The tragic case of Brianna Ghey, the young trans woman stabbed to death in a wild knife attack by two of her “friends,” is simply incomprehensible.
How is it possible that two 15 year olds – children – could devise and carry out such a heartless, evil crime against someone who, by all accounts, was the sweetest, most trusting person?
On Wednesday, a jury unanimously found the two now 16-year-olds guilty of murder.
No one who followed the trial – described in all its shocking and sometimes excruciating detail by Liz Hull and Caroline Cheetham in their riveting podcast The Trial: Brianna Ghey – could have doubted it.
At first glance, it appeared to be a hate crime born of ignorance and prejudice. But after the trial at Manchester Crown Court, investigators investigating the case said they did not believe Brianna was killed because she was transgender.
The tragic case of Brianna Ghey, the young trans woman stabbed to death in a wild knife attack by two of her “friends,” is simply incomprehensible
How is it possible that two 15 year olds – children – could devise and carry out such a heartless, evil crime against someone who, by all accounts, was the sweetest, most trusting person?
It's true that the boy in question, described as a loner who has a hard time making friends, has been openly transphobic in messages, referring to her disparagingly as “it” and wondering if Brianna – if attacked – would “like a boy or a girl would scream.” . But there was much more to this murder than gross prejudices.
Something much darker, an almost total lack of empathy, a moral vacuum that is difficult to explain or understand but that can be summed up in one word: evil.
Not the obvious kind, the kind that lurks in dark alleys, dresses in military uniforms, or brags about their exploits in balaclava-clad videos on the Internet – but the darkest, most insidious evil, the kind that creeps into the hearts of immature minds of children and corrupts from within.
The most shocking example of this was revealed during the trial in Girl X's notes detailing her murderous fantasies. Many teenage girls keep diaries, but they are usually full of innocent confessions about boys or trips to the mall.
Girl's Thoughts These dark obsessions were reflected in her messages to the boy, recovered from her cell phone.
On Wednesday, a jury unanimously found the two now 16-year-olds guilty of murder
No one who followed the trial – described in all its shocking and sometimes excruciating detail by Liz Hull and Caroline Cheetham in their riveting podcast The Trial: Brianna Ghey – could have doubted it
“Give them alcohol with sleeping pills, slit their throats, dismember the body, put the parts in garbage bags,” one instruction reads.
Another, specific to Brianna, reads: “Meet [Boy Y] on wooden posts 1 p.m. Walk down to the library…bus stop. Wait for Brianna to come out [sic] Bus, then the three of us go to Linear Park. Go to the pipe/tunnel area. I say code word yes [Boy Y]. He stabs her in the back while I stab her in the stomach. [Boy Y] draws the body into the area. “The two of us cover the area with logs, etc.”
The page is decorated with a love heart and a smiley face in the corner.
Perhaps most frightening is the idea that became clear throughout the trial, that both children seemed to think the whole thing was “a joke.”
Their inability to know right from wrong and the blurred lines between reality and fantasy somehow led them to commit a cruel, inexplicable crime that, even as Brianna lay dying, still seemed like some kind of game to them.
It's clear that these two didn't see Brianna as a human being; They saw her as just their toy, not a real person at all, but someone who could serve their purpose and provide them with entertainment.
It seems that they did not care about the outcome of their actions and had no connection with Brianna as a person with friends, family and feelings.
Her behavior – particularly that of the girl, who was as outgoing and confident as her co-defendant was introverted – was completely clinical and emotionless.
And that's one of the reasons why this case is so frightening. They didn't decide to kill Brianna out of passion, which usually drives such crimes. She had done nothing to them, nothing to arouse their anger or displeasure. They just did it because they felt like it. And because they could. It was like some kind of sick sport.
Brianna Ghey's principal Emma Mills said the school introduced psychological support after students and staff were left “shocked” and “angry”.
Brianna Ghey's mother Esther Ghey (left) arrives at Manchester Crown Court where a boy and girl, both now aged 16, are charged with her murder
We must therefore welcome the guilty verdict and hope that the judge imposes harsh sentences. Especially since it became clear during the course of the trial that the defense was doing everything it could to find ways to relieve her of responsibility for her actions.
Notably, the boy, who was diagnosed with autism after his arrest, was allowed to give his answers via text message because he was declared to have “selective muting,” a fear-based mental disorder. I am no expert in such matters, but he seemed perfectly articulate in his conversations with his co-conspirator and was more than capable of expressing himself and his approval of her depraved suggestions.
Was it simply unfortunate that his “neurodiversity” was discovered just as he was facing trial for murder – or perhaps it was a convenient coincidence?
It was a similar story with the girl who was found to have “traces” of ADHD and was provided with a fidget spinner during testimony.
