Two teenage misfits who formed an unholy alliance to murder Brianna Ghey: How shy ‘top set’ student fell under spell of occult-obsessed girl who identified as a ‘witch’ and watched torture videos as they plotted brutal stabbing of trans schoolgirl
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On the evening of February 12 police in balaclavas and body armour arrested two 15-year-olds, a boy and a girl, at their respective homes.
As the male youth was handcuffed he was informed by officers that he was being held on suspicion of killing Brianna Ghey in Cheshire the previous day.
‘I can explain,’ he replied.
But what became abundantly clear during the pair’s four-week trial is that the brutal murder of their 16-year-old, transgender victim defied all rational explanation.
This was no inner-city street fight or gang-related killing of the sort that claims all too many teenage lives.
Girl X and Boy Y, brought up in hard-working, loving families, lured Brianna to a meeting in a village park under the guise of friendship, only to then stab her to death.
Brianna Grey was stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife on February 11, a court has been told
The attack took place in broad daylight and was as unprovoked as it must have been horrifyingly unexpected.
And, make no mistake, such was the ferocity of the assault, Brianna stood no chance. Stabbed 28 times, half of the knife-blows were to her head and neck, with one severing her jugular vein and another puncturing her heart.
Follow every detail of the case on The Mail’s acclaimed podcast The Trial
The Trial…takes listeners behind the headlines and into the courtrooms of some of the biggest trials in the world.
The first series ‘The Trial of Lucy Letby’ was a global hit, with more than 13 million downloads, while season two focused on the murder of Ashling Murphy, a 23-year-old teacher from Ireland.
Its third season follows the tragic case of Brianna Ghey, the 16-year-old transgender girl killed in Warrington, England.
Follow the evidence as the jury hears it, in twice-weekly reports from The Daily Mail’s Northern Correspondent Liz Hull and broadcast journalist Caroline Cheetham.
Her death from those wounds was as inevitable as the subsequent arrest of those responsible for it.
Because for all their online boasts and twisted fantasies, in real life Girl X and Boy Y as they were known at their trial – their identities protected because of their age – never had the slightest chance of getting away with their heinous crime.
It was the casual manner in which the murder was planned that made it so obscene: Boy Y, a ‘top set’ student, had cried off from a previous plan to kill Brianna because it was scheduled for a school night when he had to revise for his GCSEs. On the day of the actual killing, he got a lift in with his mum.
Before meeting their victim, he and the girl had gone to Sainsbury’s to pick up a Meal Deal. She had an egg and cress sandwich, Fridge Raiders, a Dr Pepper and a pack of brownies. He bought a ham and cheese baguette, a white Kinder Bueno chocolate bar and a Coca-Cola.
The fizzy drinks, covered with their DNA, were left at the blood-soaked scene.
Eye-witnesses also saw them there.
Girl X’s cover story claiming Brianna had left them to meet a mystery man was as thin as the piece of paper later discovered by detectives on which she had written a step-by-step murder plan headed: ‘Saturday 11th February 2023. Victim: Brianna Ghey’.
Like so many teenagers today, the pair lived their lives through social media and messaging apps. But rather than the usual memes, make-ups and breaks-up, the digital record they left behind could hardly have been more damning.
To that background, it was no surprise that the jury at Manchester Crown Court took just four hours 40 minutes to convict them both of murder.
Justice would have been served sooner but rather than admitting their guilt, each blamed the other for wielding the knife that killed Brianna. It meant that for day after excruciating day, her family had to endure the pain of hearing their daughter’s last moments detailed in court.
They also had to witness the spectacle of her killers, both of whom are now 16, being treated with kid gloves because of their age and vulnerabilities, only diagnosed after their arrest.
Brianna Grey suffered unsurvivable injuries to her head, neck, chest, back and sides
Both were referred to by their first names, and the days often ended at 3.30pm to cater for their ‘rising’ anxiety levels.
READ MORE Two torture-obsessed teenagers are found guilty of murdering Brianna Ghey: Boy and girl, both 16, stabbed transgender schoolgirl 28 times with a hunting knife in ‘frenzied’ attack before tying to blame each other for the killing
Following her arrest, Girl X was found to have traits of autism and ADHD. When the evidence against them was heard, both were given permission to play with fidget toys, to calm their anxiety, or, in the boy’s case, to do crossword or sudoku puzzles from a book.
Taking the stand, Girl X gave evidence from behind a curtain to minimise ‘distractions’. During the trial she was demurely dressed in cardigans and dresses in sober colours and with a locket around her neck and her hair worn down.
She was so softly spoken she had to be repeatedly told to raise her voice so the court could hear her mostly monosyllabic replies.
