30th of June 2003, 14-year-old Jodie Jones came home from school and begged her mum Judith to please unground her.

Jodie had been caught skipping school and smoking weed with her cousins, which of course her mum wasn't too pleased about. Fair enough. Yeah, at 14. There's a lot of the parts of this story that are definitely not fair enough. No. But that isn't one of them. No, no. But giving in to Jodie's pleas, Judith relented and told her daughter that she could go out,

just as long as she was home by 10 at the absolute latest. Which is late. I mean, yeah. Like, Jodie's mom is, you know, she's being very nice. She's being very nice to her. I mean, we'll save this for our uh eventual parenting podcast that will never ever start it's just called don't don't full stop but uh no my god i think my bedtime was like nine until i was like 18

get to your room i used to have a tv in my room that I bought after saving for actually two years. I think I probably bought it with some like Holy Communion money that I'd like squirreled away. And my mum's bedroom was next to my bedroom. And if she could hear it on past half past nine. Oh yeah. Trouble. She'd come straight into your room.

Bad news bears. Yeah. I also was finally granted permission to have a TV in my room, possibly at the age of 16. And I just used to sit in there and watch Desperate Housewives. And sometimes, if you're really lucky and it wasn't raining, you'd get Channel 5. Oh, yeah. The waggle of the aerial.

But no, Jodie's off. Monday night, she's off out. She's ungrounded. And once she heard this news, an ecstatic Jodie ran upstairs, tore off her school uniform and got into her usual black on black goth garb which is just so like of the era you know early 2000s every 14 year old was dressing like an emo goth that was the vibe I definitely was didn't you have a bit of a bit of a dog collar phase I did have a dog collar phase but I was entirely a poser I was entirely a poser really absolutely I mean you know I listened to

like Green Day and all and like Red Hot Chili Peppers was probably like the soundtrack of like school for us I would say but like I bought my fucking black choker from like Tammy do you remember Tammy girl I remember Tammy girl extremely well uh no I think I also went through a bit of a dog collar face I did buy mine in Camden a bit more legit I mean slightly but the only reason we ever went to Camden was to buy poppers well there you go I bought mine in Tammy girl and Stevenage so poser all the way but Jodie very much not so she was very much into this like into this scene as we'll go on to discover so So she gets dressed up and she ran out the front door at about 5pm that day. She told her mum that she was off to meet her boyfriend,

a local 14-year-old boy named Luke Mitchell. Six hours later, Jodie's mutilated body was found just half a mile away from her home by the very same boy. This is a tricky case for you this week, so you really need to be paying attention. There are a lot of moving parts. Also, this case stirs up quite a lot of emotion. It's one of those ones that people feel extremely strongly about.

And it's not just because of the brutal way in which 14-year-old Jodie Jones was killed, but because many believe that Luke Mitchell, who's now 32, he's just a little bit older than us, and has served 16 years in jail for the murder of his then-girlfriend, is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Scottish history. And we will do the usual, and we can talk at the very end about what we think about whether Luke Mitchell is guilty or not. But when it comes to a miscarriage of justice, sometimes that really can be neither here nor there. And the evidence in this case is an absolute mess. So in this episode, we cannot say for sure whether Luke

did it or not. The focus instead will be on the investigation of the Lothian and Borders police. I always think, as we know, I enjoy lazy words in English. Borders, for a place, just because it's near England. But I'll be fair in this, that they've got a lot of very interesting names going on. Oh yes, we're going to get some excellent names, but I always think Borders is hilarious. It is. So it's kind of like, they're like, we'll go for Lothian and then just chuck in Borders. That'll be fine. So we're going to find out if the Lothian and Borders police created a situation that led to the deeply unsafe murder conviction of a literal child so let's start at the beginning Jodie and Luke grew up in the county of Midlothian which immediately love it Midlothian I just like

saying it and Midlothian although it sounds like it's kind of in the middle of nowhere it's actually just 10 miles from Edinburgh and when you watch the documentaries about Jodie Jones and you see the kind of footage of the places they grew up you would be forgiven for thinking that it is in like the fucking highlands or something. Which to be honest, even Edinburgh is sort of plonked in the middle of wilderness. Oh, is that the case? I've never been to Edinburgh. Mate, you'd actually love it. I know.

You know how like Sheffield is like, people like it because it's a city and then you can just walk in the other direction and you're instantly in the Peak District. Yeah, yeah. Edinburgh is surrounded by like Arthur's Seat which is obviously like the famous is that mountain probably um that way you can overlook and you can watch the sunrise we used to do it naked at the Edinburgh Fringe every year and that is literally like Edinburgh North Berwick and then expanse of nothing okay see I think I was so like uh wowed by what I was looking at because I haven't been to

that part of Scotland before like I haven't been really anywhere apart from Glasgow before and yeah that's the feeling you get when you watch it you look at the county of Midlothian and despite how close it is to Edinburgh it has this kind of really like almost wild feel about it and I even googled imaged it and it really does seem that the whole county of Midlothian seems to be made up of a series of like small towns, villages, and places that they don't even call villages and just call settlements. That is, that's pretty olden times. Yeah. And they're all surrounded by woods. And the names of these places, honestly, they're so like straight out of game of thrones because luke mitchell lived in the village of new battle and jodie lived in the nearby settlement of east houses east houses is

my favorite i love it i just like saying it and the two places so new battle and east houses were connected by a handy path that gave locals a nice little shortcut and this route known as rowan dykes path ran through the woods and cut the walk between the villages from hours to a mere 25 minutes i do always find that it happened to us in the peak district and it happened to me recently in horsham sometimes in the country a five minute drive will be a two hour walk. Oh, yeah. How does that make logical sense? It just doesn't make sense. But it's true. I mean, you know, it's absolutely true. But I don't understand how even going at 60 miles an hour, you can do a five minute drive that should be a two hour walk. Yeah. I mean, when we went to the

Peak District, and there was that pub we wanted to go to. Yeah. And we're like, should we just walk? And we're like, no, it would take us two hours to walk there. Yeah. And then it's pitch fucking black because there's no street lights because you're in the middle of fucking nowhere. And I'm like, I don't know about you, Siri, but I don't fancy walking home for two hours

in the pitch black when we're pissed. Thank you very much. No, let's not do that. But that's very much the vibe here. And in this case, it's not just walking. I mean, I haven't been to Rowan's Dyke Path. Maybe there's lighting, etc. But this path cuts through the woods.

And it's not an exaggeration to say when you look at Google images of this path, it is shrouded by woods. I don't know how I would feel about this. But the locals loved it. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard

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I get it. Lots of people don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face-to-face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more.

Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. So Jodie and Luke both attended St. David roman catholic school in nearby dalkeith and it was here that the pair had met luke was in the year above and the two had bonded over their shared love of rock music as you do when you're a teenager and they'd actually only been a couple for about five months but in that time Jodie and Luke had become inseparable it's very standard 14 year old stuff in my opinion I think a lot of the details of this case get

wildly blown out of proportion by the press I think a lot of it is just quite normal teenage angst it's so normal and also like you said Luke Mitchell and Jodie Jones if Jodie was still alive they were almost exactly the same age as us yeah Yeah. So 2003, what they are up to is what we were probably up to in 2003. Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. It's exactly, it's like a mirror. 2003, I would have been, oh, God, yeah, I was 13, 14, oh, God.

Yeah, same. Dark times. Definitely. Like, what's that? Crying. Like, year nine, year 10? Year nine. Yeah, year nine was the worst year of school yeah I actually

really really vividly feel like year nine was my absolute worst year of school I don't know why it's weird that that's a similar experience yeah I think because year seven like you're new year eight doesn't matter because you have no exams year nine you have SATs and then you go into year 10 and then you're straight into GCSEs. Exactly. So year eight is like the freedom year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you're just like, oh, look at these year sevens.

Running from the year 11s. So a quick look at Jodie's diaries tells you all you need to know about how deep she was into this relationship with Luke. Her diary is absolutely full of how Luke was the only one who made her forget all the shit in her life, which, as we said, very standard. I'm a teenager and love stuff and you don't

understand me, mum. But Jodie also wrote some things that were a little bit more intense, like this is a quote, no matter what he says, I believe him and that is really dangerous. And the diaries do make for some pretty sad reading, especially when you see that Jodie titled it The Inner Workings of a Fucked Up Mind, which I will say, I probably wrote shit. In fact, I know for a fact I did. And I was fine, allegedly. Absolutely.

