GUILTY UK - Alesha MacPhail, 6, raped & murdered, Ardbeg, Isle of Bute, Scotland, 2 Jul 2018 -*arrest* #8

[Carnelian]

Didn’t he also say to his female friend that you could get away with the perfect murder as long as you planned it right? Or something along those lines.. it was the girl who liked serial killer crime documentaries..this was prior to the incident of course.

 

[Kikixxxx]

Yeah he did but I was never sure how serious that convo was, it kind of seemed like it was 2 kids messing about and was made a bigger deal due to the fact we know what he’s capable of so it made it relevant kind of thing. I don’t know what to make of that conversation. I remember thinking at the time okay this girl sounds like she needs locking up aswell mind lol

 

[Ardoch]

An article from 2007 however the subject of brain immaturity and youth crime has been in the news recently regarding youth sentencing.
May I state categorically, that I do not think that AC should have been dealt with any more leniently than he has been and I recognise that there's a huge difference in petty crime and what AC carried out however the same factors are possibly in play.

I found this interesting from one of the perplexities that all of us have had since day one, that is, what went through the mind of a sixteen - year old schoolboy to commit his first and most horrific of crimes.
It was opportunistic and inhuman.
Developmental immaturity is recognised as a factor in many youth crimes. One of it's definitions is a lack of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and social development in the transitional period of adolescence.

AC appeared to have displayed a complete lack of maturity or understanding in what he had done.
The actions of saying to his friends "here's the killer" or lying at court and blaming someone else are signs of many things including that of a child much younger than sixteen years old.

I wonder if he was/is lacking in mental maturity and if his background plays a much bigger part in understanding what went through his mind?

I may have asked the question but I don't want us to get 'shut-down' again for speculation or jumping to the wrong conclusions with any answers!

Experts link teen brains' immaturity, juvenile crime

"By around 15 or 16, the parts of the brain that arouse a teen emotionally and make him pay attention to peer pressure and the rewards of action — the gas pedal — are probably all set. But the parts related to controlling impulses, long-term thinking, resistance to peer pressure and planning — the brake, mostly in the frontal lobes — are still developing."

 

[TaylorCallum]

"The first ep of #KidsWhoKill: Evil Up Close which starts Mon 30th March at 9pm is all about Aaron Campbell and features interviews and testimony from his family. Get ready..."

Crime+Investigation UK on Twitter

Apparently the upcoming documentary will feature interviews from his family? I'd imagine it will be his mum, I don't know who else it could be? But then I don't know if she would after everything that's happened, hmm. I'm curious to see.

 

[Kiranerys]

"The first ep of #KidsWhoKill: Evil Up Close which starts Mon 30th March at 9pm is all about Aaron Campbell and features interviews and testimony from his family. Get ready..."

Crime+Investigation UK on Twitter

Apparently the upcoming documentary will feature interviews from his family? I'd imagine it will be his mum, I don't know who else it could be? But then I don't know if she would after everything that's happened, hmm. I'm curious to see.

WHAT??? I wouldnt think anyone from his family would touch it with a bargepole.
Funny,I was only thinking I had to set a reminder for this yesterday

 

[TaylorCallum]

WHAT??? I wouldnt think anyone from his family would touch it with a bargepole.
Funny,I was only thinking I had to set a reminder for this yesterday

Same! I guess we'll see soon. Unless they're just trying to spin it that way but it's actually just going to reference that newspaper interview she gave and what she said as a witness? That'd be a cop-out lol. I hope not. Also the journalist in the trailer Katie Glass said she spoke to her, maybe it's just a recounting of that?
Just over a week now.

 

[Ardoch]

Is this only on Sky?

 

[TaylorCallum]

Is this only on Sky?

I think so, yeah? And like Virgin, TalkTalk etc. those but yeah.

 

[Ardoch]

Thanks TaylorCallum. I don't have cable or satellite but I'm sure there'll be a few posts here!

 

[TaylorCallum]

Thanks TaylorCallum. I don't have cable or satellite but I'm sure there'll be a few posts here!

Hey, there's this app that should let you watch it, I'm not sure exactly what devices it works on or anything but you can get a free month's trial (then it says it's £6.99 after that) and one of the channels is Crime and Investigation.

TVPlayer: Watch Live TV Online For Free

 

[Ardoch]

Thanks TaylorCallum. I never knew about that one.

 

[TaylorCallum]

The Crime + Investigation YouTube channel are doing a live stream of the documentary on Sunday at midnight apparently? So if people want to watch it a little earlier they can. I'd imagine it might end up being shifted to 9pm though like on TV.

 

[TaylorCallum]

The documentary was quite good, nothing new really but interesting I suppose nonetheless (if a bit sensationalised).

No interview from the family despite what they tweeted, was hoping to get a little bit of info from Janette, to be honest lol, but I'm not surprised.

 

[Looloo]

The documentary has just popped up on my yt notifications.It is now on crime +investigation channel for those who do not have that channel on the tv.

