TWO Ayrshire families who lost daughters in violent circumstances have
been united in grief.
The families of murdered women Shona Stevens from Irvine and Sandra
Parkinson from Stevenston have been in touch with each other to offer
support and find ways of dealing with their loss.
Miss Stevens, 31, of Alder Green, Irvine, died on November 13, 1994,
three days after being savagely beaten on the way back from the shops.
Miss Parkinson was killed last July near the hotel in Salcombe, Devon,
where she worked. She had been on a cliff walk when her attacker struck.
Miss Stevens's killer is still at large, while the man who murdered
Miss Parkinson, Alan Conner, 32, was found hanged in Cambridgeshire. A
note begging the forgiveness of her family lay beside his body and DNA
tests confirmed he was the killer.
The link between the two families was disclosed yesterday when Miss
Stevens's mother Mhari Smith made an emotional appeal for more people to
come forward and help the murder squad find her daughter's killer.
She said: ''I want this killer caught. I would be satisfied then that
there is not someone walking around out there who is capable of doing
something like this. This could happen to some other family and I would
not like that.''
Mrs Smith was speaking as the murder inquiry entered its ninth week,
with detectives admitting that they were no nearer to establishing a
definite line of inquiry, let alone tracking down the killer.
She thanked the hundreds of people who had sent messages of sympathy
but singled out the mother and brother of Miss Parkinson, both of whom
had sent letters of support and concern.
Dismissing suggestions that the inquiry was being scaled down,
Detective Chief Inspector Bob Lauder said: ''There are dozens of
dedicated and enthusiastic officers who are as determined as I am to
detect the person who carried out this very serious crime.
''We have already interviewed 3500 people, and these interviews will
continue, but we have not found anyone who saw Miss Stevens being
attacked or who holds a direct clue to her attacker.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article