‘The sum total of Luke’s friends evidence’ was not been published by the media at the time
By NICOLA STOW AND CHRIS MOONEY
TO his friends, he looked his usual self, laughing and smiling as he partied in Edinburgh nightclub Studio 24.
What they didnt know was that days before he had brutally murdered his girlfriend Jodi Jones.
The image of Mitchell - smiling and joking and "living life to the full" - at a goth club night is something that will never leave
former classmate Ben Sole."He looked fine," said Mr Sole, 17, who grew up with Mitchell.
"I saw him in the club and I remember going up to chat to him. I thought he must have been going through a difficult time - his girlfriend had just been murdered. But he was having a great time and he was joking about with me."
The club night at the Calton Road venue was popular with the alternative crowd which both Mitchell and Jodi used to hang around with.
"I remember the conversation I had with him," Mr Sole added.
"I used to have long hair and had just had it all cut off. Luke made some kind of joke to me - something along the lines of youve cut your hair - youre not one of us now. I made some remark and he laughed.
"He just carried on as normal - he seemed like he was having a really good time. He just carried on living life."
The schoolboy killers chilling ability to cut himself off emotionally from what was going on around him surprised Mr Sole.
But it was to become an all-to-familiar trait to those who watched him during the murder investigation and subsequent trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
It was clear when he stood stubbing out cigarettes beside Jodis grave just hours after her funeral in front of the watching media.
Despite her familys wishes, he had turned up, accompanied by another girl and his ever-supportive mother. He swore at photographers and a taxi driver who refused to take him home.
Earlier that day, as Jodis family attended an emotional funeral service, he chose to break his public silence and give a television interview in which he denied his guilt. And in the evening, he complained to police after Jodis grieving mother removed the flowers he left on his victims grave.
Mitchell, who was just 14 when he murdered Jodi, has never publicly shed a tear and did not wince when pictures of Jodis mutilated body were shown in the High Court.
The boy who was capable of carrying out one of the most brutal and grotesque crimes in recent Scottish history grew up in a dysfunctional family.
As he grew up in Newbattle, Dalkeith, he learned he could do exactly as he pleased. His parents Corinne and Philip are thought to have split up in 1999. After that, discipline - or what there was of it - was left to his mother.
Left largely to his own devices, he was free to pursue an unhealthy fascination with knives and the macabre.
Impressed by his older brother Shanes collection of knives, he began to acquire weapons himself, including a vicious lock knife with a six-inch blade, which got him into trouble at an Army Cadets meeting. He also spent hours smoking cannabis.
Friends said even at the age of 14, Mitchell was never without a plentiful supply of the drug. They were also impressed by the amount of cash he had, far more than anyone else his age.
Luke boasted to psychiatrists that he smoked the equivalent of 40 joints a day before doubling his use in the wake of Jodis murder.
The freedom he enjoyed living with his mother impressed his friends.
He was, according to Mr Sole, "allowed to do more or less whatever he wanted".
The indulgence of his mother - who was the one to supply an alibi in an attempt to save him from prison - seemed limitless.
When Luke decided he wanted a tattoo, rather than stop him or try to dissuade him, his mother went with him to Whiplash Trash in Cockburn Street. There, she lied to staff about her sons age so he could get what he wanted.
The lack of any supervision struck detectives who searched his bedroom in Newbattle Abbey Crescent, Easthouses.
Under his bed, they found more than 20 bottles of his own urine stored under his bed. No-one had intervened to stop his bizarre habit.
Mr Sole, who met Mitchell at Kings Park Primary School, said signs of his classmates violent personality were evident at an early age.
He recalled one incident when seven-year-old Mitchell "smashed up" his bike following an argument and how, years later, he punched a fellow pupil in the face in the school canteen.
Something of a loner, Mitchell had once also commented how easy it would be to stab someone in the eye with a corkscrew.
Often moody, and an unpredictable companion, fellow Army Cadets in Bonnyrigg found that Mitchell was unwilling to bow to authority.
One former cadet said: "If he was told to do something by anyone he would get really angry and start shouting at people and throwing things about. People found that extremely weird."
Despite this, he was never short of girlfriends, although he had few close male friends.
In the months before he killed Jodi, Luke was seeing at least two other girls, one in Perthshire and another who lived closer to his Midlothian home. None knew about his relationship with the others.
His determination to be individual and stand out from the crowd seemed to be part of the attraction.
With his distinctive goth-influenced style, he was an accepted part of the alternative crowd at St Davids, as well as in Greyfriars Kirkyard when he made regular trips into Edinburgh.
One friend, who recalled his tendency to exaggerate stories in an effort to make himself look better, said: "He did have more girlfriends than boys who were mates, probably because boys were more likely to turn against him. He felt he had a bit more control over the girls.
"I knew at school he was getting into a lot of trouble.
"He said to me once that he was in a fight with a couple of boys and said he won. He said hed taken them on himself, but I didnt believe him. It just wasnt believable."
Another described his ability to be a loner even when part of a crowd.
"He had what you might call friends, but most of them didnt really like him that much. They said he was strange," h
e said.
"When I first met him, someone who had known him before I did said he was a strange guy, the way he acted and the way he dressed."
In the words of one friend, Luke always liked to be "crackpot different", determined to go the extra mile to make his appearance truly original.
A fan of underground and "nu metal" groups such as Slipknot, Lukes favourite bands were goths and punks. He adopted their look, but always with a difference.
"Goths and punks have their own fashion, but they tend to stick to it, so theyre pretty much all the same - not Luke," said the friend.
"He liked to be different and to take the goth idea further by wearing things that were even more extreme. He was always wearing dark clothes, headbands, armbands, you name it."
This individualistic style and rebellious nature was ultimately what attracted his victim to him and led to her death.
The full article contains 1308 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
Last Updated: 21 January 2005 2:51 PM
