Just nine months ago, York parents Dave and Rose Gilmour were watching their talented, teenage daughter head for a bright future.

Only weeks before that, they had glowed with pride as they saw Lizzie, 15, - the "baby" of the family - take another step on the path to fame by scooping second prize in the finals of a major young talent contest.

Bursting with energy, Lizzie was a joker who raised a smile wherever she went.

With a hairbrush for a microphone, the pretty Lowfield School pupil, who loved music and drama, would sing her heart out and dance in front of the mirror at her home in Acomb.

She dreamed of following in the footsteps of her idol, Canadian singer Celine Dion.

And that dream looked destined to come true.

But now all her heartbroken family have left are precious thoughts of Lizzie and a flower-covered grave to grieve at.

"Until we meet again beautiful angel," the inscription, in Haxby and Wigginton cemetery reads.

The light of their lives was snuffed out in January, when Lizzie was hit by a car on the York outer ring road not far from her home.

At her house in St Stephen's Road, her bedroom remains as she left it, and her schoolbag sits in the hallway packed for the next day.

With the inquest into her death set to take place next week, her parents are determined to try to put their pain to one side and seek out the truth about what happened that tragic night.

Despite a police investigation, in which more than 40 people were spoken to, it is still not known how Lizzie came to be on the ring road when she was killed at 8.20pm or where she had been between then and 6.30pm when she left home upset after falling out with her boyfriend on the telephone.

Her parents are convinced she had been taken out there in a car with people she knew and, for whatever reason, had got out and was left in the dark on the ring road.

Mrs Gilmour is convinced someone out there knows more about what happened but has kept quiet.

"I want them to know that just because the inquest is coming up, it doesn't mean it's all come to an end. If it takes my whole life, I will never give up trying to find out the truth."

Mr Gilmour said: "It has been bad enough losing Lizzie, but we want to know exactly what happened. Nobody knows if we will get to the truth, but we will have a damn good try."