All language subtitles for Murder.in.a.Small.Town.S01E01.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_track4_[eng]

It's been described by police
as one of the most violent
murders

in a generation.

This would have been a
bloodbath.

14-year-old schoolgirl
killed in broad daylight.

Jodi Jones had everything
to live for,

but her life was cut cruelly
short when she was brutally
attacked.

She'd put up an enormous fight.

There was evidence of a
struggle. The area was heavily
bloodstained.

She was virtually decapitated.

This was probably the most
shocking

and horrific murder in Scottish
criminal history.

Children being accused of
horrendous crimes tends to
attract

a massive amount of outrage.

He was a Satan-worshipping,
scary, Gothic character.

This is a little village and
we've got a devil worshipper.

You can just imagine the fear.

Mitchell was convicted and
jailed for a minimum of 20
years.

Mrs Jones, are you happy that
justice has been served today?

Dalkeith's the biggest town in
this area. Originally a market
town,

about eight miles from
Edinburgh.

In a sort of semicircle,
there's maybe half a dozen

little interlinked villages.

Some of them were mining
villages, some of them

grew out of the market
town of Dalkeith.

Nothing ever really happens
here.

It's an ordinary place
with ordinary people.

Teenagers Jodi Jones
and Luke Mitchell

lived in the neighbouring
villages of Easthouses and
Newbattle.

They had been dating
for five months.

I met her a few times, not a
lot, but I met her a few
times.

Typical 14-year-old.

Shy, but not to the awkward
stage

and not cocky, just... a lovely,
well mannered wee girl.

Jodi and Luke arrange to
meet as usual after dinner.

A very, very ordinary Monday.
Couldn't have been more
ordinary.

As it turned out, it wasn't,
was it?

Jodi doesn't arrive to meet
Luke and just after 10pm,

her family realise she hasn't
been seen since five o'clock.

A search party is
arranged to find her.

Luke came to me in a bit of a
state, saying, "Jodi's
missing!"

And he borrowed the torch
and off they went.

Luke meets Jodi's family at the
top of Roan's Dyke Path,

a woodland short cut connecting
both their homes.

Waiting for him at the top of
the path were Jodi's sister
Janine,

her gran Alice and Janine's
boyfriend, Steven Kelly.

So, they all set off, down the
path

and they're just past
this break in the wall.

And Luke goes over the wall
and he calls out,

"I think there's something
here."

The sister's boyfriend,
Steven Kelly, then goes

over to the wall and the
granny -

well, she wants to see
for herself what's there.

And she started screaming.

Jodi had been beaten, her hair
had been pulled out by the
roots,

she'd been strangled.

Her throat was cut
between 12 and 20 times.

She was virtually decapitated.

REPORTER: Jodi Jones was found
hidden in woodland on the
other side

of a wall running alongside a
path.

Tonight, there is a very real
deep sense of shock that a
crime

like this has happened here.

From the minute the news of
the murder broke on the
morning

of July 1st, the hysteria,

the relentless media coverage,

the fear, the fact that
something like that could
happen in this area.

Detectives have warned
Dalkeith teenagers starting
the summer break

to be on their guard.

There was a maniac roaming
among us.

Police have staged a
reconstruction of the
last-known movements

of murdered teenager Jodi
Jones.

Tonight, motorists were being
asked if they were here a week
ago.

Jodi's clothes are undergoing
forensic examination.

I got a call from a police
officer.

They wouldn't tell me what had
happened, just that they were
taking

Luke and Mia, our dog, to the
police station and could I
meet them there?

Then we were questioned about
that night and they tape

your conversations and my tape
was marked "Witness"

and I noticed that Luke's tape
was marked "Suspect".

It appeared that Luke Mitchell
was now prime suspect.

Police believed he had led the
search party to Jodi's body.

A location only her killer
could have known.

It seemed 14-year-old Luke
Mitchell had become the prime
suspect

in his girlfriend's murder.

A police search of his house
revealed more about his
character.

Mitchell had really highly
peculiar habits at home.

He was storing up jars of urine
in his room.

He was a dope-smoking, kind of
feral youth, a scary Gothic
character.

They found Satanic slogans
on his school jotters.

