The letter also addresses claims that Mitchell appeared cold and emotionless after the discovery of Jodi's body. He said a GP had prescribed tablets for anxiety and depression that are not recommended for children.https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13057041.Mitchell_tells_of_night_he_found_girlfriend_Jodi_dead/
Detective Chief Superintendent Craig Dobbie believes he has the "why". Softly spoken and bespectacled, Dobbie was appointed head of the murder hunt after Jodi’s body was discovered in the woods near Roan’s Dyke, Dalkeith, hours after she met her death
. He fought to solve a crime which lacked critical DNA evidence, finding himself up against a teenage suspect who showed immense cunning under the fiercest pressure.
In that time he had to think himself into the mind of Luke Mitchell. Today, in an exclusive interview, the senior investigating officer in the Jodi Jones case reveals his own thoughts on what happened at Roan’s Dyke on 30th June, 2003.
Dobbie’s theory, based on his own close scrutiny of the case and the facts as they emerged during Mitchell’s trial, is that the murderer was a violent fantasist who killed his girlfriend when she became upset after discovering he was two-timing her. He then mutilated her body to emulate the gruesome death of an actress, Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia. Mitchell’s hero, the controversial American rocker Marilyn Manson, has produced a series of paintings of Short’s body, which was cut in half, her face and breast slashed.
"One potential motive is the fantasy Luke had about what it would be like to kill someone and get away with it," said Dobbie. "He had said he could imagine himself killing someone and he knew how to. That’s verging on fantasy. He is exhibiting knowledge. And one influence could well have been Marilyn Manson’s depiction of the Black Dahlia murder. No-one can escape from the fact that there are glaring similarities between the dead bodies of Jodi Jones and Elizabeth Short as depicted in Marilyn Manson’s watercolours. He then has to have the opportunity, the catalyst."
That catalyst came, Dobbie believes, when Mitchell confessed he was planning a holiday with another girl. This led to the fatal confrontation between the teenage lovers in the woods.
But for Luke Mitchell life was much darker. Clues were emerging about just how dangerous he might be at a very young age. Born in July 1988, his parents Corinne and Philip split up when he was 11. He grew up under the care of his mother and she allowed him to do exactly as he pleased. He lived in a state of near squalor; keeping his own urine in bottles in his bedroom, rarely washing and wearing the same clothes for days on end. Left largely to his own devices he became defiant, violent and brooding with an unhealthy fascination with knives, the occult and drugs. He was first brought to the attention of the mental health profession aged just 11, following a fight at King’s Park Primary in Dalkeith. Although the incident was just a minor skirmish with another pupil, Mitchell’s attitude was sufficiently troublesome to warrant a referral to a school psychiatrist. However, there appears to have been little further action taken by the education authorities or his parents to curb his behaviour. When he was 12 he threatened his then girlfriend with a knife because she refused to have sex with him. The incidents went on. When he moved to St David’s High, a music teacher found him trying to throttle another pupil and he was sent to an educational psychologist. He refused the expert’s help. Instead Mitchell became a rebellious, mysterious teenager who was heavily into cannabis and supplied his Goth friends with the drug. He also appeared to have an unhealthy interest in the occult. The jotters at his Catholic school were daubed with Satanic slogans, and he wrote a school essay containing references to the devil. Yet teachers appeared to have little control over him and he would simply defy their instructions when it suited him. Even more worryingly, he also acquired a fascination with knives. His older brother, Shane, had a knife collection and Mitchell gathered his own array. At a party six weeks before killing Jones, he repeatedly jabbed her in the leg with a knife he had been using to cut up cannabis. Although she was clearly devoted to Mitchell, Jones was not his only girlfriend. He had also been seeing at least two other girls and may even have been grooming them to see which would make the most suitable victim. One of them was Kara van Nuil, now 17, who met him at army cadets in 2003. He wooed her with romantic text messages but their relationship ended abruptly after he followed her into the cadet hut one night, crept up on her, put his arm around her neck and placed a knife to her throat. Later he tried to laugh it off but van Nuil had been terrified. One month later he killed Jodi Jones. Another of Mitchell’s girlfriends was 15-year-old Kimberley Thomson, from Kenmore, Perthshire who he had been seeing for about a year before the murder. They had met while he was on holiday and kept in touch. Her resemblance to Jones was uncanny. Mitchell had arranged to go and stay with Thomson for a fortnight shortly after school broke up. At some point, he was going to have to break this news to Jones. Dobbie said: "There is a potential Jodi found out about Luke’s planned holiday with Kimberley that Monday. I think he told her at lunchtime." That conversation may have taken place at one of their favourite hideaways, an alcove off King’s Park, Dalkeith, known locally as the China Gardens. It was a place for teenagers to gather and smoke. They lit up a joint and sat alone until a friend joined them.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/natural-born-killer-1-1401861