I can remember walking along with Margaret Caldwell as she took my arm. We’d spoken for more than an hour for an interview I was working on to mark the first anniversary of her beloved daughter’s death.
It was 2006 and Margaret wanted to do all she could to fight for justice for her daughter but little did any of us know that it would be another 18 years before that would come.
As police continued their investigations in the months following Emma’s murder in 2005, her parents Margaret and the late William, who died in 2011, found themselves thrust into the media spotlight.
I remember speaking to the senior police officer leading the case, Detective Superintendent Willie Johnston, before I met Emma’s parents at their home. He explained to me while they wanted to help, it would be an interview with the greatest care in mind. He had my assurance on that.
Read more:
Iain Packer found guilty of murdering Emma Caldwell
I thought about what he’d said before meeting them and knew I had to find a balance between helping them to cherish Emma’s memory at the same time as doing all they could to catch her killer.
As we spent some time together while pictures were being taken I remember Margaret saying “I see mums and their daughters perhaps shopping together when I am out and I think I can’t do that anymore.”
All I could do was offer a comforting arm, but the pain in her heart was raw. To lose her daughter Emma just seven years after her eldest, Karen, died from cancer is something no mother should have to bear.
On the day we met, it was pouring with rain. There were raindrops on the window, but for Margaret, they seemed to be a comfort as I remember her telling me how Emma loved the rain and the feel of it.
For a while, Margaret and William let us in to share their memories and we had a responsibility to let people know a little bit more about the Emma they knew and loved.
Margaret has never given up her fight for justice for her daughter and today after almost 20 years she has finally heard the words ‘guilty’ as Iain Packer was convicted of Emma’s murder at the High Court in Glasgow.
Packer, 51, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering the 27-year-old, who went missing in Glasgow on April 4, 2005 and whose body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, South Lanarkshire, the following month.
After covering the investigation for many years and meeting Emma’s family, today’s verdict has come with a feeling of shell shock.
Such a longed for verdict and justice, but at the heart of it all is the deep sadness of a young woman’s life being taken and a mother robbed of creating a lifetime of memories with her daughter – there will never be any justice in that.
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