And one of the things that made
this case seem really scary,

really terrifying, was this
emphasis that Luke Mitchell
was

a devil worshipper,
that he was into the occult.

And he was obsessed
by the Black Dahlia murders.

Jodi's injuries were said
to have some similarity

to those of a murder victim
known as the Black Dahlia,

a young woman who had been
mutilated in a ritualistic
killing.

The Black Dahlia case was the
killing of a young woman
called

Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles,
in 1947.

She was found horribly
mutilated.

She'd been severed in two

so the legs and the torso
had been separated.

Was Mitchell inspired
by the Black Dahlia?

The case against Luke Mitchell
was building.

The police were closing in
and the press began to name him

as the main suspect.

This stuff was being gobbled up
insatiably in broadsheets

as well as tabloids.

It's got a kind of horror movie
element to it.

You know, this is about a young
girl who's 14

who's found brutally murdered.

And in all that crazy stuff
around devil worship and drugs,

and you have a really kind
of toxic brew that people

couldn't get enough of.

The press just ran amok.

They were virtually camped
outside our door

with their sandwiches and
flasks, flinging themselves on
my car

when my car left the driveway
just to get a close-up of Luke.

There was the story, which
became enormous, of Luke
Mitchell

being asked not to attend
the funeral of Jodi Jones.

We weren't allowed to go to
Jodi's funeral and I asked why,

and they said
because the family were...

...frightened that we would
turn into a circus.

On the day that the funeral
happened, he decided to sit

down with Sky News
and do an interview.

Sky came to my door
and I told them, yes,

we were having a vigil for
Jodi.

So they asked if they could
come in and to witness that.

I thought, what harm can it do?
Erm...

In fact, I thought it would do
better because there was a
whisper

of Luke not caring a jot,
and he was unemotional

and he was this, that and the
other.

And I thought, well, at least
if we show them this, then at
least

they know we are thinking
about her and we do

have emotions and whatnot.
So I let them in.

And basically that horrible
little man started

almost interviewing Luke.

What do you say to those who
would look at you and think,

"He killed his girlfriend"?

I just say they're being
naive, not to believe
everything you read

in the papers. It's trial by
media.

The interview itself had a
rather unpleasant sort of vibe
to it.

The police and accusations,
and things, I couldn't care
about.

It was just...

Just want to find out what
happened and who did it.

It felt strange to watch.

There was judgments made
about the relationship

between Mitchell and his
mother.

It added to the creepiness and
the disturbing nature of the
story.

And the headlines
the day after that...

The screeching headlines,
"How could you?"

Yeah, the public turned
against us with that one.

REPORTER: A 15-year-old boy has
been remanded in custody

after appearing in court
charged with the murder of
Jodi Jones.

Luke Mitchell was finally
arrested on April 14th, 2004.

Ten months after Jodi's murder.

REPORTER: At around 7:30, the
police arrested the youth at
his home

and brought him back here
to the station.

His alibi that he was at home
cooking dinner was rejected,

and his mother and older
brother were arrested.

REPORTER: We understand that
she's going to be charged with
attempting

to pervert the course of
justice in connection with
this case.

The final plank in the police
case against Luke Mitchell

was that his mother gave
a false alibi to protect him.

Innocent or guilt,

there's something wrong
with this conviction.

We have a 14-year-old boy, and
despite extensive
investigation,

there is no forensic evidence
to link him to the crime.

The evidence is insufficient
to say beyond a reasonable
doubt

that this was Luke Mitchell
that committed this murder.

We're going to find somebody
guilty, it has to be on the
basis of solid

evidence beyond reasonable
doubt, that hasn't happened in
Luke's case.

We're talking about a person's
life

and you need science
to put someone in jail.

PHONE LINE RINGS

My name's John Sallens,
I'm 27 years a police officer,

most of my time as a detective.

I've worked on many
high-profile inquiries,

murders, terrorism, serious
and organised crime,

spent most of my time in CID.

My name is Michael Neill.

I started off as a uniformed
officer in the north of
Glasgow,

trained as a firearms officer
during that time, and then
moved

into the CID arena.

Spent the majority of my career
after that as a detective.