A cynic might be tempted to believe that these were all props designed to soften their crimes in the eyes of the jury, suggesting extenuating circumstances. Look: It's not their fault, they have disabilities.
Brianna with her mother Esther before the murder
Peter Spooner, father of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, arrives with his partner at Manchester Crown Court ahead of the two teenagers' trial
Nonsense. There are many people with such conditions who manage to get through life without killing innocent people.
And none of them were stupid – in fact, the boy was described as highly intelligent and has since passed eight GCSEs while in custody. Neurodivers or not, they knew exactly what they were doing.
Excuses Excuses. It's all part of modern culture, as is the medicalization of antisocial or, in this case, criminal behavior.
Neurodivergence and mental illness are recognizable illnesses that deserve to be taken seriously and treated compassionately.
Although they can be a factor in a person's behavior, they should not be used as a weapon to defend against extreme acts of violence like this.
Besides, the real question we should be asking ourselves is: Why? Why did two seemingly ordinary children from normal families with no obvious history of abuse or trauma turn into such monsters? It's a question that has been on my mind as a parent throughout this process, and I'm sure it has been on many others' minds as well.
In my opinion the answer is all too obvious. It lies in the couple's access to the more sinister reaches of the Internet and, in the girl's case, the so-called “Dark Web” that has almost certainly not only reinforced and encouraged their crazy fantasies, but also legitimized them to the point where they are became real.
For several years I have been campaigning for online censorship in the pages of this newspaper and wherever possible.
The original aim was to protect children from the harmful effects of watching hardcore porn. But as I dug deeper and my own children grew older and began using social media, it became even more clear to me that unfettered access to the Internet's impact on their young, undeveloped minds could easily be disastrous.
Mourners walk alongside the carriage carrying Brianna Ghey's coffin
A mourner looks at the coffin of Brianna Ghey at her funeral in Warrington on March 15, 2023
There's a reason we have an age of consent, a minimum drinking age, and restrictions on when a person can drive or have credit: it takes time for the human brain to develop the processing centers that can handle such tasks. A toddler who snatches a toy, doodles on a wall, or throws food on the floor has not yet learned that these things are unacceptable.
As adults, it is our job to teach them along with all the other principles of civilized society.
Access to the cesspool of the Internet undermines all of that. It doesn't matter what principles you teach at the dinner table, in school, or in church. If immature minds can immerse themselves in a digital world where anything – and I mean literally anything – is possible, is it any wonder they don't always make the right decisions?
After all, even supposedly mature adults find it difficult to set the right boundaries, as we see every day on social media platforms like X/Twitter, Facebook, etc.
It feels like what people say or do online somehow has no impact on real life.
Death threats, rape threats, insults of the most vile kind – things like that are thrown around like confetti on the internet. Often they don't see the people they target as people and don't understand that their actions have real-life consequences.
It's a kind of toxic cognitive dissonance. And if adults can't understand this, how on earth can children?
It's clear that both of Brianna's murderers had a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality.
The girl was obsessed with watching torture and death on the Dark Web. She had a special browser on her phone that gave her access to so-called “red rooms” – places where people are physically abused, tortured and even killed.
Decades of online porn have resulted in extreme behaviors common in the adult entertainment industry, such as choking, anal sex, hair pulling and even rape, being shockingly “normalized” and legitimized in the minds of a generation of young people.
Likewise, it seems clear to me that experiencing such perverse violence on the Internet may well have a similar effect on girls.
This has nothing to do with having ADHD or being on the spectrum; It's about a young mind so irretrievably distorted that he can't see the consequences of such evil, or if he could, he no longer cares.
Of course, you have to ask yourself: What motivated them to look for this stuff in the first place? That's a legitimate question. But I can't help but feel that if her darkness hadn't been expressed online, she might be less likely to succumb to it.
All people have a dark side and teenagers are particularly prone to dangerous behavior.
A horse-drawn carriage carrying the coffin arrives at Brianna Ghey's funeral
Mourners arrive at Elphin's Parish Church in Warrington, Cheshire
In humans, the prefrontal cortex – the part of our brain responsible for problem solving, judgment and impulse control – does not fully develop until around age 25, making young adults particularly vulnerable to risky, often harmful actions.
In the context of a healthy society, this can be managed and contained.
But when you add fuel to the fire of teenage rebellion by allowing unfettered access to the most unimaginable depths of human depravity – as we currently do via the Internet – you are asking for trouble.
The terrible truth about Brianna's murder is that not only was she the victim of two unimaginably cruel and callous individuals, but she was also terribly let down by society at large and our shameful inability to increasingly come to terms with the realities of the digital world all of our lives.
For far too long we have closed our eyes to the human cesspool of the Internet and the wastewater that flows from it into everyday life.
How many more innocents have to suffer before we take action?