Jodi Jones Tribute

On June 30, 2003, fourteen-year-old Jodi Jones was found brutally murdered in Dalkeith, Scotland. Her body was along a path through some woods, and she had been subjected to what prosecutors would later describe in court as a "savage knife attack." Her mutilated body had been found by Mitchell and the Jones family who were leading a search for her after she had failed to return home. Jodi had set out to visit Luke Mitchell, her boyfriend, and Mitchell himself was one of many local people taking part in the search. The fact that Mitchell and his dog discovered the body very quickly and that the search was at night and in poor weather would later play a major part in the criminal investigation.

Eventually Mitchell was arrested and charged with the crime. At his trial at the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh he pleaded not guilty. During the 42-day trial which followed the jury heard evidence from both Mitchell's mother and brother as well as visiting the crime scene. The evidence of Shane Mitchell was crucial as it contradicted the alibi his brother gave as part of his defence as Luke Mitchell said that he was at home cooking dinner at the time of the murder. The trial is the longest of a single accused in Scottish legal history.

On January 21, 2005, the jury found him guilty after 5 hours of deliberation. Mitchell, aged sixteen at the time of his conviction, was condemned as being "truly wicked" by Judge Lord Nimmo Smith.