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There are few people who can have experienced grief like Cathy Kelly.

Within a horrific 22 month period, the mum-of-four's daughter and son died in the most sickening circumstances imaginable - at the hands of savage killers in completely unrelated murders.

The body of her severely mentally-ill daughter, Susan Kelly, was found by a dog-walker dumped in an alley off Blessington Road, Anfield, on September 4, 2000, with her throat cut and bearing the hallmarks of a brutal, sustained beating.

According to reports from the time, Susan had suffered 29 injuries, including a broken nose and jaw and six broken ribs.

But in October 2002 Cathy was again floored by the news her youngest child, Michael Kelly, had been hacked to death with an axe by his flat-mate before being dismembered and dumped in woods in the Midlands.

(Image: Cathy Kelly)

Michael's killer, drug dealer Gerald Edwards, was convicted of murder and jailed for life - but 20 years on Susan's killer has never faced justice.

Now Cathy, frustrated by decades without the truth, has shared new details of the case in a wide-ranging interview with the ECHO.

Cathy has revealed how key witnesses, two women who were never traced, could hold the answer to the chilling murder

She says Susan knew Julie Finley, whose 1994 murder remains unsolved - and once described a white van following her similar to one driven by a notorious multiple murderer who has been linked to Julie's killing

Susan had been involved in a fight with a notorious criminal on the day of her death who later served a long prison sentence for battering and robbing sex workers

Breaking point

(Image: Cathy Kelly)

Sitting in an armchair in her Bootle flat, 76-year-old Cathy is frank about the torment the last two decades have visited upon her.

She told the ECHO: "It's been a nightmare, it's been horrible. It's there all the time; it never goes away.

"If you were not here now I would probably be sitting here, watching the telly or staring outside at the trees, and all of a sudden I will see Michael's face or Susan's face.

"They say time is a healer but it never heals at all. You have to learn to live with it, because otherwise you would not be able to go on."

Until the age of 24, Susan was living a happy and productive life.

A bright schoolgirl growing up in Litherland, she dreamed of working with the disabled and held down jobs in a care home and behind the bar in a nightclub after leaving Mabel Fletcher College.

Mental health and suicide support Helplines and support groups The following are helplines and support networks for people to talk to, mostly listed on the NHS Choices website Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. If you prefer to write down how you're feeling, or if you're worried about being overheard on the phone, you can email Samaritans at jo@samaritans.org.

Childline (0800 1111) runs a helpline for children and young people in the UK. Calls are free and the number won't show up on your phone bill.

PAPYRUS (0800 068 41 41) is an organisation supporting teenagers and young adults who are feeling suicidal.

Mind (0300 123 3393) is a charity providing advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. They campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding.

Students Against Depression is a website for students who are depressed, have a low mood or are having suicidal thoughts.

Bullying UK is a website for both children and adults affected by bullying.

Hub of Hope is the UK’s most comprehensive national mental health support database. Download the free app, visit hubofhope.co.uk or text HOPE to 85258 to find relevant services near you.

Young Persons Advisory Service – Providing mental health and emotional wellbeing services for Liverpool’s children, young people and families. tel: 0151 707 1025 email: support@ypas.org.uk

Paul's Place - providing free counselling and group sessions to anyone living in Merseyside who has lost a family member or friend to suicide. Tel: 0151 226 0696 or email: paulsplace@beaconcounsellingtrust.co.uk

She later settled down with a boyfriend and in 1982 had a baby boy, who became the centre of her world.

But a couple of years later her partner was jailed for involvement in drugs supply and Cathy says Susan's life unravelled.

The final straw for her mental health appeared to be an attack on her flat by a group of violent gangsters, looking for money or drugs they believed had been left by her partner.

The gang burst into her home and ransacked it, before threatening to throw both Cathy and her baby out of the window and finally smearing the walls in faeces.

Cathy said: "She came to me hysterical, screaming. From that day she was completely off her head.

"She had a hell of a time. Once (her boyfriend) went away she was left on her own and she had all these lads threatening her. She just broke down and she could not cope.

"I reckon that was the time she had a complete nervous breakdown."

Descent into mental illness

Whether or not the events of her life contributed to her illness or vice versa, it soon became clear Cathy was suffering from more than stress and anxiety.

She was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and as she became increasingly detached from reality her life spiralled out of control.