John and I now run our own
private investigation company.

With a combined 50 years'
experience,

the former detectives have
agreed,

for the purposes of this
documentary, to re-examine the
case

against Luke Mitchell.

The difficulty of being asked
to reinvestigate a case that's
17 years

old, and in this case,
especially, where someone's
been convicted

of that murder and been in
prison, I suppose the biggest
difficulty

for John and I will be
to keep an open mind.

It may well be the case

that we think Luke Mitchell is
guilty, but we don't know until

both of us have investigated
it.

We'll start right at the
beginning.

What do we know? The basics.
What do we know about this
case?

We know Luke Mitchell was found
guilty by majority verdict.

14-year-old at the time of the
murder, 16-year-old at the
time of

the trial, OK? Sentenced to
life with a minimum of 20
years.

We are doing things
retrospectively now without
the full knowledge

of what investigation team
carried out.

We are just trying to conduct
this investigation based on

our own experience and things
that we would have done at the
time.

What we've got forensically
to tie him to it?

Absolutely nothing
forensically. It's a
circumstantial case.

You would think, considering
the brutality of that murder,

that there would have been
something forensically.

Luke has maintained his
innocence.

He had the opportunity to say
that he was guilty of this and
it would

have made a difference to his
length of sentence, but he's
adamant that

he hasn't committed this
murder. Right, OK.

Right, so, why don't we go
through there and visit the
crime scene?

We'll certainly go out and get
- a feel for it.
- We'll do that.

It's a lovely place as well, innit?

Nice wee quiet town.

Don't think we're far away now.

That's it there, that path
there. So it is, yeah.

Let's go.

So it's just a straight
track up here, all right?

I was a crime scene manager
for about five years.

You've got to think
like the suspect.

What can I take from this
that's going to help me find
out

who has committed this crime?

If you can retrieve evidence
from the actual scene of the
crime,

linking the accused to the
crime, it doesnae get any
better than that.

- Is that it?
- It is.

Right.

We're just trying to establish
exactly where the body was
found.

It's hard to see. You're
talking 17 years ago. It's
this bit here.

See it?

If I lay down, you're going to
have to put me in the
position.

- Hands behind my back?
- Eh...

Jodi had injuries to her throat
area. Her throat was cut.

And she'd suffered slash marks
from the right-hand side of
her mouth

towards her ear,
halfway towards her ear.

There was incised wounds
to her forearms, her breast,

her eyelids, her abdomen area,
her hands had been tied behind
her back

using her own trousers.

It's... We're painting a
picture here and it sounds
gruesome,

but, trust me, it's horrendous
the injuries Jodi received.

Absolutely horrendous.

I'll get you up.

This would have been a
bloodbath.

The person that carried out
this brutal murder would have

definitely had blood on them,
and some defensive injuries.

Jodi put up a fight,

so there was every likelihood
that he had scratches and
bruises.

Given the amount of blood
that was generated, I would say

that there should be a
reasonable chance, a
reasonable expectation,

of finding some kind of
evidence being transferred
from the victim

to the assailant.

Forensic teams removed more
than 100 items of evidence from
the murder

scene, including hair,
saliva, semen and blood.

People assumed that there must
have been masses of DNA that
linked Luke

to the case,
identified Luke as the killer.

It comes as a bit of a shock
to most people to realise
there was no DNA

whatsoever to link Luke to the
murder, to the murder scene

or to link Jodi to Luke.

So nothing.

To find nothing in such a
brutal crime scene as this,

bearing in mind that Luke
Mitchell's fingernails were
scraped

and they had dirt in them.

If he'd washed, that wouldn't
have been the case.

We're talking about a
mutilation. I mean, it's
horrific.

Absolutely horrific what was
taking place, so to get

out of here, get home, destroy
everything, every single piece

of DNA evidence that could
possibly be on your body,

I find it unbelievable.

There was DNA...

...male DNA at the scene
and on the body.

But it wasn't Luke's.

Forensics found DNA on a
bloodstain on Jodi's T-shirt.

DNA from Steven Kelly,
Jodi's sister's boyfriend.

That implicates Steven Kelly
more than it implicates Luke
Mitchell

because there was nothing found
from Luke Mitchell.

