The sensationalised reporting surrounding the case of Luke Mitchell and he murder of Jodi Jones is also interesting. This was a terrible case but the focus on goth found generally in the media was simply media sensationalism full of distortion interconnecting the murder with goth, Heavy metal, occult and Satanism. The Police in the case did not help with their focus. Luke Mitchell was a sick killer but the reporting linked innocent fans of bands and certain music to murder in an unjustified way. As always Columbine goth myth is mentioned in fact neither of the murders there really liked Marilyn Manson or goth and nor did they wear trenchcoats generally (see Columbine - The Legacy of Hatred).
Read some of the earliest reports:
Was 'Goth' Jodi the victim of a ritual black magic murder?
BYLINE: TAMZIN LEWIS
Mail on Sunday July 6, 2003
SECTION: STH1; Pg. 13
THE brutal murder of schoolgirl Jodi Jones may be linked to satanism and black magic, detectives revealed last night.
Senior officers confirmed that the 14-year-old girl's association with Goth culture is a major part of their investigation into her killing.
Jodi and her boyfriend Luke Mitchell, also 14, were followers of the morbid subculture which celebrates death, depression, anger and hatred. Extreme elements of the Goth world have been known to dabble in satanism and black magic.
Jodi's mutilated body was found dumped by a country path near her home in Dalkeith, Midlothian, on Monday.
The officer leading the hunt for the killer, Detective Superintendent Craig Dobbie, described the attack as 'the most violent death I've experienced in 28 years in the police'.
Jodi's throat had been slashed and she had multiple stab wounds including a large injury to her stomach. The Mail on Sunday has knowledge of other aspects of the way her body was mutilated but cannot reveal them for police operational reasons.
However, the 'sinister' nature of her injuries has led detectives to investigate her association with the movement.
Last night a senior police source revealed: 'We will be looking at what Jodi and her social circle were interested in and an obvious area will be their ties to the Goth movement.
'We will be examining if the manner in which she was killed has any links to the violent world that many Goths find fascinating and will be speaking to all her friends who had similar interests.' Jodi was killed after failing to keep an appointment to meet Luke. The alarm was raised after her mother Judith sent a text message to Luke's mobile phone saying her daughter was late returning home.
As Jodi's grandmother and sister began searching a wooded area used by locals as a shortcut, Luke stumbled upon her body lying behind a wall.
On Friday police questioned the boy for several hours and a team of forensic officers removed more than 20 large brown paper bags and yellow sacks from his family's home in Dalkeith as they combed the detached house, garage, garden and cars for items.
The couple were part of a small band of friends who enjoyed grunge and Goth music, dressed in dark clothing and dyed their hair. Jodi was a fan of bands such as Nirvana, Korn and Queens Of The Stone Age and loved dressing in Goth-style clothing.
Teenagers Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado and then committed suicide, were labelled Goths because they wore black trench coats and listened to Marilyn Manson.
After the 1999 shootings, critics of Marilyn Manson claimed that the singer's dark lyrics may have inspired the killers.
Three days after Jodi's death, Luke placed a floral tribute near to where she died with a card which quoted Nirvana star Kurt Cobain who committed suicide nine years ago.
The card said: 'The finest day I ever had, was when tomorrow never came.'
And again in this article:
'Satanism' link to the brutal murder of schoolgirl Jodi
DAILY MAIL July 7, 2003 BYLINE: GAVIN MADELEY
SECTION: ED_SC1; Pg. 6
THE maniac who murdered schoolgirl Jodi Jones may have been obsessed with Satanism and the occult, detectives said yesterday.
The nature of 14-year-old Jodi's injuries - precise details of which are being kept secret by police - hint at a 'ritualistic' aspect to her death.
Murder squad officers are looking closely at the teenager's Goth lifestyle and musical tastes for clues. As prayers were said for Jodi and her family in local churches yesterday, officers were focusing a 'major' part of their inquiry on the macabre song lyrics of many of her favourite bands and on the morbid literature she read.
Both she and her boyfriend, 14- year- old Luke Mitchell, were followers of the Goth movement. Fans favour dark clothing, heavy make- up, tattoos and body piercings.
Some, at the extremes of the Goth scene, profess to 'dabble' in witchcraft. Occult imagery is a major part of the look and lyrics of Goth bands.
The possible link to Satanism comes as detectives await the outcome this week of crucial DNA tests on Jodi's body and clothing.
Detectives hope scientists will find a clue to the killer's identity from the body - one of his hairs; a flake of skin; saliva. Even fibres from his clothing could help track him down.
Jodi's body was found by her boyfriend near a secluded path close to her home in Dalkeith, Midlothian, a week ago.
Her throat had been slashed and she had suffered multiple stab wounds, including a large gash injury to her stomach...