I think it's like, it's not what the media wants to kind of make it out to be. Absolutely not. And they do really herald this as a sort of smoking gun, but I really don't think we can say that that's what it is in good conscience. But having said that, Jodie had a lot to deal with in her short life. She lived in East Houses, as we said, and she lived with her mum, her two siblings, and her mum's partner. Her dad, Jimmy, had tragically killed himself when Jodie was just nine. And he did it in a particularly brutal and public way. He hanged himself from a tree in the family garden.

Which is just like, I mean, how you come to terms with that. And thankfully, it wasn't Jodie who found him. It was sadly Judith and her brother. But still mean you know you know what's happened she's nine years old that's very intense and confusing feelings which realistically no one in your family is going to want to talk to you about so I think it's pretty understandable considering she'd had such an emotional life when she met Luke someone who according to the diaries loved her endlessly it probably offered Jodie a lot of hope and excitement. And I can completely see, even in a sort of like typical teenager's life, feeling understood. So when you pile on top of that, a really tragic childhood.

I mean, leave alone teenage. I'm like, you know, a 30 year old woman. And I was like, what an amazing thing it would be to meet somebody who I felt like, you see me you understand me like this is great I feel excited so yeah I think that people blow this up blow up this relationship a lot but I think it is really typical and I think that reading Jodie's diaries you see why she was so deep into it and like show me one person who is emotionally well adjusted full stop but also no I'm serious show me one person show me a well-adjusted, full stop. But also, no, I'm serious. Show me one person. Show me a man who's emotionally well-adjusted, please, for the love of God. And if you want to hear about our plans for the Men of Gash Bash,

you're going to have to join us on Under the Duvet. And if you want to hear my latest empty-handed update, because, yes, we're back to that fun game, join us on Under the Duvet this week. Suri's latest empty-handed experience has entirely inspired the men of Gash Bash. Absolutely. So you're going to have to come to NGCJ

to find that out. But let's continue with our early 2000s teenage love affair conversation for now. And that's exactly what it was between Luke and Jodie.

Bashers in party, not bashers in beating up. I just thought about that. Sorry. For the love of God, yes. Sorry. Keep going. So the two would hang out in each other's bedrooms listening to nirvana smoking weed and carving their initials into a tree that stood in the woods at the halfway point on rowan's dike which is a very romantic thing because rowan's dike is the path that you

know connects their two little villages and this tree stands halfway between it and they go and they carve their initials and a little heart in it oh but then the not so abit is that this tree is basically where jodie's body would eventually be found less cute less fun so jodie as we have seen from her diaries was definitely head over heels in love with lu. But what about him? Well, Luke, although he was also only 14, seems to have been a lot more experienced than Jodie. He had had relationships before, but for Jodie, this was her first relationship. And Luke even sold weed and hash to other local teenagers. I'm 14. Every village has got one. Okay. See, I was like, when I say this reflects like you know

our growing up I was so square like I would never have even known. Yeah I think there's always one. Yeah and as we'll go on to see with Luke like he is very much like is it weird to call a 14 year old child an alpha male? No I think teenage boys spend literally all of their time trying to become alpha males. Maybe that's over-egging it, but I think, as we'll go on to see, Luke is definitely a leader. Right, yeah. He's the clear leader of his group. Very comfortable in sort of bad boy image. Absolutely, absolutely.

And Luke, as we'll go on to see, was also heavily into the goth scene. Now we'll come back to Luke's specific behaviour and his character later in this episode but it would be hard to over-exaggerate the point that Luke was certainly very intense but also very advanced for his age. But for now let's come back to the 30th of July 2003. Judith was sat at home starting to get a bit annoyed that as 10pm came closer and closer and then it came and went there was still no sign of Jodie. Finally snapping after getting no answer from Jodie's phone Judith called Luke but Luke sounded surprised when she questioned him saying that he and Jodie hadn't met up that night and that he'd been at home cooking dinner all

evening and now he was out with his mates. Past 10 o'clock on a Monday night. Christ. It's like fucking Scottish skins. Scottish skins. I was going to say biker grove. I've just aged myself. Panicking, Judith called around friends and family but nobody had seen Jodie. So Judith, her mum Alice Walker, Janine, Jodie's sister, and Janine's boyfriend, 19-year-old Stephen Kelly, set out to look for Jodie. Luke also came and joined them, bringing his German shepherd, Mia. The group searched everywhere they could think of in East Houses,

and by 11pm, Judith was freaking out. So she called the police. This is a terrible comparison. But I once lost my brother in a supermarket like one of those like hypermarkets when he was really young and like the horror of realizing that I didn't know where he was all you tell yourself is that it's going to be fine and that's all you can do and then luckily for me it was but it's not for Judith no I mean i can't even begin to imagine the closest i've come is i used to have a kitten when i was uh very much very much here in india in india it died because uh you killed it

and for those of you who have heard all of the fire starting stories from my childhood um are probably now quite concerned but no no so the door was left open the kitten runs off never see it again so I assume it's dead maybe it'll just ring your doorbell tomorrow maybe oh that'd be nice um but no it was just this feeling of like yeah having no idea where it is and having all these horrible visions and images pop into your head of it just being like torn apart by dogs and all of this kind of thing it's awful and obviously I know it's crass of me to compare me losing my kitten to somebody's child being missing but I can empathize even on a small scale of that fear and that panic you would feel. So by 11pm it was dark and it was raining as the group made their way to Rowan's Dyke,

the path between East Houses and New Battle. Now Rowan's Dyke is a relatively narrow path that, like we said, cuts through some pretty thick woodland. And what's important to know is that along one side of the path runs a brick wall, separating the walkway from the actual forest. And as the Surge Party headed down this path, they suddenly noticed that Mia the dog was getting frantic and Mia which I thought was quite interesting had actually been trained to pick up scents she's not just like oh a dog or a German like she's actually been trained I mean maybe they're hunting like they're that's true in the middle of nowhere absolutely so when Mia started to pull Luke towards a hole in this

brick wall on the path he followed her Jodie's family watched as Luke and a hole in this brick wall on the path. He followed her. Jodie's family watched as Luke and Mia went through this v-shaped crack where the bricks of the wall had crumbled and you could easily step over it and straight into the woods. Moments later Luke re-emerged looking pale and shocked. On the other side of the wall laying laying in the undergrowth, partially covered with leaves, was Jodie's naked and mutilated body. It was a nightmarish and brutal scene. Jodie's arms were tied behind her back with a pair of trousers, and her throat had been cut so deeply that she'd almost been decapitated. Jodie also had several wounds all over her face and body, including cuts around her eyes, her cheeks, her stomach, her forearms, and left breast. And it was later discovered that some of the slashes, such as those to her breast,

were done post-mortem. And it was also discovered that Jodie had suffered a serious blow to the head and had been strangled. So it seems pretty personal. Jodie's arms were also heavily bruised and showed clear signs of defensive wounds so Jodie had clearly put up one hell of fight. Interestingly the post-mortem revealed absolutely no signs of any sexual assault or even interference. And I think that's the thing isn't it this scene it's an absolute bloodb, an absolute bloodbath. The forensic pathologist who examines Jodie's body said that she would have lost about five to five and a half litres of blood at the scene. So there is blood everywhere. And it is a very frenzied attack as well. And you can also see from the fact that some of these wounds that have been inflicted to Jodie's body happen post-mortem, this is overkill.