This was the only full DNA
profile

they had from Jodi's body
or her clothing.

You would have thought they'd
have gone straight to his door
and gone,

"Er, you have some
explaining to do."

Why didn't they do that?

The explanation given by
the prosecution in court

for Kelly's DNA was that
Jodi had borrowed her sister

Janine's T-shirt that night.

A wider search of the area
around Jodi's body revealed

Steven Kelly's DNA wasn't
the only male profile found.

Forensic searches from the
crime scene found DNA from
Jodi's sister's

boyfriend on clothing. But
another male profile was also
found

in a used condom
close to Jodi's body.

That condom was found to have
what was described as fresh
semen.

The police didn't find
the owner of the condom

in the initial investigation.

He was traced three years later
in 2006 when his DNA was put

through the national database
in relation to a different
incident.

It would seem significant in
terms of the nature of the
crime, given

that it was a young female and
there was a condom found with
semen.

I think it should have had
more significance than it
apparently did.

What stood out for me in
particular was the lack of
scientific evidence

against the accused and the
fact that they had other
potential line

of investigation and just...
They focused on just one
person.

We've only been here
a short space of time.

Straight away, we've spoke
about another two potential
suspects.

Luke Mitchell was the only
member of the search party

to be forensically examined
by the police that night.

The visit here today for us
is very worthwhile.

The biggest thing for us is if
those four people were here
and found

that body why was it only Luke
Mitchell that was taken in...
Yeah.

...to be interviewed?

All four of them should have
been treated at that point as
the same.

It just seems to be
it was only Luke Mitchell.

And at this moment there
doesn't seem to be a reason
for that.

I sprinted up to the police
station.

I asked where my child
and my dog were.

I was shown into a room and...

...the sight was just
horrendous.

Luke was sitting in a white
forensic suit, he'd been
stripped naked,

and he just had a tear
streaming down his cheek

and his eyes were like saucers.

He looked like somebody had
hit him right between the eyes

with a mallet. That's what he
looked like. Total shock.

The police would be under
pressure from an early stage
to make sure

that they identified a suspect
and arrested someone,

but it is possible to lose
important lines of inquiry by
developing

a case theory prematurely.

That early closing of minds

for the possibility
of other suspects

can result in lines of inquiry
not being taken, which means,

then, that to an extent
the investigation becomes

an inevitability in terms
of where the finger points.

An examination of the case
files reveals an inconsistency

in the stories of how Jodi's
body was found that night.

You've got the granny's
statement, the sister's
statement, the sister's

boyfriend's statement, but the
first statement he made bears
no

resemblance to the statement
that's used at court.

In their first statement, they
say that Luke's dog, Mia, was
sniffing

the air and was alerted
to something. Right?

Which is what Luke says as
well. Which is what Luke says
as well.

Which would indicate that the
dog has found something and
not Luke.

But then as they go on and
they put the statement they
use at court,

the dog didn't sniff the air
and Luke went straight to the
V,

and it makes it look as if
Luke knew where the body was.

It makes Luke Mitchell
as a suspect fit.

The defence tried to pursue
that, and they read out the
sister's

boyfriend's description of the
dog, it's an Alsatian, it's a
big dog.

Its head was above
the height of the V.

That's a very clear description
of the dog and how it reacted.

And he put it to the witnesses,
"This is what you said."

And they said things like,
"I don't remember."

And the first story that
they were all telling together

just disappears.

If three witnesses in their
statements are all saying

one thing and then by the time
of the trial, it's changed for
each

of them, but it's changed in
the same way, that would
certainly

prompt some questioning
by the defence QC and I'm sure

here Donald Findlay explored
that with them,

and then, no doubt, pointed out
to the jury,

"Well, people, of course,
can forget things.

"People might remember things
in different ways.

"But to see the same thing
in statements

"and then to have the same
changes in the witness box is
something

"that you might want to
have a think about it."

It'd be interesting for us to
have a look through the
statements and see

where they start to change.

And if there's anything
been suggested to them.

Has it been suggested to them
that this is what might have
happened?

And they've thought,
"Mm, aye, maybe."

