Two 16-year-olds have been found guilty of the “senseless” murder of Brianna Ghey, a “witty, funny and fearless” transgender girl who was stabbed 28 times in a Warrington park this year.
The murder-obsessed teenagers, known as Girl X and Boy Y to protect their identities, were found guilty unanimously by a jury at Manchester crown court on Wednesday after it deliberated for four hours and 40 minutes.
The judge, Mrs Justice Yip, said she would sentence the pair next month, and would decide whether to lift reporting restrictions so that the killers could be named.
She told the teenagers that she would have to impose a life sentence but that she needed to adjourn for further reports to decide on the minimum tariff they must serve.
The pair showed no reaction to the verdicts, but their mothers wept in the court. Afterwards, Brianna’s mother urged “empathy and compassion” for the killers’ parents, saying they “too have lost a child and must live the rest of their lives knowing what their child has done”.
Girl X, who was fascinated by serial killers and boasted of watching torture videos on the dark web, said she was “obsessed” with Brianna. She and Brianna had been friends for a few months before she began plotting to kill her, along with Y.
Vigils were held for Brianna, 16, after her murder prompted particular sorrow and fear among trans people, though Cheshire police said from the start they did not believe she was killed for being trans.
Nigel Parr, senior investigating officer for Cheshire police, said Brianna had been betrayed by two teenagers whose only motivation was to experience how it felt to kill. “This was a senseless murder committed by two teenagers who have an obsession with murder,” he added.
Y had never met Brianna until the day of the murder, which took place in the middle of the afternoon in Culcheth Linear Park on 11 February. The teenagers were disturbed by a couple walking their dog, and ran away, before being captured on CCTV making their way home calmly.
The defendants exchanged thousands of WhatsApp messages in the run-up to the murder, discussing various children they wanted to kill. Plans to murder another boy were abandoned when they failed to lure him to Culcheth Linear Park, and so they switched their focus to Brianna, who, the court heard, did not go out much and had anxiety.
The boy referred to Brianna as “prey” and “it” in his messages, saying she would be easier to kill “and I want to see if it will scream like a man or a girl”.
Though X and Y had been friends since they were 11, they turned on each other after their arrests. The girl initially made up a story about Brianna “going off with some lad from Manchester”, before changing her defence to claim that the boy was responsible for killing her.
Y blamed the murder on X, saying he was urinating against a tree in the park when he turned around to see X stabbing Brianna.
The jury was told they did not have to decide which one of the teenagers stabbed Brianna to find them guilty of the joint enterprise murder.
Y told police the girl was “not a normal person” and that she claimed to be a satanist in year 8. He said she told him she had killed twice before, but that he was not sure whether to believe her because the murders had not been on the news. Police could find no evidence of other killings.
After detectives confronted Boy Y with the forensic evidence against him – including Brianna’s blood on a hunting knife found in his bedroom, as well as on his trainers and clothes – he stopped talking and has been mute since being taken into secure custody, talking only to his mother.
The hunting knife used in the murder. Photograph: Warrington police
Highly unusually, the boy was allowed to give evidence via text. Special arrangements were made for the barristers’ questions to be typed for him, and he typed his replies, which were read to the jury.
He and Girl X were provided with intermediaries, who sat with them in the dock to make sure they understood the court process, along with security staff. The pair did not speak to each other, and avoided making eye contact when they were together.
Their parents were in court most days, with Brianna’s family watching upstairs from the public gallery.
Earlier this year, Brianna’s mother, Esther Ghey, told the Guardian that while her daughter had anxiety and mental health problems, she was “very outgoing and very confident” and dreamed of becoming “TikTok-famous”.
The court heard she did not go out alone often, and texted her mother on the way to meet her killers, saying she was “scared” because there were lots of people on the bus.
But she had a large following online, where her dance routines and skits drew friends from around the world. After the verdicts, Esther described her daughter as “larger than life” and “funny, witty and fearless”.
Though Girl X told the jury that Brianna was bullied at school for being trans, her head teacher insisted that was not the case.
The Birchwood community high school head, Emma Mills, told the BBC: “There was never any evidence of Brianna being bullied within school or out of school. Brianna was very much able to give as good as she got in that way.”
Brianna came out as trans aged 14 and had been living and dressing as a girl until her murder. Her mother said she supported the transition: “It didn’t bother me. It was just something that Brianna wanted to do and I was happy. As long as she was happy then that’s all that mattered.”
After the verdicts, the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This has been one of the most distressing cases the Crown Prosecution Service has had to deal with. The planning, the violence and the age of the killers is beyond belief.
“Brianna Ghey was subjected to a frenzied and ferocious attack and was stabbed 28 times in broad daylight in a public park.
“Girl X and Boy Y appear to have been a deadly influence on each other and turned what may have started out as dark fantasies about murder into a reality.”