This is overkill. This person has continuously repeated to attack Jodie beyond the point of what was needed to just kill her, which again makes it very personal. And attacks to the face, again, very personal. Absolutely. And stabbing, full stop. And that's the thing. I know, absolutely, it's very, very important to make the point that there was no sexual interference or sexual assault. But as we know, stabbing is a very sexual way to kill somebody because of the penetration and this kind of thing. And also her breasts have been attacked. Yeah. And strangling also, it's about being up close. And it's the multiple motives. It's the blow to the head. It's the strangling. It's the stabbing. Frenzied. I think that's clear to say. So eventually the

authorities arrived and everyone at the scene was taken to the local police station. But almost immediately, Luke Mitchell was separated from the rest of the group and held on his own. After some questioning of the others, so that's Jodie's mum, granny, sister and sister's boyfriend, they were all sent home. Luke was the only one to be forensically examined and have all of his clothes taken to also be processed. Now this is exactly what should have been done because he was the one who found Jodie's body. But why did the police not examine anyone else who had been there? Jodie's mum and her granny even said that they had both actually touched Jodie's body when they discovered her, but they weren't examined. It could have easily

transferred some of their DNA onto Jodie or transferred some piece of evidence from Jodie's body onto themselves. Totally. This is the thing about DNA gets everywhere. I've met a lot of people think that it's like less likely to be transferred than it is, but it gets everywhere. I've met a lot of people think that it's like less likely to be transferred than it is but it gets everywhere and I think what is immediately obvious and becomes more obvious as we go on is the police were just like oh he did it. We don't need to explore any other avenues because he obviously did it. Yeah and this is the thing I really feel like the police as you can see right from the start had their eyes all over Luke Mitchell and seemed to have been blinkered when it came to conducting any sort of like robust investigation. I think that's fair to say from the beginning. I also think it's fair to

say that the police were highly suspicious of Luke because he had seemingly so easily found Jodie's body, which did lie behind a wall in the dark in the woods. And I think if you don't know the area, if you did just look at it, it would seem suspicious that this boy just like went directly to Jodie's body. Because there has been some attempt made to conceal her and she's also off the path. But at this point at least, Luke and all the other members of the search party so that's jodie's family were saying the exact same thing they all said that it was mia the dog who remember had been sent trained who had become agitated and gone through the wall first and that luke had just followed her this is a very important part of the story so remember that. And also I think what we should remember about this dog moment. I would be less inclined to believe it if Jodie's family

weren't there and if they weren't the one saying it was the dog. At the very start they absolutely say Mia. We saw Mia get agitated and go through the crack in the wall. If it was Luke's mum. Yes. I wouldn't believe it. When Luke was questioned by the police, he told them that Jodie and him didn't have any plans to meet up that night, just like he told Jodie's mum on the phone. He said he'd been at home cooking dinner and then only come to help with the search after Judith, Jodie's mum, had called him. And Luke remained adamant that he had last seen Jodie at school that day, not in the evening at all. The police had absolutely nothing. The forensic analysis of Luke and his clothes had come back with absolutely no blood or any traces of evidence to link him to the murder. They did

find some of Jodie's DNA on his trousers but as we know DNA gets everywhere and they were in a relationship. They had been for five months so that DNA could have been transferred at any point prior to Jodie's death it's hardly suspicious yeah and they also find Luke's DNA on Jodie's bra which is at the scene because Jodie's naked and her clothes and her underwear are sort of strewn around but again they're in an intimate relationship so it doesn't really prove anything no I, I don't think so. It would have only been relevant, in my opinion, had it been a stranger's DNA or Jodie's DNA had been found on a stranger. This way, it's nothing. The other thing that the police also found, again, which is worth mentioning because I think in my opinion, it points to them being quite blinkered at this stage, is that on the T-shirt that they found in the woods that Jodie had been wearing that day. They found some of her sister's boyfriend's DNA on that.

So Stephen Kelly. They dismiss it from the start because they said that it was actually Jodie's sister's top and she had borrowed it. And they were in a relationship, so his DNA is on it. But he is also there and part of the search party that found her. So why is Stephen Kelly never even questioned as a suspect? There's nothing to say. There's nothing to say.

So it's worth pointing out. But I think the point we're trying to make is that, yes, of course, this evidence is all a mess and it's nothing is particularly clear, but that the police seem blinkered. I also do think it's worth saying, like, they forensically examined Luke Mitchell and they don't even find any evidence like under his nails, which we'll go on to discuss later, especially hold in your mind remember what a bloodbath that scene was how frenzied the attack and also unless you have done an exceptional cleanup job if you're going out with someone their dna is going to be on you all the time which maybe then makes it more suspicious that they find no dna i mean i'm kind of leaning in that direction you can argue argue it both ways, can't you?

And like we said at the start, I know that people have very strong feelings about this case. Please, let's get through the entire episode before people get angry at anything that we're pointing out. Let's get through it. So given the total lack of forensic evidence, the police found themselves struggling for leads. I think they took one look at the scene and thought, the forensics themselves struggling for leads. I think they

took one look at the scene and thought the forensics will give us all that we need. And when there was nothing, they were really struggling. I mean, when you would, when a person has been that brutally killed, like when you looked at that crime scene evidence, I would argue you'd be like, oh, there'll definitely be something here. So the police started putting out public appeals for information, they did a reconstruction of Jodie's likely last movements in the lead up to her death and they even started putting up roadblocks weeks after the incident to try and speak to anyone who might have driven past the area on the day of the murder. All in all the police took 3,000 statements from over 2,000 individuals. This is a case that generated a hell of a lot of evidence, especially things like eyewitness testimony.

But it was because they were so stuck because there was nothing forensically that they could rely on. But despite all of these statements, the police were still no closer to figuring out who had committed this horrific crime. So the police did something that I don't know in my opinion seems a bit desperate and a bit leading because what they did is they released statements that had been given to them by witnesses that they had interviewed and I have to ask like does that not tarnish other people's memories and like lead them and like have the potential to seriously muddy the waters of anybody else they speak to absolutely this is not standard protocol like it's not just my opinion that this is weird this is not standard no absolutely not you you don't tell the public shit like especially when you have so little to go on like i i don't

think it's a secret that like that is going to make any further witness testimony from anyone comes forward quite unreliable. But despite all of their attempts misguided or not to shake something loose the police still didn't have much to go on even after their multiple statement trick and so reverting to their original theory on the 4th of July 2003 the police decided to search Luke Mitchell's home. His room was described by officers as disgusting and given that they found 20 bottles of Luke's own urine under his bed we'd have to agree with them on that one. Do you know what it also always reminds me of is you know that Simpsons episode where they do the Howard Hughes where Mr Burns is Howard Hughes oh yeah he's got really long nails I won't lie peak lockdown that was me I started to like envision germ particles on plastic bags in shops and I was like oh I'm Howard Hughes I I thought

you were going to be like um with the balls of urine I mean I did we in my washing basket because I could never get in the fucking bathroom so that that's, you know, that's halfway there. That's a different kettle of fish. That's a different pissy laundry basket. You know what? It is an entirely different pissy laundry basket. I think that is it. It's fine now, guys. I have my own bathroom.

Exactly. But it was a time. We're living the dream. I don't know many teenage boys, but I assume the bedrooms of teenage boys are quite disgusting. Oh yeah, my brother's is foul. But I would say the 20 bottles of urine,

even for a teenage boy. That is an outlier. Is an outlier. Yeah, it's not probably the norm. What I would argue is less of an outlier is the journals and school books that they found in there, and the Marilyn Manson CD, and a DVD, and a calendar. But they did find an empty knife pouch. And I think the knife pouch is the most suspicious thing in that collection and the most compelling piece of evidence linking luke to jodie's murder however it's the marilyn manson stuff and the journals that seem to get all of the media attention shocker i mean it's 2003 yes i mean seriously seriously so yeah let's talk talk about the Marilyn Manson stuff and the journals first. The CD was Manson's 2003 album, The Golden Age of Grotesque,

which for a teenage goth boy in the early 2000s to own is hardly surprising. And the DVD that the police found had apparently come with the CD as a bonus. And when they watched it, they were like, oh my god, like Luke Mitchell didn't make this DVD. No, this is the thing. Like, similarly, when we tell you horrible stories about murder, we didn't do it. We're just telling you about it. And Luke Mitchell is not responsible for Marilyn Manson. Exactly. So this DVD, when the police watched it, it's basically like some weird shaky cam style video footage of somebody filming a couple of girls tied up in the woods one of the girls is

naked and lying on the ground like she's dead it's grim sure but hardly out of the ordinary for the shock goth rocker no if anything pretty tame for mountain that's what i thought so now let's talk about the school books and the journals that the police found, which also became key pieces of interest for the police and the media. And the reason for this keen interest was because of the doodles and the writings that they were filled with. Can you guess what doodles we are talking about? It was, of course, the classic pentagram and other satanic, quote unquote, satanic symbols. Luke Mitchell's just like covered his school books and his journals with like fucking 666, pentagrams, etc, etc.

