POLICE have made a TV appeal on Crimewatch in an attempt to find out anything about a distinctive hammer thought to have been used to murder a Borders artist and textile designer.
Valerie Graves, 55, who had lived until shortly before her death in Jedburgh, was found with significant head and facial injuries at a £1.5million property where she was house-sitting over Christmas in Bosham, West Sussex.
Detective Superintendent Nick May last night told viewers the weapon was found last week, hours after police released on bail a 22-year-old man who had been arrested on suspicion of the killing.
The hammer is about a foot long, with a distinctive red and black handle and is embossed with the words Forge Steel, with a picture of an outline of an anvil.
Relatives of Ms Graves including her son Tim Wood and daughter Jemima Harrison, pleaded for information about the killing and paid tribute to their mother as a "free spirit who enjoyed her life and was a talented artist".
Ms Graves, who had recently moved back south, came to Scotland in 2003 and graduated with a BA Hons in Textile Design at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, in 2007.
The death shocked the small community of Bosham, which featured in an episode of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
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