Cathy says her daughter would frequently go missing and became involved in violent relationships with men.

(Image: Jason Roberts)

Her chaotic lifestyle led to social services intervening and taking her son into care, which sent Susan even further into madness.

Cathy says: "It was horrible. She went missing for six months, and I found her sleeping with the sheep on a farm near Rice Lane.

"She was filthy and she didn't know where she was, she was a lunatic."

Cathy says she took Susan home and worked hard to try and "get her sorted."

Initially, Cathy and Susan's GP managed to return her to some semblance of normality and with Cathy's support, she even began trying to regain access to her son through the family courts.

However Cathy recalls how on the day of an important hearing Susan had an episode and appeared delusional, babbling incoherently in court.

"Her mind had gone"

Cathy said in the years that followed she would find herself in police stations with Susan, in court rooms and frequently listening to her daughter's delusions - which were often rooted in 'religious mania' and hallucinations about conversations with Jesus.

The pensioner wipes away tears as she describes how one Liverpool Crown Court judge recognised how badly Susan needed help, and rather than sending her to prison for attacking a policeman - personally ensured she received treatment for her mental health.

However Susan only spent three months in Stoddart House inpatient unit, on the site of Aintree Hospital, and eventually ended up in a flat in Anfield under what was known as Care in the Community.

Her problems were compounded by drug addiction, and she had been known to occasionally engage in sex work - although other working girls recalled how she regaled them with tales of how "Jesus would forgive us."

Cathy said: "In the end her mind had completely gone, she didn't know her own name, where she lived, how old she was. She forgot her own son in the end, she could not remember anything."

"Sit down, mum"

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

On September 4, 2000, Cathy's world fell apart.

She said: "I had been the shops, I came home and I was just tidying round. I made a cup of tea and I was deciding what to have for my tea.

"I put on the TV and the news came on, a girl was found murdered in Anfield, a young woman found with her throat cut and police were making enquiries.

"Well I just though 'God help her' and didn't really think too much of it...

"The next thing there was a knock on the door and it was our Bill (Susan's brother) and his wife. I said 'oh hello, it's not like you to call this late.'

"He said 'sit down Mum'. I knew right away there was something wrong. He said 'have you been watching the telly?' I said 'yeah?'

"He said 'have you seen the news?' and as soon as he mentioned the news I knew. I said 'no, it wasn't her' and he said it was.

"One of the police officers had gone to school with them and he recognised Susan. I said 'oh no, God' and I just lost it, I just went to pieces."

'Mum, I love you'

(Image: Cathy Kelly)

Cathy shared her poignant last conversation with Susan, who she had last seen around two weeks before her death.

She said: "One day she turned up, and I made her a cup of coffee and gave her a ciggie, and I said you can have a shower here if you want.

"She said 'I had a visitor last night mum, it was Jesus, he was in the TV. He told me I won't be alive when I'm 40, I have got to go to Jesus before I'm 40'.

"'When I held my hand out he would not take it, he shook his head, he said I have still got to do my mission."

Susan had often told her mum she had been given a mission, to tell other sex workers that Jesus would forgive them.

Cathy said: "So she had a shower, and she was going out of the door and she turned to me and said 'mum, I love you.'

"I said 'I love you too,' and she walked away but came back and said 'mum, I really do love you'. I gave her a hug, she stayed for a moment, and I said 'I will see you around, tara.

"The next time I saw her was on a slab."

(Image: Jason Roberts)

Missing witnesses and acquittal

The day after Susan's body was found, Cathy went to the crime scene on Blessington Road, and struck up a conversation with a group of sex workers who were gathered nearby.

She said one was heavily pregnant, and told her that her son, aged around 12, had heard something in the early hours of the morning.

Cathy says she spoke to the boy: "He heard a load of women arguing, and women crying on the entry. The next thing a fella said 'you have just f****** seen her haven't you? That's what will happen to you if you don't keep your mouth shut."

Cathy said the boy appeared terrified and would not speak directly to the police, but detectives were told what he had said and made efforts to try and trace the women.

Despite a witness describing seeing two women crying on a bus, they have never been found.

Cathy says she never believed 20 years on Susan's death would remain unsolved, especially when a man was charged with murder in 2003.

