Killer’s mother called police over CCTV of son
“I’ve found the wee girl … she’s dead.”
Jorge Williams’ voice trembled as he relayed the devastating news to a 999 call handler.
Less than half an hour had passed since he had answered a Facebook appeal to help search for missing sixyear-old Alesha Macphail.
The conviction of a 16-yearold boy yesterday for her murder was be the culmination of a police investigation that was helped in part by the killer’s own mother.
His mother had reviewed CCTV at the family home and spotted her son coming and going in the middle of the night. She believed he may have seen something and contacted the police.
In the course of the investigation, the teen’s phone was examined and internet search questions such as “how do police find DNA?” were found.
Hours before Alesha was killed, the boy had hosted a party for his friends that broke up at 12:30am.
At that point the accused was drunk and in a distressed state. To calm himself down he tried to buy cannabis, but
messages to Alesha’s father, whom he had obtained the drug from in the past, received no response.
At 1:54am, the accused was spotted on CCTV leaving his family home. Between 2:25am and 2:26am, cameras captured a figure walking along the shoreline carrying something.
The CCTV trail then went cold until 3:35am when the accused was filmed arriving home. Ten minutes later he left wearing a pair of shorts, no top and no shoes.
He returned at 3:52am and then departed again six minutes later wearing a grey T-shirt, dark shorts, dark footwear and carrying a torch.
The accused arrived home for the final time at 4:07am.