Following his arrest, Boy Y was found to be autistic and to have gradually stopped speaking to anyone but his mother. This ‘selective mutism’, the jury was told, was beyond his control.
At one stage his lawyers claimed that his silence might have in part been caused by the shock of seeing Brianna being killed.
It meant that when he entered his plea, he was allowed to point to a card saying ‘Not Guilty’, rather than speak the words.
Instead of giving evidence from the witness box, he sat in an annex where he was able to type his answers on to a laptop.
Brianna Ghey’s mother Esther Ghey arrives at Manchester Crown Court on November 27
Dressed in a black shirt and grey tie, his written responses were displayed on a screen for the jury to follow. An accompanying live feed showed him typing, pausing to concentrate on his answers and occasionally shrugging.
READ MORE Devastated mother of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey chokes back tears as she recalls moment police told her they’d found her daughter’s body
The teenager sometimes edited what he had written to change the phrasing or correct the punctuation, resulting in further delays.
Given the nature of their crime, it is hard to feel any sympathy for either of them.
And while the boy’s blood-spattered clothes suggest he may have been the one to wield many if not all of the blows that killed Brianna, it is clear he had to some extent fallen under the influence of his female friend.
Feasting on horror films and scouring the ‘dark web’ for footage of real-life torture and murder, Girl X boasted (falsely) of having killed two other people before, talking of a desire to take bodily parts as sick souvenirs. Experts believe her exposure to depraved online imagery would have desensitised and disinhibited her, ‘goading’ her into copying what she had seen.
In Boy Y she found a willing accomplice, an awkward teenager too shy in real-life to ask out a girl he fancied.
On her tablet, Girl X had stored his details as ‘Tesco John Wick’, a reference to him resembling a ‘less good looking version’ of a movie hitman played by Keanu Reeves. Hours after Brianna’s murder, Boy Y’s internet search history showed he was looking at a webpage headed: ‘Six ways to calm your fight or flight response.’
Girl X was looking for clothes, Googling: ‘Leather flare pants and leather bell bottoms.’
Two teenage misfits who came out from behind their smartphones to form an unholy alliance – and to kill.
In the hours after Brianna’s death, Girl X told Boy Y that one of her favourite quotes went as follows: ‘I don’t know where I’m going from here but I promise it won’t be boring.’
The words, or a variation of them, were originally delivered by David Bowie at his 50th birthday gig at New York’s Madison Square Gardens.
Girl X, by contrast, was speaking from her bedroom in a rented, semi-detached house in Warrington.
Photos on social media paint a picture of a happy enough childhood – family days out and a loving relationship with grandparents.
Prosecutors have told the jury that the two youths planned to kill Brianna Grey (pictured)
Her parents had been together for decades, raising the girl and her siblings. Both worked – her mother in education and her father as a tradesman.
‘They are such a nice couple, very hard-working, law-abiding people,’ one neighbour said of her parents this week. ‘When their daughter was arrested I just thought it had to be a mistake. She was never any trouble. I never so much as saw her drop a piece of litter.’
READ MORE How Brianna Ghey’s warped killer watched torture and death on the dark web: Experts say Girl X became ‘de-sensitised’ and ‘goaded’ into murder after accessing live streams of being physically abused in ‘red rooms’
Another neighbour said she felt ‘sorry’ for the girl, adding: ‘I’ve lived here since she was little, and my overwhelming impression has always been that she looked very sad, very lonely.’
Not so much of a loner, however, that she couldn’t get a boyfriend, a good-looking lad whom she saw regularly and confided in at length on her phone.
But there were undoubtedly problems at school.
Sources close to the investigation have told the Mail that Girl X had been expelled from several schools, most recently for selling cannabis ‘gummies’ or sweets to pupils. She was caught after children became ill and teachers were informed.
‘She had problems at school but she had never been in trouble with the police, she had no previous convictions and her family life seemed very ordinary,’ said a source.
However, they added: ‘As well as her fascination with murder and torture, Girl X told friends she was into satanism and the occult. She claimed she identified as a witch. It is baffling why she behaved this way.’
And a parent of a child who attended the same school as her said her odd behaviour meant she had few friends.
‘It was common knowledge from 2020 that she had a ‘kill list’ of kids she wanted to kill,’ he said. ‘My daughter came home and told me about it, but no one took it seriously. Girl X tried to recruit other children to take part in blood rituals with her, everyone just thought she was weird and a fantasist.
A vigil was held for Brianna Ghey outside the Department for Education in London in February
‘You won’t find a single student that liked her.’
The switch in schools meant she no longer attended the same school where she first got to know Boy Y.
