Family's plea to find Moira's killer

Jun 5 2008 By Frank Hurley

THE distraught mother of Queen's Park murder victim Moira Jones made an impassioned plea for help in finding her daughter's killer.

Moria's mother, Beatrice, 67, appealed for any information to be given to police to help find those who had murdered her beloved daughter.

Police now believe Moira, 40, was pounced upon by the killer or killers after she parked her vehicle then dragged into the park where she was subjected to a barbaric sexual assault before she was literally beaten to death.

With Mrs Jones at an emotion filled press conference at Stratyhclyde Police HQ on Tuesday was Moira's father, Hugh, 69, and her brother, Grant, 37, who jetted to Glasgow from Australia to be at his parents' side.

Moira's parents had travelled to the city from their home in Staffordshire.

In a shaky voice, Mrs Jones said: "Our precious daughter Moira could not have been more loving. She has been taken from us in the most vicious and senseless way."

She said the heart had been ripped out of her family by her daughter's murder.

Detective Chief Inspector Derek Robertson told the conference: "Moira was savagely beaten in that park."

Toiletries from her handbag and part of the bag strap were recovered by police on Queen's Drive close to where she had parked her vehicle.

That suggested she had put up a desperate fight before being forced into the park.

Mr Robertson added: "I Moira, would ask if anyone in the Queen's Drive area around 10.45pm on Wednesday night saw anything suspicious, saw any disturbance or heard any noises, to contact us.

"We know that night it was raining heavily.

"The person or persons responsible must have been be soaking wet, possibly covered in dirt making their way home.

"I would ask anyone who knows any information about a friend, colleague, even a family member, who came home during the early hours of Thursday morning in this kind of condition to contact us as it may be very important."

Two of Moira's rings were missing when her body was discovered and police are keen to trace them.

The rings are old gold, one with a single green circular or oval stone and the other is a textured band with tiny diamonds and ruby stones.

Mr Robertson said: "If anyone has any information about these rings, or has been offered them for sale or as a gift, please contact us. This could be key information for us."

The sustained ferocity of the attack suggests revenge and that's probably why criminal profilers from England are assisting police.

Meanwhile, murder squad detectives are searching the records and CCTV footage to discover who had been staying at Queen's Park Hotel a hostel for ex-convicts last Wednesday - the day Moira, 40, was murdered.

Her partially clothed body was found on Thursday morning by a park ranger about 300 yards from her home in Queen's Drive.

Moira, a sales executive with soft drinks company, Britvic, campaigned against one former hostel, Parkview, close to her own home. The hostel closed after a local Neighbourhood Watch campaign, which Moira is believed to have helped.

The hostel was frequented by ex-convicts, alcoholics and junkies and it's suggested she was killed in revenge by one or more ousted occupants.

One theory is that one or more men lay in wait for Moira around 10.45pm as she returned from her boy friend's home at Cranstonhill. Her home was broken into earlier on Wednesday and that may be linked to her murder.

They may have pounced as she left her vehicle, knocked her unconscious and made it look as though she was a drunk being helped along.