The teenagers accused of murdering Brianna Ghey, 16, were pictured on CCTV walking home together after the attack, after being disturbed at the scene by a couple walking their dogs.
The two 16-year-olds, a girl and a boy, who cannot be named, ran away from Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington shortly after Brianna was stabbed 28 times on 11 February this year, Manchester crown court heard.
Kathryn Vize, who was in the park with her husband, Andrew, that afternoon, told the jury that she noticed two teenagers – a girl and a boy – running away from what she initially thought was a dog on the upper path of the park.
She described how the pair broke into an odd, “lolloping” run after realising they had been seen, with the boy trying to cover his face with his hood.
She then thought the teenagers might be playing a prank on them and that what she could see on the path was a blow-up doll. But she soon realised they had stumbled upon the aftermath of an attack, with Brianna bleeding, face-down in the mud.
The jury was played a 999 call made by Vize in which she told the call operator that she could describe the alleged attackers clearly “because I was really suspicious of them”.
Both defendants accept it was them the Vizes saw running away, though each denies murder and blames the other for the killing, the court heard.
The jury was played footage from CCTV and doorbell cameras showing the teenagers walking through suburban Culcheth shortly afterwards, before splitting up to go home.
In one of the clips, the boy appeared to have a red substance on his hands, the prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the jury. Another camera later captured him with his coat sleeves pulled over his hands.
Brianna’s pink mobile phone was found in a drain on the route the pair took from the park, the court heard. Police were unable to access any data from Brianna’s device, but obtained thousands of messages exchanged between the two defendants before and after the killing.
On Thursday the jury heard that the female defendant, known as Girl X to protect her identity, made a fake Snapchat account pretending to be a drug dealer called Nathan.
The court has heard that she invited Brianna to Linear Park to get “absolutely shitfaced”. Fifteen minutes before the attack, the girl’s phone records show her sending messages to herself from the Nathan account.
Brianna did not seem to believe that Nathan existed, the jury heard, sending a message to another friend saying: “[X] is so weird girl. I think she’s pretending to have a deeler [sic].”
The trial continues.
