Police tight-lipped on claims of new Jodi suspect

Published on Monday 11 December 2006 12:58

POLICE today refused to comment on claims of a new suspect in the Jodi Jones murder case.

Lawyers for the schoolgirl's killer, Luke Mitchell, are investigating new evidence which seems to place a recovering drug addict in the frame.

A Dalkeith resident is understood to have contacted police with evidence of the man's behaviour around the time of Jodi's death.

The man, who was on a course for recovering drug users near where Jodi's body was found in 2003, reportedly handed in an essay titled Killing a Female in The Woods to his course tutor three weeks before the murder.

It is reported he was also a regular visitor to the woods where Jodi was killed.

It was also claimed that, on the day after the murder, he had scratches on his face and arms but could not remember how he got them.

Mitchell's legal team are reportedly demanding the student is DNA tested to see if he matches a mystery sample found on Jodi's body.

Reports over the weekend suggested detectives had dismissed the claims and were confident they had got the right man. However, Lothian and Borders Police refused to comment today.

Jodi was 14 when she was murdered in June 2003 in woods at Roan's Dyke path, a shortcut between her home in Easthouses, and Mitchell's house in Newbattle.

The teenage girl's throat was slit and her body had been mutilated.

Mitchell was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years behind bars in January 2005 after a jury found him guilty of the murder.