A 17-year-old boy stalked schoolgirl Holly Newton before stabbing her to death in an alleyway in an attack so fierce it snapped the knife.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Keen dancer Holly, who was just 15, was on her way home from school and was doing some shopping with her friends in Hexham, Northumberland in January 2023.
But the ‘bright and beautiful’ girl was being followed by a boy – who was 16 at the time – for around 45 minutes as he tailed them around the town centre, ‘careful not to be seen’.
He was lurking at a bus stop when he asked to speak to her and launched at Holly in a savage attack with a kitchen knife and stabbed her ‘many, many times’.
The obsessed teenager left her with 36 injuries after stabbing her 12 times, slashing her 19 times, and causing five ‘defensive’ injuries in a frenzy which snapped the knife.
He also stabbed her boyfriend, a 16-year-old boy, before members of the public tried to intervene.
HIS ARGUMENT
The defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, admitted manslaughter but denied murder, claiming his mind went blank that day and that he had only intended to take his own life.
But a jury at Newcastle Crown Court found him guilty of murder Thursday.
He will be sentenced during a two-day hearing at the same court on October 31.
Newcastle Crown Court previously heard the defendant say he may not be an entirely bad person as he ‘helps baby birds and stuff’.
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NIGHT BEFORE HE WAS KILLED
The night before Holly was killed, her mother was so worried that she contacted the police about the boy at 9:40pm, as he had turned up uninvited at their home in Haltwhistle.
Officers arranged to go and meet the mother and daughter at 4pm the next day, but the appointment was pushed back to 8pm as Holly ‘pleaded with her mother to let her go out with friends’ after school.
The circumstances were so severe that it was agreed Holly shouldn’t leave school if the teenager was outside.
She was ‘extremely nervous’ about him turning up, but when there was no sign of him she went shopping with her friends – unaware of the boy tailing her.
