Danielle Jones murder: Mum pleads with killer to reveal location of daughter’s body

The mother of a murdered teen says she does not want the schoolgirl’s killer to be released from prison in two years unless he reveals where her body is.

Danielle Jones, 15, was last seen alive on the morning of 18 June 2001, when she left her home in East Tilbury, Essex, to catch a bus to school.

Her uncle, Stuart Campbell, was convicted of her murder in December 2002 but refused to reveal the location of her body.

Danielle’s mother, Linda Jones, said she backs Helen’s Law, named after murder victim Helen McCourt, which stipulates that killers should be ineligible for parole if they do not tell police where they have hidden their victims’ bodies.

Mrs Jones told the BBC: “It is up to him (Campbell) really, a big part of us thinks we will never know.

“But (Helen’s Law) gives us a chance, possibly, knowing the sort of character he is a big part of me realised he wouldn’t, but it is like dangling a carrot.”

She said: “That’s the one thing that still disturbs me quite a bit, not knowing where she is.
“I may never know where my daughter is.”

Ms McCourt, 22, was murdered in Merseyside in 1988, and her killer refused to disclose the location of her body.

MPs voted in favour of the law in 2016, but it has yet to progress further. The petition to introduce Helen’s Law, started by McCourt’s mother, received the support of nearly 600,000 people.

In 2017, officers from Essex Police dug up some garages in Thurrock, near the home where Danielle’s killer once lived, believing her body may have been buried there.

Information related to the site was received by investigators at the time of Danielle’s disappearance, but the garages were never searched.

After a five-day search, no remains were found.

The force said at the time: “Sadly we have been unable to end the pain they (Danielle’s family) have continued to experience and we are no closer to knowing where Danielle is.”

“It is like she is just discarded. That’s heartbreaking. I need to put her somewhere, not where we are in control, but where she is safe – and I don’t know if we ever will,” Mrs Jones told the BBC.

“It has come round too quickly [the release] and we are quite anxious about that.”

Danielle’s disappearance in 2001 and the subsequent murder investigation was one of the biggest cases Essex Police had dealt with at the time.

(c) Sky News 2019: Danielle Jones murder: Mum pleads with killer to reveal location of daughter’s body