Devil horns. Fine. They're huge. They're huge. I think I probably had a pentagram on a school book. Oh, definitely. Somewhere, probably. And I used to be obsessed with drawing the little Suzuki S.

Probably do that on everything. What a throwback. Oh, my God. And Luke didn't stop at just the drawings, because he'd also written passages that people seem to find incredibly disturbing. But to me, they honestly just read like a fucking edgelord teenager who's usually

just plagiarizing singers like Kurt Cobain. Like a lot of these writings and a lot of the passages that are in Luke Mitchell's books, people are like, oh my God, I can't believe he wrote that. And I'm like, you do realize that is not something that Luke Mitchell has dreamt up. And I'll give you an example. And this isn't actually something he wrote in his journal, but is a particularly striking moment in this story because the newspapers made a massive deal out of a bunch of flowers that Luke left near Rowan's Dyke Path with a note for Jodie that read

the finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came and they're like oh my god it's a fucking line out of Smells Like Teen Spirit the most bait of Nirvana songs it is unfortunately the most bait of Nirvana songs. It is, unfortunately, the most baitest of them all. You know the baby on the front of the Nevermind album is suing them? What?

So the baby is now obviously a man, because that's generally how ageing works, the passage of time, etc. But he has done several follow-up shoots as a grown-up to really cashing in on this situation but I believe the most current development is that he's suing Nirvana for exposing him as a child why because his little baby penis is out I mean yes because his little baby penis is out but also because I think he would quite like some money yes that would be my general feeling if the world is looking at my baby penis I would want some money? Yes. That would be my general feeling. If the world is looking at my baby

penis, I would want some money. It must be a weird feeling being knowing that every single person you've ever met has seen your penis. That's a place I don't want to go. But it did come out that Luke had been handing in some pretty troubling work, school. And actually he'd been referred to an educational psychologist because of it. One paper he titled, Pain and Suffering, stands out, and it seems to have been the tipping point. He wrote in it, If you ask me, God is just a futile excuse.

People like you need satanic people like me to keep the balance. Once you have shaked hands with the devil, you then have truly experienced life. Jesus. 666 Satan, I offer my flesh my blood and soul to the dark lord of hell satan master leaders to hell i've tasted the devil's blood and the flesh of fallen angels that's going to ring some alarm bells but also as we know absolutely nothing to do with satanism nothing to do with satanism absolutely not the thing is he's trying to freak people out he's just writing

freaky shit yes exactly and like i can literally name i won't name them because it's rude but like i can name five people in my year at school who would have done exactly that of course people were very upset by that but it isn't actually from the mind of luke mitchell it's actually from a game developer because most of these writings were taken directly from a script for a playstation game that luke had been playing at the time so he's not inventing it he's copying this is the thing isn't it because firstly i would say who didn't write a book when they were a child that wasn't just a plagiarism of their favorite book not a single sausage absolutely because i definitely did i think it was about 102 cats, if I remember rightly.

Mine was vampires. Yeah. It's just, it's just like, isn't it funny though, that he wrote this paper at school, hands it in, and then they're so freaked out by it at school that they referred him to an educational psychologist. But somebody who was clearly very successful because they've gone on to become a game developer has used that same imagination and that same like way of thinking. That's such a good point. To become like a successful PlayStation game developer and they're like oh my god this kid what's he thinking we better get him some help I mean sure does

anyone sorry I've just tangent time does anyone remember there was a book that I had on story tape from the library when I still lived in York so I must have been really young and I found it terrifying and it was about vampires who left dust on windowsills and I can't remember the name of it but please please please this has plagued me for my entire life please can someone find it for me and tell me what the title is because it used to fuck my shit up and I can't remember what it's called oh my god I used to read so much fucking scary shit that I used to honestly scare myself half to death I have have such a vivid memory and this is just such a strange thing. I'm going to

all let you into the very clandestine mind of Saruti Bala. I was once just so freaked out by this book I was reading that I read the word together and I got scared because if you break it down it says to get her. Oh my fucking god.

I quit. To get her. And fucking god i quit and i was like nope close the book what's that book is it house of leaves where i was reading the like good read reviews of it and someone was like i leave this book in my car because i don't want to haunting my house i really really want to read house of leaves but i haven't got around to it maybe it looks hard it does look fucking hard um let's read it on tour okay and have a race that you will win apparently there's like pages where you have to like get a mirror out and yeah and like it's upside down and like in circles and stuff okay it'll be a journey okay let's order a couple then

and see what's going on because there's no audiobook because you have to read it in such a weird way yeah not very inclusive of you but anyway so we're not saying that this satanic script was irrelevant it obviously shows the size of very angsty teenager who's quite unhappy and when you couple it with what we know about luke that he was both bullied and a bully and when we remember all the bottles of urine under his bed he clearly clearly clearly is going through some shit not a very happy boy at all but are these surefire signs that someone's a killer especially a child we've got to say it guys in the absence of hard evidence no no we say all the time obviously circumstantial evidence is evidence

blah blah blah but like in the absence of literally anything just character assassinations like this that absolutely happened with the media are kind of neither here nor there but let's keep going because the knife pouch that the police found in luke mitchell's room in my opinion is far more interesting than all this fucking satanic nonsense. Because Luke Mitchell was very well known in the local area for carrying knives. Because apparently he used them to cut up the hash he sold. It's very normal. Yeah, but like, again, I'm saying he's 14. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, but you do have to cut into blocks of hash you do you need a knife and this empty leather pouch that the police found also had something quite bloody suspicious etched into it so it's like a tan leather knife pouch and in it if you just google it you can see

it he's carved in or someone has carved in 666 and then underneath that JJ 1989-2003. So obviously the 666 you don't need me to tell you what that is. JJ, Jodie Jones's initials, her year of birth is 1989 and the year she died is 2003. Why is that scratched into an empty knife pouch found in Luke Mitchell's bedroom? I don't know. However, I don't think it would be unusual of him, given what we know about his character, to do it after he's found out she's dead. This is also true and there is no way obviously to prove when those carvings or etchings into the knife pouch were actually made. So the missing knife, this is the other part that's maybe, it's definitely worth mentioning for sure, because the missing knife that would have fit into this pouch would have been a

four inch skunting blade. That is a horrible word. Isn't it a horrible, horrible word? Skunting. I hate it. I tried to find out what it is. I don't really know. Everywhere just says skunting blade.

That's what it is. But apparently, according to the everywhere just says skunting blade, that's what it is. But apparently, according to the pathologist, Professor Anthony Busoletti, the murder weapon which caused the injuries to Jodie's throat would have been a quote, stout, sharp pointed blade, which apparently sounds a lot like a skunting knife. The police also spoke to Mitchell's neighbours, who claimed that on the night of Jodie's murder, there had been a weird smell of burning coming from the wood burner in Luke's back garden. When the police checked it, lo and behold, it turned out that clothes had been burned in this wood burner. But later forensic examination of the remains would come back inconclusive.

So again, even after a thorough search of his house, there was still no physical forensic or hard evidence to link Luke Mitchell to the murder of Jodie Jones. Important to say that just because they didn't find anything doesn't mean he's innocent. We're just saying they didn't find anything that was conclusive. Exactly. Two weeks after Jodie's death the police still had no suspects but it was at this point that Alan Ovens, Judith's

live-in partner, decided to come forward and he now told the police that he had answered the Jones's home phone at 5 40 p.m on the day of Jodie's murder and it had been Luke that had answered and Luke had asked Alan if he knew where Jodie was Alan said that he told Luke that she'd left the house at about five to which Luke apparently just said okay may seem like a fairly inconsequential conversation but actually this piece of evidence directly contradicts Luke's story that he and Jodie weren't meeting up that evening because yeah like we remember Jodie leaves the house at. Then Alan Ovens gets this call at 5.40. Why is Luke calling her home to ask where she is if they didn't have any plans to meet up? Don't know. So following this revelation, Luke Mitchell catapulted

himself back to the top of the police's suspect list. And five weeks after Jodie's murder, Luke was brought in for a four-hour long interrogation, during which he stuck to his original story. He said that he didn't know that Jodie was coming to meet him, and that at the time of Jodie's death, he had been at home cooking dinner. His mother, Corrine, and his older brother, Shane, who Luke lives with, both backed up this alibi. Luke also told police that he had no reason to kill Jodie. He said he loved her and that in all the time they'd been together they had never even

so much as argued. When asked about the missing knife from the leather pouch that they had found in his room Luke somewhat suspiciously doesn't answer. He doesn't make up a lie he just ignores the question and just refuses to answer and it's very obvious from this interrogation that the police weren't buying it they weren't believing Luke in the things that he was saying they also said that they thought it was odd how Luke had remained super calm giving away almost no emotion during the entire interview but they had nothing concrete so they let him go it's important to state that later, this police interrogation was deemed to be, quote, deplorable by an appeals court.

