Girl accused of murdering 16-year-old Brianna Ghey admits to being fascinated by murder, torture and serial killers - but insists texts about killing were 'fantasy'

A teenage girl accused of murdering 16-year-old Brianna Ghey today admitted being fascinated by murder, torture and serial killers.

But she insisted that messages she swapped with a teenage boy about killing the schoolgirl – who was transgender - and other children were ‘fantasy’, and maintained she had never attempted to poison her.

Giving evidence from behind a curtain to avoid ‘distractions’, the 16-year-old alleged killer – who can only be referred to as Girl X – said she had been questioning her own gender at the time, and agreed that she found Brianna 'attractive'.

Denying holding ‘any anti-transgender views’ herself, she told a court her co-accused – who the court has heard referred to Brianna as ‘it’ - ‘didn’t exactly agree with people who were trans or people who were gay’.

Girl X is accused along with the male friend, referred to as Boy Y, of murdering Brianna in Culcheth Linear Park near Warrington, Cheshire on February 11.

The pair, who were both 15 at the time, are said to have been fascinated by torture, violence and death, while handwritten notes about serial killers were found in her bedroom following her arrest.

Both deny Brianna’s murder, blaming each other, Manchester Crown Court has heard.

Questioned today about her interest in ‘dark’ material, Girl X said she began fantasising about killing people when she was about 14.

Asked by her barrister, Richard Pratt KC, if she ever had ‘any intention of putting that fantasy into reality’, she answered: ‘No.’

Girl X said she also found serial killers ‘interesting’, particularly their ‘different personalities’ and ‘the different ways they would carry things out’.

She said she and Boy Y had been friends since the age of 11, swapping messages and playing games online.

She agreed that from November 2022 they began discussing her interest in torture and murder.

‘He did seem to have similar interests, that’s why I started to open up to him about it,’ she said.

Questioned on what she meant, Girl X said: ‘I would share the sort of dark fantasies that I would have.

‘Things to do with murdering people and torturing people.’

She said Boy Y ‘seemed to like that sort of stuff’.

Girl X was asked about messages to Boy Y in November 2022 in which she wrote about stabbing a teenager who can only be referred to as Boy M, adding that she might keep ‘a couple of teeth and an eye’.

She insisted she never had any intention to kill Boy M or remove any body parts.

‘Where did you get the idea of taking some body parts?’ Mr Pratt asked.

‘I’m interested in some serial killer stuff,’ she replied.

‘It’s something some serial killers would do. They keep parts of their victims.

‘So I thought I would bring it into the fantasy.’

Girl X said she became friends with Brianna last year, saying they would ‘hang out’ together.

‘I had a good relationship with her,’ she said.

She said she found Brianna ‘very interesting’.

‘Did you find her attractive?’ Mr Pratt asked.

‘Yeah, I did,’ she replied.

Asked about Boy Y referring to Brianna – who was transgender – as ‘it’, she answered: ‘He didn’t exactly agree with people who were trans or people who were gay.

‘He would refer to Brianna as “it” rather than “she”’.

Asked if she had ‘any anti-transgender views’ herself, she answered: ‘No.’

Jurors have been told that on the afternoon of Brianna’s killing, Girl X was sending messages to a fictional Instagram account she had set up in the name of Nathan, who she purported was a drug dealer.

Asked about the account today, Girl X admitted setting up the account but claimed she had done so because she was questioning her own gender identity.

‘I originally made the account because I was questioning my gender,’ she said.

‘I made that account pretending to be a boy.’

Asked by Mr Pratt if she was questioning her ‘gender identity’, she replied: ‘Yes.’

‘Were you pretending to be a boy?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Girl X said.

Jurors have heard that Boy Y and Girl X swapped messages at the end of January discussing trying to kill Brianna with an overdose, including hiding medication in a McDonald’s milkshake.

 Girl X wrote that she had given Brianna pills ‘that should have been enough to kill her... but she didn’t die’.

In response, Boy Y suggested other chemicals which he said were ‘very dangerous’.

Jurors heard last week that at around the same time, Brianna’s mother Esther found her ‘screaming and crying’ in her bedroom and saying: ‘I think I’m going to die.’

But she began to recover after throwing up, with what may have been traces of medication found in her vomit.

Asked whether she had ever tried to poison Brianna, Girl X said she hadn’t.

She claimed they had gone to a local Asda supermarket and bought ‘random tablets’ to see if it would make them feel ‘high’.

‘I’m not sure what Brianna took,’ Girl X said.

She said the tablets she took just made her feel ‘a bit sick’ but that Brianna felt very ill.

‘Did you ever give her any medicine without her knowing?’ asked Mr Pratt.

‘No,’ she answered.

Asked why she told Boy Y that she had tried to give Brianna an overdose, Girl X answered: ‘To add to the fantasy about killing her.’

She added that she’d had ‘no intent to do so’.

Throughout the hour and a half she spent giving evidence, Girl X played with a multi-coloured stress ball, picking it up and dropping it on the desk of the witness box, or twirling it around.

Earlier in the case, trial judge Mrs Justice Yip told jurors that Girl X had been diagnosed with traits of autism following her arrest while Boy Y had been diagnosed with the condition.

She also told them that experts have told the court that items such as fidget or tangle toys may help the defendants concentrate.

‘Whatever helps to manage conditions I’m perfectly happy with,’ she said last week.

Today Girl X gave her evidence screened from the public gallery by a curtain, with the judge telling jurors this had been done in response to recommendations to reduce her facing ‘distractions’.

She was accompanied by an ‘intermediary’ who has accompanied her during the trial process.

Dressed in a dark cardigan and with a dark-coloured pendant around her neck, she was repeatedly asked to keep her voice up so the jury could hear her answers.

Barristers in the case have been asked to question Girl X ‘in a slightly different way’ in recognition of her age, the judge added.

She will continue her evidence next week.

Earlier this week jurors were played Girl X’s police interview during which she was questioned about the day Brianna was killed.

She claimed that Brianna had ‘stormed off’ to meet ‘some lad’ from Manchester, who was picking her up in his car.

She admitted she and Boy Y had been with her in the park that afternoon but said she ‘burst out crying’ when a friend sent her a message telling her she had been found dead.

In a series of police interviews, Boy Y claimed he had turned away to urinate in a tree, and on looking back saw Girl X stabbing her ‘at least three times’.

Girl X then ‘decided to run’, he added, at which he ‘panicked’, and they both walked back to their homes, leaving Brianna bleeding to death on the ground.

Asked by detectives why he hadn’t called police, Boy Y said he ‘wasn’t sure’ if Girl X ‘would try and come after me or anything’.

Yesterday jurors were yesterday shown a handwritten note found in Girl X’s room which the prosecution say was ‘a plan to kill Brianna Ghey’.

Searches of the 15-year-old’s home found notes she had made about serial killers, placing them into categories and in some cases listing how many victims they had, a court heard.

A spider diagram with the words ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in the middle of it, jurors were told.

Girl X, now 16, of Warrington, and Boy Y, also 16 and of Leigh, Greater Manchester, deny murder and now blame each other for wielding the hunting knife which allegedly inflicted the fatal wounds.

The trial continues.