Jodi murder search continues

Police were continuing today to carry out painstaking searches of the area where teenager Jodi Jones was murdered.

Local schoolchildren have been urged to stay on their guard and consider buying personal attack alarms following the brutal killing of the 14-year-old in a secluded woodland lane in Dalkeith, Midlothian.

Lothian and Borders Police said DNA evidence from her clothes could be the key to tracing her killer as appeals for eyewitnesses appeared to be drawing a blank.

But officers will have to wait at least a week

while the garments, some of which were torn from her body in the attack, are analysed by forensic scientists.

Flowers left

More than 200 bouquets of flowers have been laid at the entrance to the pathway where Jodi was killed in Monday night.

Yesterday they were joined by a bouquet of six red and white roses believed to be from the teenager's boyfriend, whom she was on her way to

visit when she was killed.

The flowers were accompanied by a card inscribed in mock Greek script with a lyric from Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain: "The finest day I ever had was when tomorrow never came," followed by the words "xxx Luke".

Appeals for information

Detectives were focusing their appeals for information on the few minutes between Jodi's leaving home at about 5pm and turning into the pathway on which she was killed.

She had set out from her family's home in Parkhead Place, Easthouses, near Dalkeith, to meet her boyfriend, but when she failed to return the alarm was raised.

Members of her family came across her partially-clothed and mutilated body on the pathway between 11pm and midnight.

Police have said she died in a savage and frenzied knife attack described as the most violent crime seen in the area for almost three decades.

Sightings needed

So far more than 400 calls have been received from members of the public as part of the inquiry.

However, no confirmed sightings have been reported of Jodi after the time she left her home and police are anxious to trace eyewitnesses who saw her make the short journey to the spot where she was killed.

Around 10,000 school pupils from across Midlothian have been handed detailed safety information leaflets.

Police liaison officers are also helping Jodi's family come to terms with her murder.

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