Wow, that is, that's a strong word. Yeah, I think it's something to say, remind everybody that Luke Mitchell was 14 years old when this happened. But that did not stop the media. The tabloids were absolutely obsessed with this case. I can't imagine a lot happens in East Houses. And they were constantly running front pages, naming and picturing Luke Mitchell as, quote, a witness. Which, somewhat ironically, they wouldn't have been allowed to name him had he actually been arrested. And seeing that he was only 14.

But since he hadn't been named as a suspect, the papers could pretty much do what they wanted. Isn't that interesting? So basically, because he was only ever deemed a witness by police at this point the media were allowed to put him on the front page every single day with his name with everything all of the information about him but if they had arrested him or called him a suspect because he was a minor they wouldn't have been able to name him yeah it's so it's so like um what a loophole that's such a loophole it's very scott watson tribal media is a real fucking thing guys like if you show the public something often enough they start to believe it as exhibited by the brexit campaign so the papers absolutely had a field day with luke mitchell's

goth slash satanism aesthetic it's a low blow but it's an easy one. And Luke really did not help himself. In most of the pictures, he's either looking menacingly at the camera or swearing at the photographers. And the impact of this on public perception, the investigation and the resulting trial cannot be overstated. Whether you think Luke Mitchell did kill Jodie or not, we have to agree that this kind of trial by media situation was absolutely unjustifiable. Especially to a child? An actual child. 14.

I think, again, with the pictures of him, he is very advanced. Like, he's very, like, bullshy. He's very, like, overconfident and arrogant. In the pictures of him, when he's, like, scowling down the lens of a camera, which at 14 I would never have had the confidence to do. Oh, my God, absolutely not, no. I've been hiding under a coat and crying.

You couldn't even look anyone in the eye. No. And because he does all of this, it again just sets the scene so much for the public perception of him. Yeah, totally. They're making the public essentially forget that he's a child.

Yeah, which is entirely their intention. And the papers repeatedly positioned Luke as a suspect, even though he had no charges against him and there was no evidence and he hadn't even been arrested and there's no sort of court of ethics for the press as we know and as a result of this media circus Luke even ended up dropping out of school in August 2003 I'm not fucking surprised the following month Jodie's body was finally released to her family and they made it clear

Luke Mitchell was not welcome at her funeral. Luke did stay away from the service, but in probably an ill-advised move, he did a Sky interview with his mum on the same day. Who let him do that? This is the thing. I know that... OK, let's listen to a couple of clips from this interview before we talk about it. I thought, well, you tell them.

You tell them how you feel. You tell them that you're innocent, because this might be the only chance you'll get. And then, well, it just backfired on us, really. Did you kill Jodie Jones? No, I never. I wouldn't think of it. Your son had come home and said,

I've killed my girlfriend. I'm covered in blood, help me. But that didn't happen. But if it had, would you have helped him? I can't honestly say what I would do because I haven't been hit with that one. Nobody knows what you're going to do in a situation unless you're in that situation, so it's not something you could answer. Some people may find your answer strange because they would think, goodness sake, we're talking about murder here.

I would never protect anybody in that situation. Is it different because it's your son? I don't know. You cannot answer that unless you're faced with that situation. Yeah, it is a bad move, and I'm like like who the fuck allowed you to do it I have to say that I think the journalists are just like the reporters and the journalists they fully just like manipulate the situation I don't find that difficult to believe let's tell your side of the story their family's out there saying that you're not allowed at the funeral it makes you look really

bad the papers are doing whatever they want you've been in the headlines now daily for weeks. It's time to get your side of the story out there. And they knew what they were doing, doing it on the same day as Jodie's funeral. Of course they did. It's sad that Luke's mum didn't catch that. It's true. And I think you've obviously just heard clips from the interview, but I will also leave a link below in the episode description for you can watch it. I don't think Luke's mum is the best person to be making important decisions I think I'm with you on that one and the interview I have to also admit it is an uncomfortable thing to watch Corrine Luke's mum and I hate that I'm even like gonna play into this but like she is kind of

weirdly tactile with him which made some of the public and the media even start to like go down this route of being like, are they too close? Tactile in what way? She's just like, no. Okay. No,

I don't. Okay. You can't see what I just did. I just put my hand on Hannah's leg. It's just a bit too much. But like, obviously if somebody hadn't said it to me and if the fucking cameraman isn't like zooming in on her doing that,

would I even notice? Would I just think it's a mother comforting her son but it's because of the way it's set up yeah the back is fine yeah it's just it's even holding hands yeah please i like really don't want to make a weird thing of this i'm just saying like they make the media runs with it and they like start to hint at like some sort of incestuous relationship all of this do you need that on top of satan really? They're like, we'll have it all. We're going to have it all. Nothing ever happens. We're going to have it all.

And in this interview, Corrine obviously totally defends her son, Luke. She says that she'd seen Luke on the night of the murder and like they'd been saying from the start, he had been cooking dinner. And according to her, after he'd been out with his mates and come home to get Mia

before he went to join the search party that she'd seen him again and that he had no marks on him at all whatsoever. And this is true. Luke Mitchell remember was forensically examined on the night they found Jodie and he had no marks or cuts on him that were ever written down, established or recorded. And remember what we said earlier, Jodie's arms were covered in defensive wounds, indicating that she had fought her attacker. How could her killer have walked away from that with no wounds to him? It seems extremely unlikely, doesn't it? Yeah. And again, I'm saying just because it's unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible, but it's worth mentioning.

Luke's mum, Corrine, also made a good point during this Sky interview that the police had searched their house multiple times, but still found nothing. Whoever had killed Jodie would surely have been covered in her blood. Remember, this crime scene was an absolute bloodbath. Well, some of the prosecution's experts would later say at trial that this idea that the killer would have been covered in her blood isn't necessarily the case. Because as Jodie was tied up and the wound to her neck also suggested

that she had been attacked from behind, the killer could possibly have done it without getting any blood on him. Basically what they say is, the way Jodie's cut is and where they find the carotid artery spray on the wall, she must have been kneeling or sat down and whoever had attacked her had cut her throat from behind. So what they're saying is, if you cut someone's throat from behind, the blood spray would go forward

and wouldn't necessarily get on you. I mean, okay. Yeah. But it's a stretch for me. It really is. It really is a stretch. Again, just because the idea that the killer didn't get any blood on them is even slightly possible. Is it probable? I don't think so. No, I'm with you there, I think. So say Luke did kill Jodie and he did get covered in her blood because we're saying it's improbable that he wouldn't have and say that he managed to walk home at about 6pm in summer bear in mind and

I know it's in Scotland but I assume even in June July in Scotland at about 5-6pm it's still probably quite light outside. So he managed to walk home without anybody seeing him and he's covered in her blood and let's say he washes up let's say he even burns his bloody clothes in the wood burner and then he got changed and came back out with his dog in time to help the search party how did the police find no trace of blood at his house how did he not even touch a doorknob a door handle the shower the sink how is there no blood found at the house is it reasonable reasonable to believe, even if his mum Corrine had helped Luke destroy evidence, that the two of them, a 14-year-old and an ordinary woman whose job it was to manage a caravan park, could they have been forensically savvy enough in

2003 to clean their house and their bathroom so thoroughly that the police found absolutely nothing. I mean, it depends if they were using Vanish. This is true. Speaking of interviews, just a very quick one. Corrine Mitchell gives an interview much more recently now. And in that, the interviewer is asking her, if your son Luke had come home that day covered in Jodie's blood, would you have helped him? Say no. Say no, Corrine.

