Teenager whose mother was murdered 11 years ago launches online hunt to catch her killer

A teenager has launched a desperate online hunt to find the killer who murdered his mother when he was just five.

Daniel Grainger, 16, has barely fleeting memories of Patricia Grainger, who was strangled and stabbed to death in a horrific slaying in 1997.

And now 11 years on, Daniel has launched a website www.whokilledmymum.com as he urged police to re-open the case.

Daniel hopes advances in modern DNA technology may at last provide a breakthrough and his website urges people to give information to police.

He said: ‘I can’t rest knowing her killer is out there. Someone has got to know something about what happened to my mother, and why.’

The website features a digital clock counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds which have passed ‘since my mother was murdered’.

Miss Grainger’s body was found by youths exactly 11 years ago yesterday in a brook near her home in Parson Cross, Sheffield.

The 25-year-old was thought to have had a mental age of ten, which police believed her murderer used to trap and kill her.

She had been strangled, stabbed and sexually assaulted, and her body covered with a discarded mattress and left in the water.

Plea: Daniel hopes his website along with the latest DNA tests might help

It is believed Miss Grainger lay undiscovered for around 24 hours - but to this day detectives do not know whether she was killed and attacked near the brook or murdered elsewhere and dumped.

Daniel, who has just one treasured photograph of him and his mother together, says he can still vividly remember the day he was told of her death.

He said: ‘I remember crying, seeing the police everywhere on the street, and seeing her photo in the paper.

‘I don’t know what kind of life I would have had with her - I was robbed of the chance of finding out and really getting to know her.’ But he was too distraught to visit her graveside on the anniversary of her death yesterday.

He said: ‘I don’t want that day to keep reminding me of what happened to my mother, I want it to be a day to remember her.

‘I went on the day last year and I couldn’t think of my mother, all I could think of was how she died.’

On his website, which includes previously unpublished family photos and a moving blog, Daniel says his mother - who would now be 36 - was ‘a lovely woman who would not hurt a fly’.

‘Articles printed at the time of her murder said my mother had a mental age of 10, although it was thought she had ADHD,’ he said.

Daniel added: ‘She would talk to anyone who talked to her - there is no reason why someone would do what they did.

‘I’m hoping someone out there will come forward to help put my mother’s killer away, to let her rest in peace, and to allow myself and my family to try to continue life the best we can.

‘How can someone keep something like this bottled up for almost 11 years?’

And in a heartfelt plea direct to those who hold the secrets to his mother’s murder he said: ‘A harmless 25-year-old woman who had her all life ahead of her had it taken away for some sick reason in a most horrific way.

‘Why would you protect someone who could do that?’

South Yorkshire Police are still appealing for any information into the killing.