IT is a happy family holiday snap of a brother and sister playing in the sand. Arm bands at the ready, a young Moira Jones is ready for a swim with her younger brother Grant.
This is just one of the treasured images the Jones family has shared as they opened up their album of personal pictures from Moira's childhood ahead of a powerful new BBC Scotland The Dark Shadow of Murder to be aired on Tuesday.
Murder victim Moira's mother Beatrice Jones reveals emotional extracts from the journals she kept in the days after Moira's death in the programme. However, they have also shared photos which show Moira enjoying fun with her family.
In one image her mother Beatrice proudly holds her baby girl up to the camera. In others it shows the family enjoying milestone celebrations including Moira's graduation day from university.
The 40-year-old was abducted after parking her car close to her home in Glasgow's Queens Park on May 28, 2008. She was beaten and raped by Slovakian Marek Harcar who is behind bars serving a 25 year sentence for her murder.
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Now, Mrs Jones feels able to share some of her innermost feelings and private thoughts following Moira’s murder. She wrote how their nightmare began when a plain clothed police officer had come to their door in Staffordshire. He said a body had been found in a park in Glasgow and the police thought it was Moira although they could not be 100 per cent sure.
“I asked if the post mortem was completed and if we could see Moira. I understand that not everyone chooses to see a loved one when they have died, but in our family we always have, but sometimes people make a decision like this in haste and then have regrets later,” Mrs Jones wrote.
“I needed to see Moira again. The three of us were taken to the mortuary. We were told that we wouldn’t be able to touch Moira as we would only see her through a glass screen.”
Through tears, Mrs Jones read: “I knew it was Moira. I wanted to stroke my girl’s face but couldn’t and there was no was warm smile. No expressive gesture. No dancing eyes. Moira wasn’t there anymore. I know we tried to say goodbye, but there could be no hugs or kisses and everything was heart-wrenchingly, horribly wrong. Wrong. Moira so good, so loved, so loving, lying there cold alone in a mortuary. Dead.”
The Dark Shadow of Murder will be shown on BBC Scotland at 1pm on Tuesday, September 1.
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