Luke Mitchell was 14 years old
when he was accused

of murdering his girlfriend.

He was named by the press
within days, but not officially

charged until ten months later.

Luke was... When I say he was
in the press constantly, I
mean,

daily, absolutely daily.

This is five days after the
murder, I believe, where we've
got,

"Detectives hunting the killer
of 14-year-old Jodi Jones were
last

"night questioning her
boyfriend and his older
brother."

And Mitchell's named here.

So, you know, we have
the ethical issue

right at the start of the case.

You know, should we be naming
a child at this point?

Umpteen photos of him, naming
him. Now, bear in mind this is
pre-trial.

He had not been convicted.
He hadn't even been arrested,

but he was being treated
like a criminal.

So, I mean, we've got a picture
of Mitchell here.

When you look back on this,
it's intensely problematic

for how this case is going to
be treated by a jury,

in the eyes of the public.

Why do people think he did it?

Because the police told the
press and the press told the
public.

You worry about how this whole
narrative was being framed

by the police using the press

and what that would mean
by the time it gets to court.

That's really what lies at the
kind of icky heart of this.

The media and the police views
almost fed each other,

and they certainly, to my
mind, fed the impression that
was being given

- to the public.
- What intrigues me
the most about this case is,

was it the prosecution of
a lifestyle?

What I mean by that is Luke
Mitchell's case seemed to fit
in

with a narrative which was
unfolding in the late 1990s

and early 2000s where kids
were, in effect, almost
criminalised

themselves because of their
attitudes or their behaviour.

The dope smoking,
the violent computer games,

the listening to, you know,
music that adults found
offensive.

I mean, one of the strange
things about this case is the
whole

involvement of Marilyn Manson
and the Black Dahlia story

being sucked into the narrative
of the Luke Mitchell case.

Marilyn Manson was fascinated
with the Black Dahlia case.

We know that he painted
watercolours of the Black
Dahlia victim.

And it turned out the
prosecution were trying to
claim that Luke

had carried out a copycat of
the Dahlia murder from the
Manson

paintings because he was
obsessed with Marilyn Manson.

Well, if the kid's into
Marilyn Manson and Marilyn
Manson's

into the Black Dahlia, then,
you know, was Mitchell inspired

by the Black Dahlia?

There's a little bit of a
problem there or there should
have been

a little bit of a problem there
because there was no

evidence at all that Luke had
ever seen the paintings or
that he knew

anything about them.

So they took all the computers
that Luke had access to -

none of them had accessed
those paintings.

If this website is what he
would have had to access in
order to see

anything to do with the Black
Dahlia killing, where's the
evidence

that he accessed that?
And there was none.

The whole idea - I don't know
how many times this has to
come up

in cases like this -

they listen to a particular
type of music and that drives

them to murder.

There is no scientific evidence
to back up those claims,

wherever they've been made.

But they keep the keep wheeling
that old nugget out

because it's sensational.

People don't go out and kill
because of Marilyn Manson.

You can't blame Marilyn Manson
for murder.

As the re-examination of the
case continues, a disturbing
piece

of evidence reveals another
potential suspect.

We've got another person of
interest that absolutely
shocked me.

There's a guy
by the name of Mark Kane.

He's turned up with
scratches on his face.

If Luke Mitchell didn't kill
Jodi, somebody else did.

DOG BARKS

Sound effects!
SHE CHUCKLES

In April 2004, Luke Mitchell's
mother, Corinne,

was arrested and charged
with attempting to pervert

the course of justice.

Eight months later, all charges
against her were dropped.

This was caravan sales and the
shop sold caravan accessories.

I lost everything.

Started with losing my son,
and there's nothing worse,

as a mother, watching your son
being taken away from you when

you can't do anything.

You can try - you can try
screaming, try shouting, yelling.

Not going to get you anywhere.

And especially when you know
he's not done anything wrong

because he was with you.

And no-one listens. No-one
listens.

Then that has a knock-on
effect.

Well, after Luke was
convicted, obviously this was
an easy target.

And one night I got a phone
call from the police - "Can
you come up?"

So I was up here about three
o'clock in the morning.

To be honest, all I could do
was just sit in my car and
just stare.

