Background
Mitchell
Luke Mitchell was born on 24 July 1988, the younger of two children. His parents separated when he was 11, and he was raised by his mother, Corinne, in relatively comfortable circumstances in Newbattle with hobbies that included music, riding horses, and motorbikes. Mitchell went to St David’s RC High School in Dalkeith. He was considered a good pupil, although one teacher is known to have expressed concern about the violence in an essay he had written.[3]
Mitchell was in the school year above Jodi Jones, and he and she, along with various other pupils, smoked cannabis on the school premises. The two began a relationship in around February 2003, when both were 14 years old, with Mitchell being Jones’s first serious boyfriend. Jones soon became smitten with Mitchell, and their relationship soon became sexual. One entry in Jones’s diary dating from the spring or early summer of 2003 reads: “‘I think I am actually in love with Luke. Not in a stupid way, I mean real love. God, I think I would die if he finished with me … If I am crying, he hugs me and strokes my face. He is just so sweet. No matter what he says I believe him.”[4]
Jones
Jodi
Jodi Jones was born in 1989 in Easthouses, the youngest of three children born to James and Judy Jones. She was born into a working class family, with both of her parents working for the Royal Mail. Jones has been described as a bright, “level-headed” and headstrong child who displayed a flair for painting and poetry and who was particularly close with her older sister, Janine. She was affectionately known by her mother as her “wee mentor”. [5]
In 1998, Jones’s father committed suicide. His death caused great distress to the family and Jones’s mother gave up her work in order to care for her three children. Jones’s older sister briefly relocated to Mayfield to live with her grandmother to distance herself from the trauma, but soon returned to her family home.
As a teenager, Jones developed a streak of rebellion; she is known to have frequently adjusted her image and to have alternately dyed her hair colours such as pink or green, to have developed an interest in heavy metal bands such as Metallica and, by age 14, to have experimented with marijuana and alcohol. When she entered into a relationship with Mitchell, she initially kept the relationship a secret from her family, confiding only in her sister, Janine. Shortly thereafter, Janine (then 19) informed her mother of her younger sister’s boyfriend. In May 2003, Mitchell met the Jones family for the first time.[5]
In the weeks immediately before she was murdered, Jones’s social life—which largely revolved around Mitchell—was curtailed by her mother after she discovered her daughter had begun taking drugs. The restriction on her meeting her boyfriend was lifted on 30 June.[6]
Jones and Mitchell frequently met via one traversing through a stretch of woodland to meet the other. A section of this woodland is known as Roan’s Dyke Path.