Luke Mitchell

14 year old Jodi Jones was murdered last year near her home in Scotland. Both Jodi and her boyfriend Luke Mitchell also then 14 were associated with the popular goth genre known by it's dark lyrics, moody clothing and ocassional reference to satanism and various occultish practice. Jodi and Luke experimented with drugs and sex and were known to hang out at the well known Blackfriars cemetary in Edinburgh with other gothic teenagers.

On the 30 June 2003 Jodi was making her way to Luke's home taking a shortcut along Roan's Dyke, a wooden path, where she was to be murdered brutally taking numerous stabbings to the chest. Jodi was found later that evening by Luke and the Jones family when out searching for her. Luke's dog was said to have drawn them to the exact spot Jodi's body lay, a claim that the Jones family now deny.

On arrest Luke's knife pouch was found with his girlfriend's initials and the year they were going out on it. A tree in the wood were Luke and Jodi were seen smoking cannabis had their initials carved into it. There were several witnesses who saw a suspicious character near the crime scene on the day none of whom identified Luke, yet Luke was to become the prime suspect in the coming months despite the close relationship and the romantic engravings found on his personal effects and in the woods.

In the absence of any forensic evidence linking Luke to the crime the case fixated on the alternative teenage lifestyle Luke enjoyed. Lyrics from goth music that Luke had scribbled on his school jotters were gathered, and atheist quotations from Luke's school essay on God were reproduced for the jury.

On trial, a forensic psychologist gave his opinion that, that Luke had continued to try and lead a normal state of affairs by going to school, he was admitting to committing the offence. It was on these opinions and a hotchpotch of alternative teen culture representations that the jury, after 41 days of trial found Luke guilty by a majority of 10-2. He awaits sentencing on the 11 February.