A LIFE TOO SHORT; UNSOLVED: MOTiVELESS MURDERS Girl who fought to survive as a baby was beaten to death on the way to see her boyfriend.

SHE was a dear girl, the child her mother thought she'd never have. One day, she was going to break her mother's heart. Margaret Glachan had tried long and hard to have a child. After four miscarriages and one stillborn baby, Margaret had almost given up when she became pregnant again.

After a difficult pregnancy and birth, the miracle happened.

Her wee girl might have been premature and weighed only 2lb but she was bonny and a fighter.

Against the odds, she survived and thrived and grew up to be a beautiful, bright girl.

By 1996, at 14, Caroline Glachan was healthy, with thick dark hair, a wide smile and had a way that made her popular.

She was all her mum had dreamed of and more.

It was August 24, 1996, and the next day was special - Margaret's 40th birthday.

But Sunday being a night before work for some, Margaret and her friends had a wee celebration on the Saturday night. It was a night that would end in tears.

As Margaret and some of her friends had a bit of a party, Caroline went out to be with friends.

After all, she was 14 and that's what most teenagers do.

In her home town of Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, kids hung around the Ladyton Shopping Centre, a few yards from the Glachan home, and that's where Caroline went.

In towns and cities all over the country kids were hanging about just like they were in Bonhill.

Many adults are wary of groups of kids, thinking they are looking for trouble.

Some are but most aren't.

Most are just hanging out with each other, chatting about their pals, music, TV programmes, school, other kids who they liked and didn't like. That's what the Bonhill kids were doing that night.

Later, Caroline and her best pal, Joanne Menzies, went to a pal's place just hanging out again but this time inside.

Around 11.30 pm, Caroline said she wanted to see her new boyfriend.

So just before midnight, she told her pal she was going to see him and set off alone towards nearby Renton.

No one gave it a second thought. It was their home patch and they felt safe there.

Caroline would be walking a route all of them took regularly. She would be safe.

There were little paths through woods down by the River Leven that led to a bridge and across the water to where Renton lay.

Caroline was scared of such places, especially after dark. She'd play it safe, others thought.

But when she didn't come home that night, her mother knew something terrible had happened.

Margaret wouldn't enjoy her 40th birthday the next day. She wouldn't enjoy a birthday ever again. Her daughter, Caroline, was found dead that day, half-submerged in the River Leven.

Caroline was fully dressed, hadn't been sexually assaulted and didn't carry much money with her ever.

So, it wasn't rape or robbery. The cops were stuck for a motive.

She had suffered what the cops call "blunt trauma". That is, blows from an implement or a fist that doesn't have sharp edges or points.

They were typical injuries from a vicious beating.

The police set about door-to-door interviews. Most residents of Bonhill helped in any way they could, a community horrified by young Caroline's murder.

One local had heard a scream come from behind the Vale of Leven Academy, on the backs of the river, around 12.30am.

They had just thought it was kids down there messing about in the dark as they sometimes did.

The police believed that scream had come from Caroline.

The cops retraced the route Caroline would have taken down a quiet back lane, Dillichip Loan, and over the rickety Black Bridge, a small footbridge across the river.

At that time of night, it was almost pitch dark and a towpath running along the banks of the river was known as a haunt for druggies.

Margaret Glachan and Caroline's pals couldn't understand why she went down there.

SHE was an assertive young woman who stood up for herself, but as soon as a confrontation was going to boil over, she backed off.

She was also terrified of the woods and other spooky areas around Bonhill.

Yet, that night she had deliberately walked into one the scariest parts of the area.

She'd been known to occasionally take some drugs, as did most of her mates. Had she gone down there to score a deal?

But it was the occasional joint of dope she took, not the heroin that was dealt and consumed down by the river after dark. Was that where she expected to meet her new boyfriend, the cops wondered? But still, she'd be scared to go down there and would have been very careful, even if she was to meet with someone she knew.

The area was covered in cops for weeks. They interviewed thousands and took more than 1000 witness statements.

The only clue they got was that a man wearing a dark hooded top had been seen around there at the time. No name, no details just that basic description.

The police had reached one conclusion - Caroline's killer was local.

The area around the footbridge wouldn't be familiar to outsiders and, more to the point, the signs of a stranger killer - usually rape and sexual assault - weren't there. Caroline's mum had reached another conclusion - that she had known her killer and her killer had known her.

Everyone in Bonhill knew each other and Caroline was well known and liked by many people.

As Margaret Glachan later said: "She thought nobody would ever do her any harm because she was well liked and well known in the local community.

"But then, most teenagers think they will live forever."

She would've gone with someone she knew because she naturally trusted them, thinking ill of no one. What had happened then?

Had that person - most likely a man - asked her to do something? Something sexual? Something to do with drugs? Had she refused and had he burst into a fury?

A murderous temper?

A local man then, for sure. A man who must be known to someone. A man who must have shown signs of the violence he perpetrated that night.

A man who might well be living still in Bonhill. A man who was being sheltered and protected by his family.

Every year on her birthday thereafter, Margaret Glachan made an appeal for information on her daughter's murder, sometimes joined by Caroline's best pal, Joanne Menzies.

Joanne who admits to living with some unearned guilt and on the 10th anniversary of her pal's murder said: "I should have walked with her down to the Black Bridge. She was meant to meet her boyfriend there. Maybe if I was with her, she'd still be alive."

With Caroline's murder, a part of her friend died, too.

Joanne added: "I still think of Caroline every day."

JOANNE is not the only one. In 2006, anonymous donors put up pounds 15,000 reward money for evidence leading to the capture of Caroline's killer.

Ten years on, the death of an innocent girl still torments the good people of Bonhill. These repeated appeals for information and even coverage on Crime watch are slowly drawing more and more clues. Yet still Caroline Glachan's murder remains unsolved.

As Caroline's mother recently said of the murderer: "I could be serving them in the shop where I work. That thought torturesme.

"When I walk the streets in Bonhill, I think to myself, 'Am I walking past the person who killed my daughter?'"

Margaret Glachan might well be right.

Let us hope that one day soon her waking nightmare will end.

That her good girl who fought so hard for life only to have it snatched away is finally given justice.

The police and Caroline's mum both reached one conclusion - the killer had to be a local

CAPTION(S):

GRIM TASK: A police diver looks for clues at the spot where Caroline's body was found; TRAGIC: Caroline Glachan; INQUIRY: A reconstruction of Caroline's last steps, main picture. From top, Margaret at a police press conference, Caroline's coffin and a floral tribute