That's the answer. That's the right answer. And she says, I can't answer that. Come on. And the Corinne. That's the answer. That's the right answer. And she says I can't answer that. Come on. And the interviewer digs again and again. They're trying to be like we're trying to help you. It's literally like in the very recent Shamima Begum interview where she's like they've got nothing

on me and you're like no that's the wrong way to phrase that Shamima. Don't say that. Say I didn't do anything. Exactly. And this interviewer with Corinne again says like no but really if he had come home covered in blood that day and he told you i killed jody my girlfriend would you help him and she just repeatedly says i can't say for sure that's my child for fuck's sake they say hollywood is where dreams are made a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored,

and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part,

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. During other police interviews, Luke just said that the remains of clothes found in the wood

burner had been burned by a female relative. Though interestingly, one of Luke's jackets was missing and it's never ever been found. And despite having no more evidence, on the 14th of April 2004, the police arrested Luke Mitchell, his mum and his brother. And they charged Luke with Jodie's murder. And they charged Corinne and Shane with perverting the course of justice. Now that Luke had been arrested, the media had to back off, but it didn't last. It only went on for a little while, because just three months later, on the 24th of July, Luke turned 16, and the press could go after him harder than they ever had before.

Luke Mitchell's trial kicked off on the 11th of November 2004 and the defence's main argument was that Luke had no motive to kill Jodie and that he had an alibi for the night of the murder and that the police had found not one shred of hard evidence linking him to the crime. The prosecution's case was built mainly on circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony. Let's start with the way Jodie's body was found. So this became a real key point for both the defence and the prosecution. The defence claimed that Mia, Luke's dog, had found Jodie's body. The prosecution said that Luke had. And if you remember, as we said earlier in the episode, immediately after Jodie's body had been discovered, those who had been there,

like Jodie's granny, her mum, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend, all said the same as Luke, that it was his dog that had led the way. But by the time of the trial, two years later, all of them had changed their stories. And now they all said, in court, that Luke had gone behind the wall of his own volition and that it wasn't Mia that had led him. Again, like eyewitness testimony is shaky at the best of times. By the time they're

heading down Rowan's Dyke path, it's 11pm. We already said it was dark. It's confusing. They're worried. Did they even notice who went down that path first? It seems like a detail you wouldn't remember. No. And also, if you are going to take one of the stories that this group of people give, you're more realistically going to have to go with the first version of events that they gave, which is that Mia went through that crack in the wall first and that Luke followed her. Next, let's look at Luke's alibi. Because again, there was a bit of a courtroom shock moment with this one too. Because up until the trial, Corrine and Luke's brother Shane

had both said that Luke had been home that night making dinner when Jodie would have been murdered. But when the prosecution questioned Shane, he now said that Luke hadn't been home at all. Because he, Shane, had been home watching porn that evening with his bedroom door open. Come on, man. Come on. He said he always watched porn with his bedroom door open so that he could hear if anyone came home so that he could stop. And he said that he never ever would have done this, his little porn routine,

had anyone else been in the house that day. And that's how he knows that Luke wasn't there. And Shane, when he's saying this, even dobs his mum in, saying that the family had actually discussed this alibi and what they would tell the police. That's brave. It's very, very damning. Very damning.

God, I don't think I'd be able to go against my mom in a court of law can you imagine even if she was lying yeah and that's why though that's why this evidence is such like a win for the prosecution because they're saying why would his brother dob his mom and his brother in like this unless it was true corinne takes a stand and she stuck to her story though so one of them has got to be lying and while we can't know for sure who it is Corinne was pulled up on some other lies that she told for Luke in the past. The prosecution pointed out that in October 2003 she had lied to a tattoo shop about Luke's age and even given him a fake ID so that her son could get a tattoo at the age of 14. It's not awful, but it's an example of

doing whatever he wants. I think that's the key thing with Luke and Corinne's relationship. When you examine the dynamic there, I think Corinne is very passive to Luke's demands and she gives him whatever he wants. And this is why the prosecution are pointing out that if anyone was going to lie for him, she would. And that's why his alibi isn't solid because we've already poked a hole in the only other person that was willing to say where he was that night and they're saying that it's not true yeah it's not good and when confronted with these incidents so the tattoo incident and also there was a time when 12 year old luke had threatened his then girlfriend with a knife when she'd refused to have sex with him. Later on, Luke claimed that that was just a very funny joke. And the prosecution also highlighted Luke's life as a petty drug dealer. But again, his mum denied it all, just saying that he was a good

boy. And I think it's, you know, it's worth talking about because Luke doesn't deny, Luke Mitchell doesn't deny the incident with his 12-year-old girlfriend when he threatened her with a knife after she refused to have sex with him. Again, I know we've said from the start that Luke Mitchell is quote-unquote advanced, but I think you're seeing very troubling signs from an early age. And again, you have a mother who excuses this behavior and enables him. And like, I'm not here to blame Corinne because if Luke Mitchell did do this, he chose to do it. But I think she is very

enabling of him I think you are right and there were also questions asked at trial about how she could have allowed her son to fill his room with bottles of urine I think you know not that I would particularly condone this train of thought but I can see like the tattoo whatever that's just like oh you know he just wants to get a tattoo like no one's gonna die the knife thing pretty inexcusable and the piss bottles like that is a real sign that something is is really quite wrong and it's also a sign that luke mitchell clearly lacks a lot of parental supervision because at 14 yes i had my own room but it was in no way like you can't come in here like my parents did what they fucking wanted. Like they were in my room. They were looking at my room. Like if I had 20

bottles of piss under my bed, someone would have known about it. But the prosecution didn't stop with just these accusations of Corinne being an enabling or even a bad mother. They took it a step further and accused Corinne of being an accomplice to the murder of Jodie Jones. And what was their reasoning, I hear you ask? Well, three calls were logged from Luke to his mum at around 6.40pm on the night of Jodie's murder. And the strange, smoke-smelling neighbours had told the police that the burning in the Mitchell family garden had been hitting their noses at between 6 30 and 7 30 p.m that day. So the prosecution claimed that Luke had come home covered in blood and that his mum had burned his clothes in the wood burner and helped him clean up and that those calls were him confessing what he had just done. And as we mentioned earlier the

jacket that Luke had been wearing that day and he'd been seen wearing earlier that day was also missing. And like we said, it's never been found. What's also interesting to note here is that Corinne actually later bought him a new jacket that was exactly the same as the one that went missing and also bought him a new skunting knife

that was exactly like the one that went missing. Corinne. I know. Come on, man. Yeah. Stop. Listen to our parenting podcast. Don't.

So, again, like we said earlier, the police had been unable, though, to recover any solid forensic evidence from the wood burner. So they couldn't say that it was the parker that had been burnt. But, like you said, they knew it was clothes that had been burnt. And Luke and Corinne were just like, it was a female relative who would come round and burn her clothes here. Just periodically just come and burn some clothes.

Why is anyone burning clothes for a start? Unless you've committed a horrible murder. I mean, that would be my first option. Yeah. So again, circumstantial evidence, but no hard evidence linking whatever was burned in that wood burner to Jodie's death.

And then the next bit of the trial, the prosecution took a quick look at Luke's character. So beyond just the drug dealing and the reports of him being a bully at school and also threatening his girlfriend with a knife at just 12 years old, at trial they really focused on this Marilyn Manson thing. The prosecution even showed the jury watercolours of the Black Dahlia murder that Manson had painted and claimed that Luke was obsessed with not only Manson, but also with the murder of Elizabeth Short, which like, pick a beta murder, please. Oh my God.

And I also didn't know this because like, I don't know or care about Marilyn Manson. He has painted multiple watercolours of the Black Dahlia murder scene. For fuck's sake. Get a grip. Seriously, get a grip. I don't know why people are so obsessed with it. However, if you are like, what's the Black Dahlia? I think Americans say Dahlia.

