A 22-year-old man has been arrested over the murder of a grandmother who was killed while house-sitting for friends in a quiet seaside village.
Valerie Graves, 55, who previously lived near Jedburgh, in the Borders, was found dead in a bedroom at the waterside property in Bosham, near Chichester, West Sussex on December 30.
Sussex Police said a man has been arrested and is being held in custody.
The victim and her family were looking after the house while the owners were away over Christmas.
Her son Tim Wood previously paid tribute to his mother and pleaded for information about the killing.
''My mum was much loved and will be sorely missed by the whole family. She was a free spirit who enjoyed her life and was a talented artist," he said.
''She had lived in Scotland for about 10 years, a place she loved and which inspired her passion for art.''
He added: ''This has been devastating for the family and has come as a complete shock.
''We would appeal to anyone who has any information about this, no matter how trivial it is, to contact the police to help us catch whoever has done this horrible act.''
Ms Graves, who had recently moved back to Sussex from Scotland to be closer to her family, was house-sitting at the property with her mother, sister and her sister's partner while the owners holidayed abroad.
Police said she went to bed at 10pm on Sunday December 29 and was found dead by one of her three relatives at around 10am the following day in the bedroom where she had been sleeping.
A post-mortem examination revealed she had suffered significant head and facial injuries, but detectives have not confirmed whether a weapon had been used.
The death shocked the small community of Bosham, which featured in an episode of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article