Alesha murderer said he would ‘kill for experience’
Judge identifies Aaron Campbell, a 16-year-old obsessed with video games, as Isle of Bute killer
THE teenager who raped and murdered a six-year-old girl on the Isle of Bute had a history of torturing cats and once told a friend he would like to kill a person “just for the life experience”, it can be revealed.
Aaron Campbell, 16, who was obsessed with violent computer games, can today be named as the killer of Alesha Macphail, after a judge lifted an anonymity order banning his identification.
The schoolgirl’s body was found dumped in woods on the Isle of Bute on July 2 last year, hours after she had been reported missing from her grandparents’ house.
She had been raped and suffered 117 separate injuries, including some that the pathologist said were among the most catastrophic he had ever seen. Campbell, a cannabis addict, was described as having a dark sense of humour and was obsessed with the Slender Man, a sinister fictional character that originated on the internet.
The featureless figure, who stalks and kidnaps children, has spawned a horror film and dark computer game.
In 2014, the character was linked to the attempted murder of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin, when two of her classmates stabbed her, claiming the Slender Man had told them to do it.
Campbell’s mother described how he would sit in his bedroom all day playing violent computer games and would buy cannabis from Alesha’s father, Robert Macphail.
Pupils at his school recalled how he had killed and skinned cats before burying them in his garden and had also once talked about wanting to commit murder in order to feel what it was like.
He was recently accused of having sexually abused a teenage girl before showing compromising pictures of her on his mobile to his friends.
On another occasion, while swimming at a leisure centre, he held a girl’s head under the water for so long that she feared she would drown.
But he was also described as a popular boy who posted regularly on social media and ran a Youtube channel.
Campbell will be sentenced on March 21, but his lawyer said there was a “price on his head” in prison, where he is being protected round the clock.
His mother Janette said: “They said in court that he was depressed but I never saw any signs of depression. He would get down now and again but he was doing well. He wasn’t a violent boy. He was very normal. Yes, he smoked cannabis, but it’s rife among kids on this island.”
It was his mother who turned Campbell in to the police after she spotted him on CCTV in the early hours on the day of the crime.
Throughout his trial in Glasgow, Campbell’s anonymity was protected, but following the verdict Lord Matthews, the judge, lifted the restriction, saying: “I cannot think of a case in recent times that has attracted such revulsion.”
Campbell took Alesha from the bed where she was sleeping and after raping her inflicted appalling injuries on her before beating her to death.
‘I cannot think of a case in recent times that has attracted such revulsion’