A senior police source said last night: 'We will be looking carefully at what Jodi and her social circle were interested in. An obvious area will be their ties to the Goth movement.
'We will examine if the manner in which she was killed has any links to the violent world many Goths find fascinating.' Jodi, a fourth-year pupil at St David's RC High School, and her small circle of friends listened to bands such as Korn and Nirvana, dyed their hair and dressed in dark clothing.
Her favourite film was Queen of the Damned. It became a cult classic, in part because its star - pop singer Aaliyah - died in a plane crash before filming was complete.
Jodi also read the works of poet Sylvia Plath, who wrote about death before she committed suicide in 1963.
Jodi was killed on her way to meet Luke, using the popular Roman Dyke shortcut. She left her home at around 5pm last Monday after the pair had exchanged text messages. Within an hour, she had been brutally murdered
When the trial ended the connections continued:
Obsessed with drugs and death, a descent into evil BYLINE: GRACE MCLEAN
DAILY MAIL January 22, 2005
His parents Philip and Corinne split up in 1999, and by the time he was 14, Mitchell was claiming to smoke hundreds of cannabis joints a week, was obsessed with knives, and immersed himself in a Goth subculture which celebrated Satanism.
A fan of Marilyn Manson whose songs are said to have inspired murders all over the U.S. and Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain who committed suicide in 1994 Mitchell's burgeoning sexuality drove him to pursue schoolgirls with a predatory appetite.
"MARILYN Manson is perhaps the most notorious figure in the Goth rock music scene.
A media manipulator and self-styled 'Antichrist superstar' he has taken the first name of Marilyn Monroe, and the surname of a serial killer, Charles Manson, to create a disturbing public persona.
His Satanic lyrics and grotesque videos were blamed for the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado when two neo-Nazi teenagers killed 25 of their classmates.
Goths have a huge following among British teenagers who dress in black and revel in looking pale and gaunt."
But this long article furthers the accusation between Manson and murder. As discussed earlier the columbine murderers were neither goths nor were they Manson fans really.
SHOCK ROCK
BYLINE: GRACE MCLEAN; JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK
DAILY MAIL January 22, 2005 SECTION: ED_SC1; Pg. 15
ROCK star Marilyn Manson's influence on teenagers has already been blamed for several murders across the world. Now Jodi Jones's name may be added to that list.
While the question of any link between Jodi's death and Manson's fascination with the notorious Black Dahlia Murder remained the subject of intense debate in court, it is clear the two crimes bore chilling similarities.
As they came to interview Luke Mitchell, detectives made the connection almost at once. They believe he became fascinated with the 1947 Los Angeles murder after Manson painted a series of gruesome watercolour paintings of actress Elizabeth Short's dismembered body.
Jodi's face was slit from just below her mouth, across the cheek almost to her ear. Similar injuries were found on both sides of Miss Short's face.
Jodi also suffered a terrible knife injury to one breast. In Miss Short's case, part of her breast was removed and, police believe, kept as a souvenir by her killer.
Miss Short's killer cut her in two across the middle. Jodi also suffered terrible wounds to her abdomen probably inflicted after death although there was no apparent attempt to dismember her.
Post-mortem pictures of Miss Short were depicted in a catalogue of paintmannequinings by Marilyn Manson. The possible link with Jodi's death was established when detectives raided Mitchell's home and found that he was a fan of the star.
Manson's name was scrawled across Mitchell's school jotters, and two days after Jodi's death he bought a DVD and CD package containing a short film made by Manson called Doppelherz. It featured images of a young girl lying naked on open ground and of two girls in corsets bound together in the woods with bags over their heads.
A police source said: 'We very quickly made the connection between Mitchell's obsession with Manson and the murder of Elizabeth Short. Jodi's injuries were so similar it was frightening.
' Mitchell was absolutely obsessed by Manson and the violence surrounding his work.' Born in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Short had came to Hollywood in August 1946 to try her luck in the film business.
It was two months earlier, while living in Southern California, that the nickname the Black Dahlia was born at a corner drugstore she used to frequent. It was a play on the recently released film noir The Blue Dahlia, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
ON January 15, 1947, Betty Bersinger caught a glimpse of something in a vacant lot which looked like a broken mannequin. As she grew closer, she realised the body was human and called police.
It was the most sickening thing the officers had ever seen. The dead woman seemed posed, lying on her back with her arms raised over her shoulders. She had been cut in half at the waist.
Her face and body had been slashed viciously, with cuts running from both edges of her mouth to the ears. Rope marks were also found on her neck.
The 22-year-old was identified from her fingerprints as details of the case spread across America, gripping much of the country with morbid fascination.
At least three men made false confessions.
