Remorseless teens who stabbed trans girl to death are going away for life

The two teenagers who murdered a trans girl in England a year ago this month were sentenced to life in prison, as their identities were revealed publicly for the very first time.

The teenagers, now both 16, were identified as Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. They were previously found guilty of Ghey’s death by stabbing in a park in Warrington in the northwest of England last February.

Related:

Bullied trans teen influencer found stabbed to death in park

“They bullied Brianna because she was trans. All sorts of things were done to her.”

Jenkinson will serve a minimum of 22 years in prison, while Ratcliffe will serve a minimum of 20 years.

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The two were tried as a pair for the “joint enterprise murder.”

The brutal murder of Brianna Ghey, 16, transfixed the British public for nearly a year. The teenager had amassed thousands of followers on TikTok, and her death was met with an outpouring of grief and outrage.  

In one of her last videos, Ghey lip-synced to a clip of Zendaya from Euphoria. “One last try,” she said, looking into the camera. “I’m giving life one last try.”

It was revealed at trial that Ghey was one of five friends and classmates on a “kill list” compiled by Jenkinson and Ratcliffe. The girl’s killing was planned “meticulously,” according to prosecutors.

Ghey was stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife purchased by Ratcliffe on a ski trip to Bulgaria over the 2022-23 Christmas break.

In one of thousands of text messages exchanged in the run-up to the murder on February 11 last year, Jenkinson and Ratcliffe agreed Ghey would be “easier” to kill among the group targeted.

They had previously failed to lure another potential victim with a fake social media profile.

In testimony over the course of the trial, it was revealed Jenkinson had become “obsessed” with Brianna and spent months cultivating a friendship with the trans girl before the murder.

Others on the pair’s “kill list” included a boy Ratcliffe considered a “nonce,” another he considered a love rival, and two who had been mean to Jenkinson’s boyfriend.

Jurors heard about the pair swapping “thousands” of “violent and dark messages” via text. Jurors also saw a handwritten note from Jenkinson detailing her plan to stab Ghey in her back and stomach while Ghey walked in a tunnel in Warrington’s Culcheth Linear Park. A couple walking their dog disturbed the attack, causing the assailants to flee, though security cameras recorded them both appearing “calm” on their way home.

The pair reportedly planned the attack for weeks before it occurred. Their text messages referred to Ghey as “prey” and “it.” One message said, “I want to see if it will scream like a man or a girl.” Another handwritten note from Ratcliffe discussed killing Ghey as follows: “alcohol with sleeping pills, slit throat, dismember body, place pieces in bin bags, bury bags seven feet underground.”

On the day of the murder, Jenkinson and Ratcliffe used the code word “gay” to begin their attack.

Jenkinson told a psychiatrist she had stabbed Brianna “repeatedly” and had found it “exciting.”

“She said she had snatched the knife from Eddie’s hand and stabbed Brianna repeatedly,” prosecutors said of Jenkinson. “She said that Eddie had thrown Brianna to the floor and stabbed her three and four times, then he panicked and said he didn’t want to kill her, so she carried on and stabbed her a number of times. When asked how many, she said, ‘a lot.’”

Jenkinson also admitted that she “intended to take parts of Brianna’s body as a token” but failed to do so before the killers were interrupted by the couple walking their dog.

She had previously told Ratcliffe she wanted to keep Brianna’s “pretty eyes.”

While the pair’s defense attorney denied the killing was motivated by transphobia, the judge in the case reminded the court at sentencing that Ratcliffe referred to Ghey in “dehumanizing” transphobic language.