All language subtitles for Murder in a Small Town S01 E01_track3_[eng]

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

in a generation.

This would have been a bloodbath.

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She'd put up an enormous fight.

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

F

This was probably the most shocking

and horrific murder in Scottish
criminal history.

F

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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.

É

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

ofJuly 1st, the hysteria,

the relentless media coverage,

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

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There was a maniac roaming among us.

Police have staged a reconstruction
of the last-known movements

of murdered teenagerJodi Jones.

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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 schooljotters.

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 ofJodi 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 forJodi.

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.

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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.

É

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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 ofJodi 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.

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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

forJohn 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.

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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 linkJodi 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.

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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.

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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.

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F

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 19905

and early 20005 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.

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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 killJodi,
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

ancl 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.

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Another wee trip
through to Dalkeith again.

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

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?

A

So we've got Luke Mitchell
staying down there.

We've gotJodi Jones
staying up there.

We've got Mark Kane
staying over there.

The closest person's obviously
Mark Kane.

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

ofJodi Jones, then?

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

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...

é

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.

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