'Killer has robbed our family's future'

The family of murdered Kelly Sinnott today told how her death had torn their lives apart.

The 24-year-old's body was found wrapped up in a rug and dumped in a field near Milton Keynes. She had been savagely beaten and strangled.

As police continued their hunt for her boyfriend, her mother and brother spoke out in the hope that they might encourage people to come forward with information.

Tracey Clark, 44, said she had "no words" for the person who killed her daughter.

Speaking hours after going through the ordeal of identifying the body, she added: "I cannot think of anything any more.

"Right now there is no future other than to get her back home. Nothing to do or say. She is gone and the gap left in our lives is so big none of us will ever be able to feel the same way again.

"Everything we knew is no longer there. It is devastating. It is impossible to grasp."

Mrs Clark is now clinging on to one memento of her dead daughter - the gold and crystal crucifix she wore.

"I put it around my neck when the police told me they had found her body," she said. "I don't know why she wasn't wearing it herself, she almost always did, but when they broke the news I just felt I had to have something of her close to my body."

Miss Sinnott, who suffered from severe asthma and was unable to work, was found in a ploughed field early on Tuesday by a motorist.

Police believe at least two men must have handled the body and they would have needed either a four-wheel-drive car or van in which to transport it.

A post-mortem examination revealed she had been badly beaten around the head with some sort of weapon before being strangled with a ligature.

Investigating officers are certain she was not killed in the field and have made finding the actual murder scene their top priority.

Miss Sinnott's 19- year- old brother John, a dustman, said: "I want to ask the person who has done this just one thing, 'Why?' She was a completely innocent woman, she was just my big sister. She looked after me at school, she was always there for me and now all I have left is a horrible mix of unbearable emotions."

Mrs Clark, who shares her flat in Bethnal Green with her son and 21-year-old daughter Tammy, told how she came to realise something terrible had happened.

" We spent so much time together and we were so very close. She would always tell me exactly what she was doing and where she was going," she said.

"She wouldn't dream of staying a night away without telling me so I knew there was something wrong almost immediately. When she didn't come home on Saturday night I knew it was wrong."

Mrs Clark, who identified the body with her estranged partner Jim Sinnott at her side, paid tribute to her daughter, saying: "She was always very popular, always well liked, even though she was really a very quiet person.

"Kelly got on with everybody and never had a bad word to say about a soul. She hated arguments and would go well out of her way to do anything she could for anybody who asked anything of her."

Anybody with information should call Thames Valley Police on 0845 8505505 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.