It was just mind-blowing.

Utter carnage. It wasn't just
a couple of broken windows.

It was 40-odd caravans,
completely trashed.

So I sold the house.

So now we've got nothing,
absolutely nothing.

So I'm living here, not my
ideal plan at 61 living with
no

electricity, so...
no running water, no toilet.

Unfortunately, now my health
is suffering because of it.

No, no, you're too big to do
that now. You're too big to do
that now.

Yes, you are.

SHE COUGHS

In here is what
used to be my office,

which is now my
bedroom-cum-living room,

which I share with Michael
here.

And a few... A few rodents.

Yes.

How long have you lived here?

What are we...?
Coming up six years.

Luke and Mia.

An innocent little boy dragged
from his home, having done
nothing

wrong and then been turned
into a monster by the press.

It's just...

...devastating.
Completely devastating.

God, he just looks so young
in that photo.

Did you ever wonder whether
you could do this any more?

Oh, I'll do it. Erm...

It's taking its toll but,
yeah, I'll keep doing it until
he's out

where he should be. Erm...

Cos I want justice
for my boy, end of.

17 years after the conviction
of Luke Mitchell, evidence from
2003

reveals another potential
suspect who may have been
overlooked

by the police.

We've got another person of
interest that absolutely
shocked me.

See if you go down to number
four on that list. Yeah, got
it, yeah.

You'll see that there's a guy
- by the name of Mark Kane.
- Yeah.

Mark Kane has apparently
turned up at his friend's
house

the day after the murder.

He's turned up with
scratches on his face.

I carried out a wee experiment
last night.

I want to show you some
pictures, right. First of all,
who's that?

- That's Luke Mitchell.
- All right.

Who's this?

I don't know who that is,
but he's similar, the hairstyle

looks very similar to Luke
Mitchell. That's what I
thought.

- That's Mark Kane.
- You're joking,
No. How similar are they?

Right.

The whole thing rests on
eyewitness evidence, driving
by and identifying

a person as Luke Mitchell,
and they look so similar.

During the police
investigation, eyewitnesses
Rosemary Walsh

and Lorraine Fleming said
they had seen Luke Mitchell

at the end of the path leading
to the murder site on the night

of Jodi's murder.

The identification by Fleming
and Walsh could have been a
mistaken

identity, and the person
that they saw was not Luke,

it was Mark Kane.

Which would have knocked quite
a big hole in the
prosecution's story,

that Luke was at this end of
the path at this time,

and that end of the path
at that time.

Another wee trip
through to Dalkeith again.

Scott Forbes, the man who was
visited by Mark Kane the day

after the murder, has agreed
to meet with the investigators

at the crime scene.

So this will give us a feeling
for it now. A proper feeling.

Nothing better than actually
speaking to folk direct

rather than reading
their statements.

There's the gate there and
there's the entrance to the
path.

Right.

So what's over here?

So that's the college directly
through the trees there?

Yes.

So we've got Luke Mitchell
staying down there.

We've got Jodi Jones
staying up there.

We've got Mark Kane
staying over there.

The closest person's obviously
- Mark Kane.
- Yes.

So you're only talking a
couple of minutes to get from
there to there.

Definitely.

Tell me how you know Mark Kane,
Scott.

As an individual,
what sort of person was he?

What makes you think that Mark
Kane's involved in the murder

of Jodi Jones, then?

It's part of the same -
basically the woods surround
this field?

- Yes, yes.
- Right.

See, the day you seen him,
did he have a knife on him?

Never seen it?

Do you think Mark Kane
killed Jodi Jones?

Mick and I would like to
have a chat with Mark Kane.

Is it possible for you to
arrange a meeting that we
could sit down

and talk to him about this in
view of the things that
you've...

No, no, no.

Mark Kane's dead?

Last year?

I think we need to take a look
at these two moped boys.

We've got a witness who sees
the moped against the wall

right at the V in the wall
at the crime scene.

Sees the moped leaning against
the wall but doesn't see them
there.

What time was that at?5:15.

The exact time that
Jodi was murdered.

If we decide it's right,

let's see if we can get
Luke to get a polygraph.

That would be a dramatic,
sensational twist in the story.

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