 

[Slixcon]

I watched the premiere on Youtube last night. Though I wasn't expecting much, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I had hoped they would interview AC's friends/family, or show footage of his reaction to being arrested and interrogation. Some of the 'experts' didn't offer anything especially insightful either. One of them in particular appeared to just be reading an article off a screen. I also found the video game fantasy theory a bit tenuous, given that the last known instance of AC playing Slender was in 2014, when he was twelve-years old. Nonetheless, I'd say it's still worth a watch.

 

[TaylorCallum]

I watched the premiere on Youtube last night. Though I wasn't expecting much, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I had hoped they would interview AC's friends/family, or show footage of his reaction to being arrested and interrogation. Some of the 'experts' didn't offer anything especially insightful either. One of them in particular appeared to just be reading an article off a screen. I also found the video game fantasy theory a bit tenuous, given that the last known instance of AC playing Slender was in 2014, when he was twelve-years old. Nonetheless, I'd say it's still worth a watch.

This is how I feel too, nothing new, was hoping for something that we hadn't heard or seen before. The video game theory is, in my opinion, not accurate, like you mentioned I don't believe he had even played it for years, not to mention the cyberpsychologist said that the goal of the game is to abduct children or something along those lines, it isn't, in the game you don't even play as Slender Man, you play as one of the victims. I agree though, good to pass the time on lockdown lol.

 

[Carnelian]

I don’t believe all this stuff they’re saying about him taking his time doing horrific things to Alesha because he supposedly knew he was going to get caught and this would be his only chance to live out these fantasies. If he had known then why would he bother searching online about how dna is found after? Why bother if you know you’ll be caught anyway? Aside from that I just think that’s a crazy far fetched assumption to make. He’s egotistical, so of course he thought he could get away with it. I still remember some psychologist or someone well known saying that Aaron killed her afterwards because he couldn’t deal with the guilt he felt about raping her- c’mon! He felt no guilt. I feel like people take the word of these people because they have a qualification in their field or they have written a book or they have worked in prisons etc...and people think oh their opinion must be right then... rubbish! A lot of these people don’t have a clue what was going on in his mind and whatsmore their statements seem so incredibly ‘off’ and highly unlikely to me that I just think people need to stop assuming that if a famous or established criminal psychologist says something about someone like Aaron then it must be true. Suggesting he felt guilt is laughable, and suggesting he always knew he’d get caught is ridiculous. There’s no evidence to support this, it’s just speculation being stated as fact.

 

[Kikixxxx]

I don’t believe all this stuff they’re saying about him taking his time doing horrific things to Alesha because he supposedly knew he was going to get caught and this would be his only chance to live out these fantasies. If he had known then why would he bother searching online about how dna is found after? Why bother if you know you’ll be caught anyway? Aside from that I just think that’s a crazy far fetched assumption to make. He’s egotistical, so of course he thought he could get away with it. I still remember some psychologist or someone well known saying that Aaron killed her afterwards because he couldn’t deal with the guilt he felt about raping her- c’mon! He felt no guilt. I feel like people take the word of these people because they have a qualification in their field or they have written a book or they have worked in prisons etc...and people think oh their opinion must be right then... rubbish! A lot of these people don’t have a clue what was going on in his mind and whatsmore their statements seem so incredibly ‘off’ and highly unlikely to me that I just think people need to stop assuming that if a famous or established criminal psychologist says something about someone like Aaron then it must be true. Suggesting he felt guilt is laughable, and suggesting he always knew he’d get caught is ridiculous. There’s no evidence to support this, it’s just speculation being stated as fact.

10000% I couldn’t have said it better myself!! I was getting wound up how much they were sensationalising it all. Emma kenny especially was so over the top. She said something like his plan all along was to deny it for the sole purpose of causing more havoc and upset to the family in court, Again I don’t believe it was. He wanted to get away with it... he tried his hardest to get away with it because he didn’t want to go to jail for at least 20 years plus. He racked his brain to come up with a plan or story that would tie in all the evidence presented to him and the Toni story was his best bet... his only bet!

I don’t think he took his time cause he knew he’d get caught either, im pretty sure he thought he could lie his way out of it, although it was majorly naive to think so with the amount of evidence against him, he did have me wondering the first few days of the trial but I think that was more the fact I really didn’t want to believe a 16 year old boy was capable of such a thing The “I dropped my joggers into the sea and didn’t go in after them” was the pivotal point of the trial for me though, any doubts I had were gone then.

 

[Carnelian]

Agreed! Yeah that bit about his sole purpose of lying in court was to cause stress to the family- nah, like you said it was to desperately try to wriggle out of the situation. The stress for the family was just a bonus for him.

Ah yes I’d forgotten about that ‘I simply watched my joggers float away into the sunset whilst I lay naked on the beach’ nugget of gold definitely reaching!!

 

[RubyLee87]

It would have been interesting if the documentary had talked about the time leading up to the murder. Testimonies from his 'friends' or girlfriend (anonymously) about the night of the party or comments from his family or local people about what he was like before would have added new information. Or even footage of his arrest and interview, as previously mentioned. They didn't even include any of the footage from his sentencing, which is widely available.

I feel like they concentrated on video games too much. I don't think he murdered Alesha because he wanted to be like Slender Man. That game isn't even graphically violent. He's psychopathic and wanted to kill someone. That night presented him with the opportunity and he took it. It's that simple.