In a book written by a childhood friend of the victim, filmmaker Orson Welles was even suggested as a suspect because an unused set from his 1948 movie The Lady from Shanghai was decorated with female body parts, including a face mutilated like Miss Short's and a body cut in half.
Meanwhile, police believed the real killer was taunting them. They received items belonging to the victim in the post and, later, notes which said: 'Catch me if you can.' Some detectives came to believe it was the perfect murder because of the lack of hard evidence.
Police officers in the Jodi Jones case think Mitchell, too, believed he had committed the perfect murder. One detective said: 'He thought he had got clean away with it that the case was too circumstantial for him to go down.' Today interest in the Black Dahlia murder is as keen as ever and it is in no small measure due to death metal stars such as Marilyn Manson peddling the horrors of the case almost as if they were something to be celebrated.
Commenting on the infamous murder, Manson once said: 'The crime was never solved and I've been obsessed with it since I was very young. The first picture, A Smile I, is how she came to Hollywood with hopes of becoming famous.
'The second, A Smile II, is how she was left, in a sad way, very famous. I think this is one of my best pieces. So I hope no one buys it, cos I really don't want to lose it.' Filming of a new movie about the Black Dahlia murder, starring Josh Hartnett, Mark Wahlberg and Scarlett Johansson, is due to start in March and there is even a U.S heavy metal band which calls itself The Black Dahlia Murder.
In 2002 they devoted a whole album to Miss Short's murder. It contains lyrics which would appal most yet their audiences are largely impressionable, often confused teenagers.
One song has the lines: 'And in my dreams I cut your mouth from ear to ear/Dissecting your angelic body in the quiet of your room/ 'How splendidly I carve into your tender heart/I'm shuddering between the sheets.' The same song has the lyrics: 'As I caress your perfection/My angel, I'll tear your insides out.' AS for Manson whose name is a combination of Marilyn Monroe and killer Charles Manson his Satanic lyrics and disturbing videos were once blamed for the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, when two teenagers went on the rampage, killing 25 classmates.
Manson argues his name was wrongly linked with the crime on the basis of erroneous early news reports on the massacre which said the killers were wearing Marilyn Manson T-shirts.
Five years ago, his lyrics are also said to have inspired three teenage girls identified only as 16-year-old Milena, Ambra, 17, and Veronica, 17, to stab the 61- year- old Mother Superior who had taught them at their school in Italy.
Police found the girls were obsessive fans of the singer, their school diaries were scrawled with Manson's lyrics and they had made a pact to worship the Devil.
Responding to criticism over the murder, Manson said: 'You can find inspiration for man's behaviour wherever you look. I think people have to take responsibility for their own actions. I don't think I have ever tried to create things to encourage people to hurt others, or themselves.' He claimed his stage show helps teenagers release their pent-up aggression, rather than encouraging violence in their everyday lives.
' These kids are getting out everything that they can't get out the rest of the week the rest of the year. That's a catharsis for them, that's what rock'n'roll's supposed to be.' With his name now inextricably linked with the Jodi Jones murder trial, parents may well wonder i f Manson's peddling of the grotesque to teenagers really is a welcome catharsis or a potential trigger for slaughter
This article by MELANIE PHILLIPS is shockingly blatant in its attempt to link drug use to goth culture. Drug use is rife right across British youth of all types not just goths, plu I seriously doubt that there statistically any more goths from broken homes than any other group:
Cannabis caused a 14-year-old to kill. Yet still they say it's harmless
BYLINE: MELANIE PHILLIPS
DAILY MAIL February 14, 2005
With websites now dedicated to Mitchell, too, there are fears that a disturbed young person might try yet another copycat murder. Such fears are hardly groundless.
In 1999, the killings in America at Columbine High School in Denver were committed by two young Manson fans.
What we are facing now among a section of our young people is a terrifying breakdown of the bonds not just of socialisation but of civilisation itself.
This is the result of a number of ruinous changes in our society - in which the growing acceptability of drugs is a significant part.
For these young people, the moral obligation to accept the difference between right and wrong has disintegrated. From all sides, they are bombarded by the message that the only thing that matters is their own pleasure and gratification.
Duty, responsibility, shame and stigma have all but evaporated. Difficulty, pain or failure are viewed as assaults on their right to be happy. What trumps everything else is the need to protect their feelings. Instead of providing boundaries to give young people the security that is vital for emotional health, the adult world has simply abandoned them.
Family disintegration shatters their sense of themselves, schools leave them floundering in their own ignorance and immaturity, and the commercial world exploits and encourages their premature sexualisation.
It is among these rising numbers of confused, unhappy or disturbed children that the 'Goth rock' cult of satanism, self-harm and nihilism principally has its lethal appeal.
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