READ MORE Brianna Ghey killers could have struck again: Detectives fear two torture-obsessed teenagers would have moved on to other victims after they drew up a ‘kill list’ of five potential targets
His upbringing had not been dissimilar to hers. Home for Boy Y was a house bought by his parents from the local council. His father is employed as a manager with a local company while his mother works in the creative industries. As was the case with Girl X’s parents, both were often present in court.
Local residents described them as ‘lovely parents’ and a ‘really friendly family’.
Again, photos on social media show an adorable-looking child enjoying an apparently loving upbringing, complete with dogs and days out in the countryside.
Boy Y was also highly intelligent – Girl X referred to him a ‘genius’ – and following his arrest and while being held in a secure unit passed eight GCSEs. He has since been teaching himself A Levels in biology, chemistry, physics, pure maths and English literature. As a child, he was also a skilled kickboxer.
‘He was a top set student with a small group of friends,’ a source said. ‘He always got good grades, all his school reports were good. His parents described him as a shy, quiet boy who loved animals.’
A former teacher added: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I found out he had been arrested for Brianna’s murder. He’s the last boy in the world I could ever imagine doing something like that.’
As for his friendship with Girl X, much of it played out via messages on Whatsapp and Instagram, with occasional meet-ups.
A photograph issued by Cheshire Police of the murder weapon
‘He’s a good friend,’ Girl X told police. ‘He’s a really quiet kid… It was weird at first. We just gradually got closer. We was mates with all the same people.’
READ MORE Heartbroken mother of murdered Brianna Ghey launches ‘mindfulness’ campaign in her daughter’s memory to urge school children to behave with ’empathy and compassion’ to one another
Boy Y’s assessment of her was more to the point.
He said Girl X did not have many friends of her own, that she was not ‘normal’, liked to joke about ‘dead babies and stuff’ and that when aged about 13 had claimed to be a Satanist.
‘She would joke about it: ‘I’ll stab your nan, s**g your cat’,’ he told police.
He also told how she had later carved her boyfriend’s name on her arm with a knife, leaving a scar.
Giving evidence, the girl admitted she had self-harmed since the age of 12, which she said was a ‘coping mechanism’ for dealing with anxiety.
Initially much of the talk between the pair was standard teenage stuff.
Girl X coached Boy Y on how to strike up a friendship with a girl he fancied because, in his own words, he was too ‘nervous’ to text her himself.
But by November last year the topics were of a much less innocent nature, as they discussed how they wanted to kill people they knew.
People leave flowers near Linear Park in Culcheth in February where Brianna Ghey was found
In every instance the animus was minor – ‘playground’ slights, if that.
They discussed Boy Y’s concerns that another teenager was getting too close to the girl he liked.
‘I thought [he] was your friend but you seem pretty ok with me killing him,’ Boy Y wrote.
Girl X replied: ‘He is my friend tbh [to be honest] but idc [I don’t care] if you kill him. I can do my best to help you too.’
She then referred to her favourite film, Sweeney Todd, the famous story of a murderous cut-throat barber turned pie-maker.
She told her friend. ‘It’s really good and dark and gory and romantic… I’m watching for the 9000th time… you should watch it.’
Referring to Boy Y’s love rival, she added: ‘If I do end up killing [him], I have a really sharp blade, the same one that Sweeney Todd uses’.
Girl X also revealed an interest in serial killers such as ‘Milwaukee Monster’ Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibal and necrophiliac who killed and dismembered 17 men between 1978 and 1991, ‘Night Stalker’ Richard Ramirez, whose 13 victims included a nine-year-old girl and a 79-year-old woman, and ‘Dr Death’ Harold Shipman, the English GP. suspected of killing around 250 people. And on December 5, 2022 she sent Y an advert for an underground site for people who like rape, torture and murder.
‘I love watching torture vids,’ she told him. ‘Real ones on the dark web.’
This was no idle boast.
When her phone was examined following her arrest it was found to have an app which allowed her access to the dark web.
When Y suggested ways to take her mind off thoughts of death and murder, she replied: ‘I don’t wanna take my mind of [sic] it’.
By mid-December, Brianna, who lived locally and who had a large following on social media, had entered their discussions.
Girl X had got to know her that October. She said they became friends after Brianna had complimented her on her eyeliner, and would ‘hang out’ together.
She also admitted that she was attracted to her.
In a message on December 15 she told Y: ‘I’m obsessed over someone I know but don’t have feelings for them… She’s called Brianna… I don’t know how to explain.’
She sent Y some pictures of Brianna that Brianna had posted online.
Y responded: ‘Is it a femboy or a tranny?’ X told him that she was ‘trans’ and that she sounded ‘just like a girl’ and ‘looked really pretty’.
Y replied that they had different tastes and, again referring to Brianna as ‘it’, asked: ‘Tell me what you feel when you interact with it’.
X said she ‘got nervous and stuff’ but her heart felt normal. Y responded: ‘I don’t think you’re necessarily in love but I think you’re more curious and intrigued by its unnatural nature’.
X agreed that she found Brianna fascinating, saying, ‘She’s really different’.
Asked about Y’s use of derogatory language when discussing Brianna, the girl said: ‘He didn’t exactly agree with people that were trans or gay.’
Giving evidence Y denied that was the case, insisting messages in which he described Brianna as an ‘it’ were a joke.
As January progressed, the list of people the pair discussed killing grew.
Amongst them was a boy whom Y said was a ‘nonce’, a boy who X claimed had told teachers that she had been taking ‘pills’ and LSD, and two individuals she said had been unpleasant to her boyfriend. It also included Brianna.
A photo issued by Cheshire Police of a crumpled, hand-written note of the ‘murder plan’ to kill Brianna Ghey
Quite what she had done to earn their ire is unclear. But Boy Y would later tell police that Girl X had told him that Brianna had tried to split her up from her boyfriend, which was ‘unforgiveable’.
Messages were exchanged about how they intended to kill their victims. There were also baseless boasts from Girl X that she had already murdered two people.
In evidence, she would claim that all this talk was nothing more than ‘fantasy’ and that she added in gory details because she wanted Y ‘to think it was true.’
Y in turn would claim that he only went along with it because he wanted to be liked by X.
But the reality was that a number of elements they discussed would feature in Brianna’s actual murder. These included ‘luring’ out potential targets and then using a knife to attack them.
‘You distract, I go from behind with my knife then stab his neck,’ said Boy Y of one plan.
Of another, X told Y: ‘Just stab him. Slit his throat and stab his back.’
She also told him she knew of a ‘hidden spot’ in Linear Park, the park in Culcheth where Brianna would be killed.
On January 23, X claimed to her friend that she had poisoned Brianna with some gel painkillers.
‘You know that girl I mentioned, Brianna, I’m still tryna kill her and the easiest way is pill overdose. . .ppl already know she is depressed and s**t so nobody would get sus [suspicious] but for some reason she has a high tolerance like I gave her some today that should have been enough to kill her…’ Although Brianna had thrown up, ‘…she didn’t die’.
The prosecution suggested that this was the first time they had acted on their words.
Brianna’s mother recalled an occasion during that week when Brianna was so sick and in so much pain that she ‘thought she was going to die’. She recalled that the vomit contained what she thought were grape skins but may well have been the remnants of red gel tablets.
The plan to kill Brianna stepped up a gear after attempts to lure out another potential victim failed.
Girl X said: ‘If we can’t get [him] tomorrow we can kill Brianna.’
Y agreed, saying: ‘Yeah, it’ll be easier and I want to see if it will scream like a man or a girl’.
They then discussed how to kill Brianna concluding: ‘Lets stab her… Back and throat’.
The aim was to get her to go to Linear Park on Saturday January 28th. Boy Y was to bring a hunting knife he had purchased while on a skiing trip with his family.
She told him: ‘Grab onto Brianna slit her throat when she starts to fall stab her in the back then pass me knife. I want to stab her at least once even if she’s dead jus coz its fun lol’.
When Y asked whether she would have her own knife, she replied: ‘I got a chef blade’.
Police forensic officers at the scene in Culcheth Linear Park in Cheshire on February 13
Y said: ‘Let’s have two words: one for getting the knife ready and another to stab’.
The following morning X responded: ‘For get knife ready I’ll look at you and cough and to stay [stab] I’ll say gay’.
But the plan was aborted after Brianna messaged at the last minute to say she could not come.
Soon after, X messaged Y to say they could meet on Tuesday, only for Y to refuse because he had revision to do for his mock GCSEs.
‘Can’t, it’s a school night,’ he told her. She replied: ‘Get tea out, I’ll pay. Please. I really want it done asap… I just want her to die really badly. I want to see the pure horror on her face and hear her scream in pain.’
Days later she sent him a picture of a handwritten note headed: ‘Saturday 11th February 2023. Victim: Brianna Ghey’
It read: ‘Meet Y at wooden posts 1pm. Walk down to library… bus stop. Wait until Brianna gets off bus then the 3 of us walk to linear park. Go to the pipe/tunnel area. I say code word to Y. He stabs her in the back as I stab her in the stomach. Y drags the body into the area. We both cover up the area with logs etc’.
