Two 16-year-old British teenagers were found guilty on Wednesday of murdering a transgender girl in a savage knife attack that shocked the nation.
Brianna Ghey, who was born male but identified as female, was stabbed 28 times in various parts of her body and left to die in a park in Warrington, northwest England, in February.
The court heard that the killers, a boy and a girl who cannot be named for legal reasons, had planned to kill Ghey for weeks and had a fascination with violence and torture. They will face life sentences for their crime.
The jury at Manchester Crown Court heard how the pair had met Ghey through the social media app TikTok, where she had thousands of followers. However, Ghey was a lonely and vulnerable teenager who suffered from depression and anxiety and rarely went out of her house. The girl, known as girl X, befriended Ghey and became “obsessed” with her, according to prosecutors. She also had a dark interest in serial killers and the “dark web”, where she watched videos of real murders and torture in “red rooms”. She and the boy, who was her boyfriend, made a “kill list” of four other people they wanted to harm, but Ghey was their first and only victim.
On the day of the murder, the pair lured Ghey to a park and attacked her with a knife, stabbing her repeatedly in the head, neck, back and chest. They then fled the scene and tried to cover up their tracks by deleting messages and throwing away their clothes. Ghey’s body was found by dog walkers the next morning. The police arrested the pair after finding evidence on their phones and computers. They both denied murder but were convicted by the jury after a four-week trial.
Judge Amanda Yip told the pair that they had committed a “disturbing” and “horrific” crime that had caused “untold pain and grief” to Ghey’s family and friends. She said she would impose life sentences on them and decide the minimum term they would have to serve before being eligible for parole. Deputy chief crown prosecutor Ursula Doyle said the case was “one of the most distressing” she had ever dealt with and that the killers had shown “no remorse” for their actions. She said the case highlighted the need to protect vulnerable people from online predators and to raise awareness of the issues faced by transgender people.