Maybe it's hitting your ears a bit wrong when we say it. But if you don't know about it, do go and, we've said so many times, but please go and listen to the Root of Evil podcast. Until we'd listened to that, I was like, I literally could not care less about this. But it's fascinating. And also, if you have your live show tickets, there's a little bit of a linkette to the Black Dahlia in the show so be excited for that I think there are still tickets for Birmingham and Leeds but I think everything else has now gone so if you're in Birmingham or you're in Leeds or adjacent get

your hands on them but if you don't know the Black Dahlia and if you haven't listened to Root of Evil yet immediately go and do it but it was a grizzly killing that took place in LA in 1947 I think that's why we've never really been interested in it because we're not really old and timey fans so the victim Elizabeth Short was horribly mutilated and left in a park and also there's a lot of like Hollywood folklore around it people say that she was last seen at the bar at the Cecil Hotel like it's just like all links together in this sort of like old world Hollywood situation. Anyway, the prosecution in Luke Mitchell's trial tried to claim that the injuries Elizabeth suffered and those that Jodie had endured were the same. And that Luke had done it because of his fascination and that ultimately it was all Marilyn Manson's fault. But firstly, the defense's pathologist, contrary to the prosecution's, said that the injuries weren't alike at all.

Which like further proof, as we have said a bajillionillion times you can get an expert to say literally anything you like i mean it's almost comical in the most horrible way it's just this like person saying oh my god elizabeth short's injuries and jodie's are exactly the same and then somebody's saying no they're not this is the thing isn't it like it's like oh i'm a doctor like flangey pants and this is this and then they go oh okay then and then with no consideration it's like why the people in keels wear white coats don't get me started so yeah they really want to make these connections they really want to say Manson plus Bakhtalia we've got him look at this but we really do have to dig into this a little bit deeper than it seems that the police or the prosecution did because as far

as I can see there was no evidence that Luke Mitchell was a a huge Manson fan or b that he had ever even seen Manson's Black Dahlia paintings or that he was obsessed with this case at all. All the police had found in his room was one Manson CD and one DVD and one Marilyn Manson poster slash calendar. The DVD and the poster had both come free with the CD so they weren't even multiple purchases. Yeah. And it turned out that the CD had been bought two days after Jody's murder oh for god's sake oh okay that is that i'm going home and also there were absolutely no web searches or anything like that that the police found to show this accusation they were making that luke mitchell was obsessed with manson or the black dahlia case which like setting aside even if he was wouldn't be any sort of solid evidence of murder

anyway I hardly think having one cd makes you an obsessed fan if anything he was more obsessed with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana because Kurt Cobain is the one he quotes all the time yeah sure I mean I'm trying to think of the most embarrassing album that I've ever owned not I won I'm very proud of that I don't know what my I was really into like a certain type of music in that day. Like we had Spice Girls era. We had the Destiny's Child era. I was very like into like Avril Lavigne and Sum 41. Yes, yes, yes.

I definitely... Oh, I know what my most embarrassing one was. I had a compilation CD that came with a karaoke DVD. And it was just called Independent Women. Outstanding. It was just like Avril Lavigne Kelly Clarkson just all of those and there was about 14 tracks and I knew every single one oh mate do you know what in a serendipitous move the bus to work today I was listening to a spotify playlist called independent women I was really and the absolute banger that i did repeat several times on my way here was do you remember that song just don't think i'm not when you're out

in the club don't think i'm not i can't believe you just sang on the show i'm so proud of you yes i do know that song banger banger i knew it when you said it i just wanted you to sing it kind of was it kind of you know? I'm very impressed. Thank you. Gosh, guys. So yeah, basically what we're saying is that even if he was fucking obsessed with this case and Manson, there's no proof that that makes him a fucking killer, but they couldn't even prove that he was obsessed with him. But of course the prosecution backed up all of their claims that Luke Mitchell was into

Satanism, into all of this, blah, blah, blah, with the missing knife and the strange carvings on the empty knife pouch, as well as the satanic ramblings in various books that they found in Luke Mitchell's bedroom. Again, he's an intense kid. He easily, as Hannah said, could have carved those things into the knife pouch after Jodie's death. And also, like we said, the fucking satanic ramblings mean nothing. There was nothing satanic even found at the scene of the crime. It's not like it was a pentagram or 666 carved into jodie and when it comes to the blood evidence we already know that the prosecution are arguing that jodie's throat was cut from behind so the arterial spray would have gone forward which we already think is a stretch and

also we have to consider that jodie's clothes were removed after she died. So how are you taking, because that's going to be some serious spray, that's going to be a lot of blood. How are you removing her clothes and then making post-mortem stab incisions without getting a drop of blood on you? You're just not. Her clothes that were strewn around the woods were soaked in her blood. How somebody could have removed those clothes from her body without getting blood on them. There is a documentary, I can't remember which one, I watched so many for this, but there is a Channel 5 documentary which goes into a lot of depth. It's very controversial and I do agree with the people who are angry at it that they leave a lot of evidence out, but it is still worth a watch. But we see this all the time with documentaries, we've talked about this before.

Documentaries, they're great, obviously, fucking love a true crime documentary, but they have a narrative that they want to play to because that's how you get a documentary made you have to have a hook you have to have an angle you have to have a pitch you have to be able to say this documentary what is the reason for why we are making it we're making it to say that luke mitchell is innocent and he's it's a miscarriage of justice when we make the show we don't have to make that kind of bold narrative decision we can just say we don't fucking know because here's some evidence that looks like he did it and here's a bunch of evidence that looks like he didn't do it and this documentary definitely leaves stuff out that in it they speak to this forensic pathologist

and the interviewer is like how could this have been done how could he have got no blood on him and they were like he literally would have been having to wear like a hazmat suit and that's the only way so we're not saying that all of this completely exonerates Luke, doesn't really, we don't think. Because after all, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Especially when you consider that the police really fucked up a lot of this investigation as far as hard evidence went. As we said, it was found to be deplorable by an independent investigation. And this is the thing, because the people who think that Luke Mitchell didn't do this always obviously combat the fact that there is no hard forensic evidence linking him to Jodie's murder. But he could have cleaned himself up. That is not beyond, like, possibility.

Also, the police did a lot of fucking odd things when it came to the scene of the crime. It has to be noted, firstly, that the police moved Jodie's body before forensics teams had arrived. Why? Why are you doing? That's the opposite of what you should do. And they also left Jodie's body completely uncovered in the rain overnight. That's unbelievable. Isn't it? I'm like, maybe it's like a small, small police station and they don't even have like one of those white pop-up tents. And they had to wait for the forensics teams to get there from somewhere else,

like from Edinburgh or whatever. Edinburgh's 10 miles away. Like, please, let's keep this in perspective. They didn't even cover her body with like a plastic sheet or something. They just left her uncovered in the woods all night in the rain. And obviously, a lot of evidence transfer evidence things like this dna is just going to get washed away and also this was shocking they didn't even take our time of death bad i have no time to tell you for when jodie died yeah so like how can you

establish a timeline all we know is she left the house at five and she was found at 11 dead. That's it. Also, because as if that wasn't bad enough, it gets worse. The police cut down nearby tree branches to make it easier to get in and out of the scene. Tree branches that could have been covered in vital evidence. Police also entered, apparently, this crime scene again and again, repeatedly, wearing no protection. Obviously, very easily contaminating the area. And it gets even worse, I'm sorry to say, because apparently, and this is quoted in places as an unknown person, but I'm assuming it's a police officer,

had the scene of crime bleached, bleached, before the sniffer dogs had a go. Why? Why are police bleaching anything? Especially a woods. It's not like a house where maybe you do a deep clean or something after a body's been found. Why are you bleaching the woods before the dogs have arrived?

Why was this happening? I have absolutely no idea. And then we're going to come on to eyewitness testimony from the prosecution. Also not great. A local lady, Adrena Bryson, was driving out of East Houses between 5 and 5.30 on the day of the murder. And she told police that at the end of the path she saw a man and a woman together, roughly matching the descriptions of Luke and Jodie. When Adrena was shown a photo of Luke Mitchell, she said that it was him that she had seen.

