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Widow Julie Nightingale has all but given up hope that her husband’s killers will ever be caught.

Hopes were raised earlier this year when police launched a review into the 1996 murder of shot doorman Kevin Nightingale.

But no breakthrough was made into the unsolved killing of the popular 33-year-old.

Today in the first of the Chronicle’s Unsolved Crimes series Julie tells how she is starting to give up hope that justice will ever be done.

For twenty years Julie has lived in limbo fearing that every day she steps out her front door could be the day she passes her beloved husband’s killer in the street, without even knowing it.

In February it will be 19 years since doorman Kevin was shot dead on the doorstep of his South Shields home.

But for heartbroken Julie, who cradled the love of her life in her arms as he passed away, it might as well have been yesterday.

The 50-year-old remains trapped in a world of unrelenting grief and questions as she faces the impossible task of getting on with her life knowing Kevin’s killers have never been caught.

Julie said: “I never get my hopes up because I have been let down that many times over the years. There’s been so many things happen and so many names mentioned, but still nothing has come to anything. I don’t think I will ever get closure. But I will keep trying as I don’t feel like Kevin can rest in peace until his murderers are caught.

“I still think somebody must know and somebody is keeping somebody’s secret.”

Nightclub doorman Kevin was just 33-years-old when he was gunned down outside the house he shared with Julie, and their two children Michelle and Kevin-junior, on Drake Close.

The family man had just finished a shift at the town’s Oz club before being dropped off by pals Ian Morgan, his wife Joanne, and Shaun Doyle. Moments later he was shot four times from behind and fatally wounded.

Julie, who had been in bed at the time, rushed downstairs when she heard the noise. But there was nothing she could do to help her husband other than hold him as he died.

And those moments have haunted Julie ever since.

“It’s something I think about everyday and night and I still can’t sleep,” she said. “It’s like that scene is tattooed on my eyelids and whenever I close my eyes I see him lying their and I just can’t get rid of that image.

“It was just unreal. It was like something off the telly. It felt like it wasn’t happening to me, it was like living in a parallel universe.”

Kevin’s death sparked a huge murder probe. Initially Mr and Mrs Morgan and Mr Doyle were spoken to by detectives as witnesses

But the trio were later charged with Kevin’s murder, twice in 2000 and 2001. On both occasions the case was thrown out and in 2007 all three received £35,000 damages from Northumbria Police for the wrongful accusations.

And to this day no one has been brought to justice for the slaying, a painful reality Julie has found too hard to bear.

The widow now rarely leaves her home, and is always looking over her shoulder terrified by the knowledge that at any moment she could be looking at her husband’s killer.

“I still don’t go out very often,” she said. “I don’t like being around lots of people or strangers. I feel like I could end up walking past whoever did this in the street. They could be sitting in front of us on the bus or standing next to us in a shop. Life is just not the same without Kevin and never will be again.”