Picture special: Cannock mum's plea to find hitmen who killed her son

Nov 27 2011 by Mike Lockley, Sunday Mercury

CAROL Deakin gazed at the poignant childhood images of her son – gunned down in his sleep by gangsters – and bit her lip.

Her hand trembled as she turned another page of the well-worn family album.

Her features creased – contorted by pain – as she studied an image of Richard at Blue Coat Junior School, Walsall. The cheeky grin of a lad, in cap and short trousers, cut like a knife.

Under her breath, Carol whispered: “I love you son. I miss you so much. What have the bastards done to you?”

It has been 17 long months since a masked gunman calmly walked through the garden gate of the home in Chasetown, Staffordshire, that Richard shared with partner Megan and their daughters, Ellie, four, and Jessica, two.

Captured on CCTV, the hitman calmly opened the unlocked door, moved swiftly upstairs and aimed a shotgun at Richard as he lay in bed.

Seconds later, the balaclava-hooded killer walked out of the house and then left in a waiting car.

There have been arrests, but no charges.

There have been rumours, but no motive put forward by police.

Now Carol, from Cheslyn Hay, has given the Sunday Mercury access to her treasured photographs in the hope that the grainy prints of her son – only 27 when he died – will help bring his killers to justice.

“I’ll always remember that cheeky grin,” she said, “and I even thought of it when I saw him in the mortuary. I will never forget that moment.