Mum’s heartbreak on the 20th anniversary of her daughter’s death
Our reporter Shiona McCallum sat down with Margaret McKeich as part of our 'Justice for Caroline' campaign.
As part of our ‘Justice for Caroline’ campaign we’ve been exclusively speaking to Margaret McKeich, Caroline’s mum.
As she approaches her 60th birthday, it takes her back to the night Caroline was battered to death as she was out celebrating turning 40 on the 24th of August 1996.
Our reporter Shiona McCallum sat down with Margaret, as she opened up about dealing with the two decades of grief and knowing those who killed her only child are still walking the streets of Bonhill and Renton.
Composed for the interview but still clearly still devastated by her loss, she said: “You could say life begins at 40, but it didn’t for me, life ended that day.
“When the police told me they’d found a young girl’s body in the River Leven the next day, and they suspected it was Caroline, but I would need to identify her.
“It was me, but me looking at me, it’s a surreal feeling.
“On the way up to Glasgow, to identify her body, it just seemed like it was in slow motion. I knew that was what I was doing but it was like it was somebody else. I still have that feeling to this day when I go up to the cemetery to take flowers. It’s just not right, it’s just not real. But of course it is.”
Does Margaret think about what kind of woman Caroline would be now?
“It’s quite hard. She wanted to be a teacher, but I think she would have been a teacher that everyone hates because she was quite dogmatic.
“She had a soft heart, a kind heart and always saw the good in people. I told her not everybody is your friend. I just wish she’d listened a bit better.”
At the time of her death speculation circulated the people responsible were involved with drugs which tarnished the teenager’s reputation.
But Margaret says that shouldn’t matter.
“There was an element that she knew that I would rather she didn’t. Way too old for her, they would be about 18. She would be impressionable, but she was just 14.
“Her autopsy confirmed that no drugs or alcohol were found in her system.
“I don’t feel I have to justify my daughter to anybody. Even she did take drugs; it doesn’t give people the right to take her life.
“She was a human being, just 14-years-old and that is what should matter. Not what she did or didn’t do. She was murdered. If you read something and choose to believe it then you didn’t know Caroline.”
Margaret revealed she had lost five babies before Caroline, at various stages in pregnancy.
“All children are special to parents, but Caroline was my absolute everything. She was like a gift from God. The night before she was born, because I had to go through a planned section, I prayed ‘just give me the one’ and I got my one. But someone saw fit to take that one from me.”
“Caroline is always there. When I wake up in the morning, when I go to bed, when I’m in my work, there’s always something that triggers that memory of what she would say or how she would have reacted. She is never far.”
Margaret still lives in Bonhill, not far from where Caroline’s body was discovered. She’s determined to stay there until the killers are caught, as part of her duty to her daughter.
A ‘code of silence’ in the community has been blamed as the reason police officers could not solve the case. The brutal way Caroline died would have meant someone had blood on their hands and on their clothes. She suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
Margaret continues:
“There is that element out there, they know who they are. They do know something, somebody has to know or is covering it up or is giving an alibi. Those are the people who should be looking to themselves.”
Does Margaret think she’s met the people who killed her daughter?
“I’m quite sure I probably have, or even at least passed them in the street. That wasn’t a random attack, it is somebody local.”
You can listen to Margaret’s full interview here: