Enlarge image
Vigil for Brianna Ghey: The 16-year-old was stabbed to death on February 11, 2023
Photo:
Danny Lawson/dpa
After the murder of a trans girl in northwest England in February 2023, a court handed down life sentences to two young people. Judge Amanda Yip convicted 16-year-old Scarlett J. and Eddie R., the same age, of murder on Friday. Early release from prison is only possible after 20 or 22 years at the earliest.
16-year-old Brianna Ghey was murdered on February 11 last year in the northwestern English town of Warrington, and walkers found her body in a park. The then 15-year-old perpetrators had stabbed 28 times with a knife - the investigators found stab wounds on the head, neck, chest and back. The two perpetrators had arranged to meet their future victim in the park.
After a four-week trial in Manchester, a jury had already found J. and R. guilty in December, and Judge Yip has now announced the sentence. "You were both involved in a brutal and planned murder of a sadistic nature," she said to the two defendants when the sentence was announced.
WhatsApp messages about murder and torture fantasies
According to prosecutors, the two teenagers were obsessed with killing someone. According to this, Ghey's murderers had sent hundreds of WhatsApp messages in the run-up to the murder in which they exchanged fantasies of murder and torture, with Scarlett J. also admitting that she enjoyed watching videos about serial killers, murder and torture. In addition to this “main motive,” they also killed their victim out of hatred for transgender people, the judge said.
The murder of the 16-year-old sparked horror and sympathy across the country. Brianna Ghey had thousands of fans on the online service TikTok. "We miss Brianna so much and our house feels empty without her laughter," her mother said during the trial. “Knowing how scared my otherwise fearless child must have been when she was alone in that park with someone she called her boyfriend will haunt me forever.”
sol/dpa