Murder of Jodi Jones

The murder of Jodi Jones is a Scottish murder case from June 2003 in which a 14-year-old schoolgirl was murdered in woodland in Dalkeith, Scotland by her 14-year-old boyfriend Luke Mitchell. She was found murdered with a knife behind a wall on a path where she would invariably meet her boyfriend, having set out to meet him that afternoon.

Mitchell, who claimed to have found her almost immediately after a search party set out that evening to find the missing girl, rapidly became the prime suspect and was brought to trial in 2004. It was discovered that a knife that he regularly carried around with him and which could have been the murder weapon had mysteriously disappeared, as had his coat which he had been seen wearing that night and which could have held incriminatory forensic evidence. The suggestion was that these had been disposed of to hide evidence. Equally suspicious had been that these items were then replaced by his mother, who denied the existence of the previous items. The pouch for the missing knife was found, and Mitchell had marked on it Jodi's initials JJ with "1989 – 2003" (her birth and death), as well as a quote saying "the finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came".

At trial Mitchell and his mother claimed he had been at home at the time, but phone records suggested otherwise and his brother admitted (as confirmed by computer records) that he had actually been watching pornography, saying he only would have done so if no one else had been at home. As a result of this, the mother was additionally charged with perjury, although this was ultimately dropped when Mitchell was found guilty of the murder in January 2005. The brother, who originally gave a different account and admitted to having agreed with his mother what to tell police when he first spoke to police, had also initially been charged with perverting the course of justice before telling the account he had given at trial.

Mitchell continues to protest his innocence, and several attempts to overturn his conviction have failed. A large amount of discredited speculation has been made about the case, including inaccurate claims that no DNA linked Mitchell to the murder and that this indicates innocence, and the family of the victim have endured online abuse and false accusations from Mitchell's supporters. Jones' family say they have always remained satisfied of Mitchell's guilt.