So on Friday 10, X sent Brianna a message inviting her to come to Culcheth the next day to do cocaine and ‘get absolutely s**tfaced’. Brianna agreed.
The last movements of the completely unsuspecting Brianna, and those of X and Y, were captured on CCTV footage.
Boy Y was dropped outside Sainsbury’s in Culcheth by his mother at 12.43pm, meeting up with X.
Brianna left home soon after. Her Ring doorbell captured a final image of her as she left.
She was dressed in a short grey tartan skirt, long white socks and a fluffy white hooded jacket. As the jury was told, with her long red hair and glasses, and checked shoulder bag, people who saw her that day, remembered her.
Later, Brianna, who suffered from anxiety, texted her mum to tell her she felt ‘scared’ to be on the bus by herself.
Proud that she was out and about, Esther Ghey replied: ‘That’s well good.’
A subsequent examination of Brianna’s phone suggested her mum’s last, supportive message was never read by her daughter.
At 1.53pm Brianna met with X and Y who were waiting for her at the bus stop.
Even though they were side-by-side, Brianna and X communicated using Snapchat. Brianna still clearly believed that they were going to get some drugs, although by 2.30pm was becoming suspicious, sending a message to another friend that read: ‘X is so weird girl. I think she’s pretending to have a deeler (sic)’.
And she was right. Having set up a fake Snapchat account, X was sending messages to and from herself as if communicating with a real dealer.
At 3.06pm Brianna’s phone sent a message to X. Several seconds later, the Snapchat account records that X deleted a chat.
Forensic officers investigate at Culcheth Linear Park in Cheshire on February 13
In the seven minutes that then passed before a dog walker dialled 999, Brianna was stabbed to death.
What really happened may never be established. The only two people who know attempted to pass the blame on to the other.
Girl X told the jury that having wandered away to ‘stretch my legs’ she heard a screaming noise and then turned around to see the boy stabbing Brianna.
Asked how many times she saw Y stab her, she tearfully replied: ‘Around five times. I saw her fall and land face down on the floor.’
Boy Y would claim that he went to urinate on a tree and when he turned back around he saw X stabbing Brianna. He said he had given X his knife before they met Brianna, but did not think she would ‘seriously use it to harm someone’.
When he went over to check if Brianna was alive, he claimed to have touched her and got blood on his hands.
X also gave him the knife back. ‘It belongs to me and I am very sentimental towards inanimate objects that belong to me,’ was his explanation.
Soon after the attack, Kathryn Vize, who had been walking her dogs in the park with her husband, passed by, her attention caught by someone or something lying on the ground. She saw a male and female standing nearby.
Before ‘lolloping’ off together, the girl turned and stared at her from just 7ft away. ‘It frightened me because she made eye contact with me,’ Mrs Vize recalled.
Leaving the park, where Brianna would be pronounced dead at 4.02pm, the pair headed to their homes, dropping their victim’s blood-covered phone into a drain as they went.
An ineffective cover-up followed, with Girl X deleting a Snapchat conversation with Brianna from her mobile.
She and Y were quickly in contact, swapping jokes and updating one another with press reports about what had happened in the park, pretending to be shocked.
The following morning, X sent a message to an account belonging to Brianna herself: ‘Girl, is everything okay? And some teenage girl got killed in linear park its on news everywhere. And why did you ditch us for some random man from Manchester. Like wtf. That is so f***** up.’
It was a crude attempt to lay down the foundations of a defence, making out that Brianna had left them – alive – to meet an older teenager.
When X was contacted that afternoon on Facebook by a woman saying she had seen her in Linear Park with Brianna, now named as the victim, the girl had no choice but to tell her parents they had been together.
As a result, at 4.59pm her mother called the police, repeating the story about Brianna ‘storming off’ to meet a stranger.
Minutes later, X messaged Y to warn him what was happening and square their stories.
At 6.25pm, X posted a Snapchat tribute to Brianna. The caption read: ‘Brianna was one of the best people I have ever met and such an amazing friend its so f**king sickening what got done to her.’
Y, meanwhile, was on the Crown Prosecution Service website looking up information about measures to support people giving evidence and bail.
At 7.30pm, officers arrived at X’s home where they arrested her upon suspicion of murder. After being cautioned, she said: ‘Me being a suspect, is it cos I’m the last person to have seen her?’
At about the same time Y was arrested. A wooden-handled hunting knife with a 13cm blade was found in his bedroom.
Forensic examinations would later reveal traces of blood and tissue from Brianna around the hilt of the knife.
‘I can explain,’ said the boy as he was led away.
But he could not.
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