Brianna Ghey murderers had 'insidious bond' and may have killed again - expert
The twisted murderers of teenager Brianna Ghey had an 'insidious bond' and likely would have killed again if not caught so quickly, claims a crime expert.
The 16-year-old student was fatally stabbed 28 times by her killers - referred to as Girl X and Boy Y, both aged 15 at the time - in Culcheth Linear Park, near Warrington, on February 11. They had planned out the murder for weeks beforehand - originally setting a different date - and had a 'kill list' with other classmate's names on it. The pair were arrested within four days of the murder before being charged and then convicted on Wednesday.
Dr Honor Doro Townshend - lecturer in Criminology at the University of East London - told the Mirror the two killers' lack of remorse and "misguided belief" they had got away with murder meant they "absolutely have the potential to have been very dangerous long term". She added that their drive to kill appears to have come largely from "excitement and morbid fascination".
Dr Townshend said: “I think the two of them absolutely have the potential to have been very dangerous long term because of their reaction. Having left the scene, there was an element of joviality, the witness was referring to them lolloping off, and then they were texting afterwards. It’s not as if they committed an act and then went away and were absolutely horrified and tried to go back on what they’d done or tried to contact emergency services.
Brianna's killers planned out her murder for weeks (MEN Media)"They left, purely under the misguided belief they’d get away with it and didn’t immediately show any remorse. And still now, for neither one of them to be admitting the full story or admitting their guilt, that to me suggests there is a distinct lack of remorse still and that does make them very dangerous people.”
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Their text exchanges - read out during the four-week trial at Manchester Crown Court - also showed their choice of target was selected out of "prejudice and hate", explained Dr Townshend, referring in particular to their use of 'it' to describe Brianna, who was transgender. “That’s really interesting from a criminology perspective because what you’re seeing there is people essentially trying to reduce their own moral accountability by dehumanising that person,” she added.
Despite that, Dr Townshend said there is still a difficulty in this case in finding a "clear motive" for committing the murder. "Particularly hard in a case like this one when you have two defendants who refuse to admit their own guilt and are both blaming each other for instigating," she added.
Brianna boarding a bus to Culcheth hours before she was killed (Cheshire Police)Dr Townshend went on to say committing murders in pairs is "relatively uncommon" - besides the odd infamous case, for example the Moors murderers. She said what is often found is there is usually a dominant partner "who orchestrates" and submissive one "who supports and encourages". "It’s not to say both parties weren’t active in the murder, it’s more the motivation of a plan, there’s normally one who somewhat leads," she added. In this case, the expert believes it had an "emboldening" aspect.
"It’s a difficult one, because there being this pair narrative isn’t something you see all that often. The thing you could see comparatively would be gang rivalries, where sometimes that having multiple voices justifies how someone might be thinking, it’s a testing of the waters and to have the support of other voices emboldens someone to go on to commit the act."
And despite the killers' claiming in court their planning was all fantasy, Dr Townshend said neither attempted to draw the line. "Even all the way through to setting those dates because neither one of them said 'no but we are just joking'. It kind of allowed one another to escalate because of that lack of negative response from either party."
Police at Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington, Cheshire (MEN Media)The court heard Girl X had initially tried to poison Brianna by putting ibuprofen in her McDonald's drink and had asked Boy Y how much would be needed to kill her. However, once he came on board, attention eventually switched to far more aggressive forms of attack. Physically stabbing someone so many times is “the peak of maliciousness”, said Dr Townshend.
"There’s no debate or argument there that can ever be drawn around self defence because it’s a such extreme act of violence and the force at which it was done is heinous. When you couple that with the knowledge that they left and were not immediately showing remorse is possibly one of the most disturbing things you can have in murder cases."
She continued: “The 'pairship' between the two of them, the insidious bond between the defendants added to the emboldening. Because when she was operating solely, the female defendant went for a much less aggressive form of murder attempt. Perhaps being emboldened by the messages, and in her mind perhaps finding a kindred spirit, I think just [encouraged] her to go on to more extreme ideas.”
A police officer stands next to floral tributes at the entrance the park (Getty Images)She added that the escalation of behaviour from the first murder attempt being a poisoning to a frenzied stabbing is “really unusual”. “To go from a very indirect and calculated attempt at murder through to an extremely violent murder is a very severe escalation. It's one you do see if you’re looking at serial killers and people who have committed crime and murder more than once, you do sometimes see that kind of escalation, but the fact that the method is so different is really unusual."
Girl X was fascinated with serial killers and death, even accessing the dark web to see gruesome material, and also watched her 'favourite' film Sweeney Todd the night before the murder, the court heard. But while Dr Townshend does not believe such exposure to true crime and fictional violence alone would lead someone to commit such horrific acts, she admitted it may have desensitised her.
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She said: “There’s perhaps a role of desensitising that happens, but I don’t believe that just watching a true crime documentary without other things going on, that is regards someone’s mental health or personalities disorders, without these combination of factors [could lead to committing such crimes].”True crime is a popular genre now, but there were awful murders long before that was even a genre, it can’t really be blamed."
Dr Honor Doro Townshend (Dr Honor Doro Townshend)But Dr Townshend thinks their detailed text exchanges, laying out the plan and continuing to discuss it afterwards via WhatsApp, was not simply naivety. “It is massive over confidence, the belief that they did not believe they were going to get caught," she said. "What would have given them that confidence, particularly when there have been witnesses, I have no idea. If someone is that engaged in true crime content or crime content in general, I don’t think they could be said to be naive. You always watch those things and text exchanges come out. It’s a very unusual thing. In my opinion, it has to be narcissism that they believed they’d be able to get away with that.”
She added: “The ultimate thing at the end of the day, regardless of motivations and everything else, is that the absolute tragedy there is a young girl that has lost their life through the actions of these two people who are now not even...doing the only one decent thing they could do and just telling the truth.”
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