This obviously seems to contradict Luke's account that he hadn't seen Jodie that night. And two other witnesses also identified Mitchell as the young man they had seen at the New Battle end of the path around an hour later. But again, these are not exactly squeaky clean statements. There are a lot of problems with these two. Firstly, and obviously, because eyewitness testimony is generally deeply bollocks. That's a good phrase. I like it. So deep in bollocks. So deep in bollocks. Swimming through bollocks. Hate it. A bollock ocean. Secondly, Adrena had picked Luke Mitchell out of a book of photographs. When, and I didn't know this because apparently police guidelines clearly stipulate that if a suspect is

available to be a part of an ID parade then they should have been shown Luke in the flesh. Like Adrena should have been shown Luke as like a part of a lineup not as part of like a fucking book of photographs. And also apparently police protocol dictates that everyone in the lineup should have looked similar. That makes sense, obviously. But of the 12 photos that Adrena was shown, there was only one person who matched her description. And guess who that was? It was Luke Mitchell. And also, it gets worse.

Luke Mitchell's photo was the only one that looked like a mugshot. Because it was. And it was on a white background whereas all of the others were against like natural backgrounds so how is that not going to stand out to you it makes a difference again like Scott Watson yeah yeah yeah yeah and things only got worse in court when and this is unbelievable that she basically IDs Luke from this book of pictures then when she's in court the prosecution are depending on Adrena being able to point to Luke and say that is the man that I saw on the path but in court she can't do it she can't do it and this of course totally invalidated her original identification and with

that what it really meant for the prosecution's case was that no one could place Luke Mitchell at the scene of the crime at the time that they needed him to be there. And, of course, again, there is no physical evidence to indicate that he was there either. So what else did the prosecution have hiding up their duplicitous sleeves? Well, they had another witness, who had been a classmate of Luke's. And this classmate said that Luke had once shown her a knife, and said to her that he could, quote, imagine getting stoned and killing someone

yo like i there's no it doesn't mean anything teenagers who dress like that say stuff like that that's just the just part of the course but the next two bits of evidence the prosecution throw in are a little bit more interesting the first was a call that luke mitchell made from his mobile to a speaking clock to get the exact time. This call was made at 4.54pm on the day that Jodie was killed. I had completely forgotten about the speaking clock. I mean, why would you think about it? I mean, I mean, sure. It's such a weird thing. Oh my god. And why would he have called that service if he'd been at home making dinner, as he claimed? Surely there was a clock in his house i don't understand this whole this evidence this piece of evidence or this fact

is so strange to me the prosecution claimed that this call was because he was on his way to meet jody and he wanted to know what time it was so he could meet her on time they were obviously supposed to be meeting at five o'clock and although the messages couldn't be recovered jody and luke on the day that she died had been exchanging texts from 4 35 p.m and then at 4 54 p.m he calls the speaking clock why i mean the most morbid part of me is like he'd called that to find out what her time of death was but maybe he was on his way to meet her but if he's texting his phone would have had the time like that's so bizarre and it can't have been her time of death because it's before she she leaves the house at five right right right so it's like he does it the prosecution basically say that it's proof that he had plans to meet

jody at a pre-arranged time right and it does at the very least suggest that he was out not at home cooking dinner as he had claimed so the final piece of evidence that the prosecution hit Luke with was about a mysterious hair accessory and this one I do think is possibly quite interesting. After Luke had found Jodie's body he described to police and her family a distinctive hair clip that she had been wearing but this hair clip wasn't visible when Jodie's body was found. The pathologist at the scene of the crime says that the hair clip had been behind her head. So it had been in the dirt. So how could he have seen it? And also, Jodie hadn't worn that hair clip to school that day.

She had put it in before she left her house, when she was on her way to allegedly meet Luke. And this implied that Luke was lying about having last seen Jodie at school on the day that she was murdered. It very much made it seem like he had seen her later. The other thing that's linked to this is that Jodie's obviously at school in her school uniform. She comes home, gets changed. Luke was also able to describe the clothes that were strewn around the woods, but he said he hadn't seen her after school. So how did he know what she'd been wearing? The trial went on for two and a half months. But finally, on the 21st of January 2005, the jury were sent off to deliberate.

And after just six hours, in a murder trial, the jury reached their verdict. And Luke Mitchell showed no reaction at all as he heard them say guilty. At 16 he was given a life sentence to serve a minimum of 20 years. Since this Luke Mitchell has appealed four times but all of these appeals have failed. He still maintains his innocence to this day and claims that he's been framed by the police. And, as we know, his refusal to admit what he's done, if he did do it, or to say that he did do it, massively impacts the likelihood of him ever getting parole. Before we round off for this week, there are a couple of final twists to this case that are worth mentioning. 18 months after Luke Mitchell was convicted, a man named Scott Forbes came forward to police to claim that the day Jodie was murdered, his friend Mark Kane had come to see him. Apparently Kane's face was covered in scratches and Mark Kane lived just half a mile away from the body site and was known to be an erratic drug addict. Forbes alleged that the

day Jodie was killed, Kane had told him that he'd been hanging out in the woods around East Houses taking speed, hash and drinking alcohol. Forbes also told the police that three weeks before Jodie's murder, Kane had handed in an essay at New Battle Abbey College, where they both went, about murdering a girl in the woods. He also claimed that he had convinced Kane to go to the police, which he did and apparently he was told that someone go to the police, which he did, and

apparently he was told that someone would be in touch, but nobody ever rang. Now, like with a lot of evidence in this case, there are many issues with this account, like the fact that the professor at the college said that no such paper about a girl being murdered in the woods had ever been handed in, and it's also alleged that Scott Forbes, who has a criminal background, only wanted to push this story about Mark Kane to try and get some money from the tabloids by offering up exclusive interviews. In any case, Mark Kane later died and was totally ruled out as a suspect by police. But it is odd, I think it's worth saying this, that this man, Mark Kane, went to police, allegedly told them something something that he had been

in the woods or whatever and that nobody had followed up on this lead? Again pointing to their blinkered approach despite no solid physical evidence pinpointing Luke Mitchell to the scene of the crime. In fact nobody else was ever considered to be a suspect even though there were a few men who people think should have been at least looked into a bit more carefully. For example, Jodie's two male cousins' mopeds were apparently spotted in the area around the time that she vanished. And there's another little twist that a condom, filled with what condoms are typically filled with, was found about 50 yards from Jodie's body in the woods. At appeal the

defence claimed that this linked the man, who we aren't going to name, but who was a Midlothian local in his mid-20s, to the area at around the time of Jodie's death. But this man was later cleared by police. The interesting thing is they never tell us how, they just say he's been cleared. There's a lot of confusion about whether there was like corruption with the dna whether it even matched this man and that's the name reason we're not naming him because it's not clear at all there's all the reports that he was just having sex with some random girl like in the woods which people do do of course they do exactly and that makes far more sense but you know it's also the fact that they found this condom and they disregarded it they did nothing with that evidence Like we said at the top of this wonderful show, we don't know if Luke Mitchell did kill Jodie or not.

I find it odd that the knife and his jacket are still missing and it seems like he's lied quite a lot about where he was on that evening. But it is also odd that there was no forensic evidence at all linking him to the crime. However, the police were hardly running a tight and competent investigation. So to be honest, where I'm landing on this, I do think that Luke Mitchell probably did kill Jodie Jones. But was he given a fair trial? No. Is the conviction safe? Also no. Yeah, I feel the same. I know that people feel very emotional about this case. And as of last count, something like 16,000 people have signed a petition to have him exonerated or give him a new

trial or whatever it is. So people feel very, very convinced that Luke Mitchell did not do this. And I know that also the Channel 5 documentary that recently came out this year, which you can find on YouTube, it's called like Murder in a Small Town. Also has people convinced that he didn't do it. But when you look at the evidence, like in more of a well-rounded way, I feel like he probably did do it. But I don't think that the conviction was a safe one. I agree. And please be nice to each other when discussing this case. That's probably the best we can do with it really but yes I do think in summary I think he probably did do it I think the point to hammer home though here is that although I do think that Luke Mitchell did it the prosecution if I was in the jury the prosecution wouldn't have proved it to me that he did it beyond a reasonable doubt absolutely

not and also even if he did do it it definitely wasn't because of Marilyn Manson no absolutely fucking not so yeah I think he did do it. But I think if I was in the jury, I wouldn't have convicted him. And he probably shouldn't be in jail for this piss poor case they put together against him. But that's it, guys.

That is the case of Jodie Jones and Luke Mitchell. Thank you for listening. So yeah, if you haven't yet got your hands or your ears on the book slash the audio book, you might want to consider going and doing that.

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