A court heard Susan's throat was believed to have been cut with a piece of broken pottery, and the case against the suspect rested on a small fragment found at his flat.

Prosecutors also claimed some jewellery and a hair slide found at his flat belonged to Susan, and several Irish coins found at the scene matched some in the property.

However the case was dismissed before the end of a trial by order of the judge, Mr Justice Douglas Brown.

According to ECHO reports from the time, an expert said he could not be 100% sure the fragment was from the same piece of pottery used to kill Susan, and bloody footprints found at the scene were too small for the defendant's feet.

Speaking after the acquittal in 2003, Detective Superintendent Peter Currie, who has since retired, said the case could re-open.

He said: "This was a very thorough investigation over two and a half years.

"If any new lines of evidence or investigation come to light in the future we will obviously investigate it."

(Image: Jason Roberts)

Theories

Since the end of that trial, there were further false dawns in 2010 and 2012, when two different men were arrested on suspicion of murder and questioned.

However Merseyside Police confirmed they were both released without charge and since then Cathy says she has heard nothing from the force.

With the case seemingly cold, Cathy is left with endless questions as to what really happened.

Cathy said she has questions about several people with links to Susan.

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One, who knew Susan, had attacked her earlier on the day of her death according to a witness who later described it to Cathy.

The violent, unpredictable drug addict was, however, given an alibi by a notorious gangster who said the pair had been carrying out a robbery together at the time.

The person was later jailed for attacking sex workers in a series of violent robberies over the summer of 2000.

Notorious killer

Another theory links to the murder of Julie Finley, who was found strangled in a carrot field, off the St Helens bound carriageway of the Rainford by-pass, in Rainhill in 1994.

Witness accounts at the time suggested Julie had been heading to meet a taxi driver, and another witness reported her arguing with a man who appeared to be trying to force her into a van.

Media reports have linked a convicted double murderer, who drove a white transit van and who was working as a taxi driver, to Julie's murder.

(Image: Echo)

Cathy told the ECHO that around 12 months before her murder Susan had turned up at her brother Bill's home in a panic, saying: "He's waiting for me out there in the white van."

She said: "He looked out the window and a white van was around the corner, you could just see the back end of it but he couldn't see the plates.

"He asked 'who is waiting for you? But Susan got off and he didn't know whether she went to the white van or not. "

Tragedy strikes again

Susan's case remains an open wound for Cathy due ti the lack of justice, but the pain of losing Michael is still raw.

Cathy accepts her son, who was 35 when he died, had been involving in drug dealing between Liverpool and the Midlands, where he was living with Edwards at the time in a flat in Tolladine, Worcester.

She said she had suspicions that he was involved in criminal activity when he was alive, but whenever she confronted Michael he would say: "Leave it mum, what you don't know won't hurt you."

A police investigation found that Edwards had been challenged by Michael over some missing drugs money, and reacted by smashing an axe into Michael's head.

(Image: Cathy Kelly)

In a desperate attempt to avoid justice, Edwards borrowed a saw from an unwitting neighbour and dismembered the body.

The killer then enlisted the help of accomplice Ashley Shearon, who helped him dump Michael's remains in woods in Grafton Lane, Bidford-on-Avon.

The pair then torched the bloody flat to try and cover their tracks.

Cathy said: "That was like a nightmare, it was history repeating itself all over again."

Edwards, then 32, was jailed for life in October 2003, while Shearon, 34, was jailed for five years for perverting the course of justice.

Cathy says the arrogant killer "grinned" at her from the dock in Birmingham Crown Court, and media reports from the time reveal at one stage during his trial he hurled a glass of water over a prosecution barrister.

Closure

Cathy says that knowing justice was done in Michael's case is positive, but she still suffers knowing Susan's killer could still be walking the streets.

She said: "With Michael, I feel anger, I get angry at him for putting himself into that situation.

"With Susan, she was vulnerable. She was a person with a mental illness, she could not help herself. She didn't know what she was doing.

"I can still remember her playing in the street, skipping with her pigtails. But then you remember what happened, and I think; was she screaming for help?"

"I'm getting to an age now where I wonder how long I have got left. If I go at the same age as my dad I have two years, and I don't think they will ever find him.

"I think; has he done it to someone else? Is he still doing that kind of thing? Is he sitting back laughing, ha ha ha? I go mad thinking about it."