Boyfriend Guilty Of Murdering Jodi
The young boyfriend of a 14-year-old schoolgirl has been found guilty of her murder in what the judge called a "grotesque" crime.Luke Mitchell, 16, had denied killing his girlfriend Jodi Jones.
Jodi was stripped, tied up and repeatedly stabbed to death in what had all the hallmarks of a ritual killing.
The court heard that even once she was dead, the killer continued to stabb her, cut her breast and eyelids.
The jury of eight women and seven men convicted the 16-year-old almost exactly 24 hours after the start of the deliberations with a majority verdict.
The judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, told Mitchell that he would face detention "without limit". The time he will spend behind bars will be set at a later hearing.
Addressing Mitchell, the judge said he had been convicted of a "truly evil murder".
Lord Nimmo Smith said: "It lies beyond any skill of mind to look into the black depths of your mind.
"I can only look at what you have done.
"You have been convicted of a truly evil murder - one of the most appalling crimes that any of us can remember - and you will rightly be regarded as wicked.
"I have no idea what led you to what you did. Maybe it was a desire for notoriety, to achieve something grotesque. I leave it to others to fathom.
"What you did was to subject Jodi to a horrible death and one can only hope it was mercifully quick.
"There must, however, have been a time before she became unconscious when she knew that you, her boyfriend, whom she held in affection and trust and whom she left joyfully to meet and turned into a fiend.
"She still had her life ahead of her and you snuffed it out. She was loved by her family and you have left them bereft.
"The horror of what you have done has changed many lives and will last far beyond any sentence I can pass on you."
Mitchell showed no emotion when the verdict was delivered and just looked straight ahead.
Jodi's mother Judith wept and was comforted by friends and family.
Mitchell's mother Corinne hung her head.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard the schoolgirl's body was found with her hands behind her back and both wrists bound by the legs of a pair of trousers.
She had a major cut to her throat which led to her death.
Bloodstains on the wall were consistent with an artery being severed.
Jodi's throat had been cut a number of times when she fell to the ground.
The killer slashed her neck up to 20 times with a force that was enough to cut a hole in the windpipe.
The main artery of her neck had been cut seven-eighths of the way through and there were large slashes across her abdomen.
Her body had been moved after she died. The patrial removal of her breast and the inflicting of a wound on her right arm described as a "very deep injury indeed" happened after her death, the court heard.
Jodi had multiple injuries to her head with a laceration and bruising to her forehead.
Mitchell slashed her ear and cut Jodi's eyelids.
Mitchell, who was 15 at the time, killed her in woods near her home.
He put a ligature around his victim's arms and struck her repeatedly with a knife.
Jodi, from Dalkeith in Midlothian, was discovered dead on a wooded path on June 30, 2003.
Jodi's mother Judith appeared in court to testify against Mitchell.
She said her daughter left home the afternoon she died saying she was going to meet her boyfriend.
Mrs Jones said Jodi was normally very punctual and when she failed to return home by 10pm as agreed, she began to worry.
She phoned Mitchell four times - but he insisted he had not seen her all day.
His alibi was his mother who backed up his story that, at the time of Jodi's death, he was at home cooking dinner.
Reacting to the verdict, Jodi's uncle, Kevin Walker, said at a news conference that whatever sentence was passed on Mitchell it would not be enough given Mitchell's "evil".
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and they were younger
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