A MOTHER is hoping 2017 is the year a breakthrough is made in the unsolved brutal killing of her daughter.

Marion Kitchen, of Bernard Grove, Halliwell, is appealing for fresh information on the ninth anniversary of the death of Sarah Melia.

Ms Melia was just 34 when she found at her home in Catherine Street West, Horwich, with fatal knife wounds on January 14, 2008.

She had been stabbed six times in the back, suffered four superficial stab wounds in her chest and sustained damage to her ribs.

Her teenage daughter Meghan discovered Ms Melia at the bottom of the stairs bleeding from a punctured lung, diaphragm and liver — injuries she did survive.

Mrs Kitchen said: "Sarah was murdered nine years ago. Every year I hope to find some closure for what she went through.

"There has never been a reason why she was murdered. Even now I can't make sense of it all.

"To us she was murdered for nothing because we don't know a reason and the police know of no reason why this happened to her.

"As a family we have never given up and we have to believe this year might be the year the information comes out.

"I just determined to bring it back into the public eye."

Sarah had two children – Meghan is now 24 and her brother Ethan has turned 20 – and was divorced from their father Stuart at the time of her death and was not in work.

Her brother, Mark Kitchen, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was charged with her murder following police enquiries.

Two trials collapsed before he was acquitted by a jury following the third and final trial in 2009 and he is now estranged from the rest of Sarah's family.

Detectives re-started their investigation following the verdict although it is not being actively pursued nowadays.

Mrs Kitchen, aged 63, said: "It is a cold case and the police said that whatever small piece of information has the ability to reopen a case they want it. The littlest piece of information could be the link to solve everything.

"Her face is going to jog the memory of someone.

"We have waited nine years now and there's been nothing."

Anyone with information can call police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.