News, Liverpool
The mother of a 22-year-old man who was shot in the back with a sub-machine gun three years ago said the image of seeing his body lying in a morgue still “haunts” her.
While the murder of Sam Rimmer remains unsolved, detectives are confident they have identified his killers.
Mr Rimmer was killed on Lavrock Bank, in the Dingle area of Liverpool, at about 23:40 BST on 16 August 2022 by a masked gunman who was on the back of an electric bike.
Joanne Rimmer urged anyone with any information to come forward, adding: “If I see justice for his murder, maybe the family and I can begin to move forward and remember the happy memories of Sam.”
Ms Rimmer said the passage of time since her son’s death had “not eased the pain”.
“People say to cherish the memories, but when I think of Sam, the memory I have is of his body in the morgue, staring at his chest, willing him to breathe,” she said.
“No parent should ever have to identify their child’s body.
“Unless you have experienced the murder of your child, you cannot begin to understand the agonising, torturous mental and emotional horror we endure daily.”
Since the shooting 10 people have been arrested in relation to Mr Rimmer’s death, some of whom are serving prison sentences for unrelated crimes, but no-one has been charged.
Det Ch Insp Steve McGrath, leading the investigation for Merseyside Police, said Mr Rimmer had been in a house on Lavrock Bank when four men on the back of two bikes pulled in to the cul-de-sac.
The force believes there was some noise outside which made Mr Rimmer and his friends leave the address and confront the men.
Det Ch Insp McGrath said: “One of those bikes has made it to the top end of the close and at that point one of the males has discharged a firearm towards Sam and his friends.
“As part of that, at least eight shots were fired and we’ve established that it was a Skorpion sub-machine gun that was used.”
The senior detective described the weapon as “military grade ordnance” capable of firing multiple shots in a fraction of a second.
Mr Rimmer was struck in the back by a bullet which then exited his chest.
The other seven bullets did not hit anyone, but struck residential buildings in the close.
Det Ch Insp McGrath said there had been a series of violent incidents in the Dingle area in the weeks leading up to Mr Rimmer’s murder.
Police believe these were related to a local turf war between drug dealers.
On the evening of the shooting the suspect electric bikes were recorded on CCTV doing laps of the area.
Police believe this was an attempt to hunt down rivals.
Det Ch Insp McGrath said that while Mr Rimmer was not thought to have been a target and was not involved in the Dingle drug scene, his associates that night “were linked to criminal behaviour around localised drug dealing”.
He said Mr Rimmer, from Bootle in Sefton, was only visiting Dingle when he was attacked.
The detective said the location of the shooting – in a quiet residential cul-de-sac – and the late hour meant there was a lack of witnesses.
While acknowledging this had made the investigation harder, he said: “What I would say is that I believe we’ve identified those responsible for this murder.
“We just haven’t got that key piece of evidence at this moment in time that would prove that.”
He urged anyone “close” to the suspects who may have heard them discussing the shooting to come forward.
“We know that people’s relationships change, there are fall-outs between associates, but also [between] people who are in close relationships with these individuals,” he said.
“I believe that the people involved in this would have spoken to people close to them at the time and it may well be that those relationships have changed over time.”
