The disturbing WhatsApp messages that two ‘torture-obsessed teenagers’ exchanged in the weeks before transgender schoolgirl Brianna Ghey was killed have been revealed in court.
The defendants, identified only as girl X and boy Y, are alleged to have murdered 16-year-old Brianna who was stabbed 28 times in a ‘brutal’ attack in Culcheth Linear Park, near Warrington, Cheshire, on February 11.
Both defendants, aged 15 at the time, now both 16, deny murder.
On the second day of the trial today, Deanna Heer KC, prosecuting, called the first witness, Detective Constable Chris Orme of Cheshire Police, as they detailed digital evidence recovered from the phones of the defendants after their arrest.
Mr Orme told the jury at Manchester Crown Court that in September last year, the Tor browser application was purchased and installed on X’s mobile phone.
He said this gives the user access to areas of the internet not normally accessible, known as the Dark Web and hides the user’s identity.
On October 3 last year, a video from X’s WhatsApp account showed someone handling a large, silver Chef Aid branded kitchen knife.
Jurors were then shown messages between X and Y discussing the killing of another child, M, the girl saying she has a knife like ‘the one that Sweeney Todd uses’, and talks about ‘torture before killing’.
A month later X sent Y a video an advert for an ‘underground’ site for people who like ‘rape, snuff, torture and murder’, with X telling him: ‘I love watching torture vids. Real ones on the dark web. I’ve liked this stuff for a while. I’ve finally found a good red room.
Y replies: ‘Just make sure no one finds out.’
A day later, the internet browsing history on Y’s phone shows internet searches on various poisons, including VX nerve agents, sarin and tabun.
Later in December, X tells Y in an exchange of WhatsApp messages, she is ‘obsessed’ with Brianna and the two discuss the matter.
X says: ‘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.’
After sending Y some pictures of Brianna posted online, she continues: ‘She looks like a girl, she sounds like a girl, she’s really pretty.’
Y replies that they have different tastes, adding: ‘Tell me what you feel when you interact with it’.
X said she got ‘nervous and stuff’ but her heart felt normal.
Y replies: ‘I don’t think you are necessarily in love but more curious and intrigued by its unusual nature.’
When X asks for further explanation, Y says X may ‘find it interesting because the majority of people aren’t trans’.
In another message, Y says: ‘If you go to a funeral and one person wears pink, you’re going to be fascinated by her appearance.’
Days later, X asks Y for videos of people being tortured and on New Year’s Day this year Y sends X an image of the wooden handled hunting knife he had bought for £13.50, the weapon prosecutors alleged was used to kill Brianna.
Prosecutors alleged the messages show the defendants were ‘preoccupied’ with torture, murder and death, with a handwritten plan to kill Brianna found by police in a notepad in X’s bedroom after her arrest.
It read: ‘Meet Boy 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 Boy Y. He stabs her in the back as I stab her in the stomach. Boy Y drags the body into the area. We both cover up the area with logs etc.’
Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the court: ‘It is clearly, the prosecution say, a plan to kill Brianna Ghey.’
Along with the plan to kill Brianna, another note found in Girl X’s bedroom read: ‘Give them alcohol with sleeping pills, slit throat, dismember body, place pieces in bin bags.’
But she is accused of trying to cover up the alleged killing by posting a tribute on Snapchat, sharing an image of Brianna eating a chocolate bar.
It was captioned: ‘Brianna was one of the best people I have ever met and such an amazing friend, it’s so f****** sickening what got done to her.’
Police also found notes about serial killers including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez and Harold Shipman in Girl X’s bedroom, the court was told.
Both defendants, who cannot be identified because of their ages, accepted being present with Brianna at the time she was killed but both deny participating in the killing, each blaming each other.
