A MESSAGE of love scrawled on a wall and a necklace were the only things 20-year-old Jade Sheppard left before she killed herself last September in Warminster, an inquest heard.

Three days after she went missing, after searches around the town and a social media campaign mounted by family and friends, her body was found hanging from a tree in woodland off Dorothy Walk.

On Tuesday her father Andrew told the Salisbury inquest she had seemed in good spirits and showed no signs of feeling low the last time he saw her.

Wiltshire assistant coroner Claire Balysz recorded a verdict that Miss Sheppard, who lived on The Heathlands in Warminster, had committed suicide. She was last seen around 7pm on September 28 near Manor Gardens in the town.

Ms Balysz heard that the troubled 20-year-old, a former pupil at Kingdown School, had written a message in eyeliner which read 'I’ll love you forever' on a wall outside her ex-boyfriend’s house before her disappearance. At the time of her death she was living with her family.

Her dad Andrew Sheppard had tears in his eyes as he read a statement to the hearing, saying his daughter's death was unexpected and that her life had spiralled out of control when she met her ex-boyfriend, Liam Boulton.

He said: “Jade was in good spirits the last time I saw her on Saturday, two days before she went missing. She had just started a new job as a cleaner and was really enjoying it. We were laughing and joking. She didn’t show any indication of feeling low.

“Above everything, Jade was a really caring person. She always looked out for her brothers and sisters. She cherished them.

“It all went wrong when she met Liam, when she was 17. She started taking drugs and they would fight all the time.”

In a statement written by Mr Boulton, which was read to the inquest, he said: “It was the kind of relationship where we couldn’t live without each other, but also couldn’t live with each other.

“I noticed that her behaviour became strange over the years and she told me that she had started to hear voices in her head and wanted to kill herself.”

Dr Nicola Jones, of The Avenue Surgery in Warminster, where Miss Sheppard was a patient, told Dr Balysz that Miss Sheppard had overdosed on four separate occasions in the space of two years, twice by taking significant amounts.

After the hearing, Mr Sheppard said he was still upset as the inquest did not decide exactly when she had died.

He said: “Jade went missing on Monday but wasn’t found until Thursday. I was hoping to find out the exact date she died today but I’m still not sure.”