Tyler Hurley
(Picture: Met Police)A teenager who stabbed a 16-year-old schoolboy to death with a Zombie knife on a London bus has been found guilty of murder.
Carlton Tanueh, 19, stabbed victim Tyler Hurley with the blade, measuring a foot-and-a-half in length, on the 173 service in Chadwell Heath, east London, in a revenge attack over drill music.
Just 20 minutes earlier, Tyler, a Year 11 pupil, had left classes at The Warren School and was still in his school uniform. CCTV footage captured the attack in front of shocked bus passengers, including parents with prams, on the afternoon of March 14 this year.
Tanueh, who had pictures of knives on his phone, denied murder but was convicted by a jury after a two-week trial. He was remanded in custody until sentencing on Thursday.
Opening the case, prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC said Tyler had caused “upset” a few weeks before his murder with a drill music track uploaded to YouTube.
In the lyrics, he mocked “in pretty vile terms” Tanueh’s associates, in particular one member of the group who was stabbed, though not fatally. And, following an unsuccessful armed attack just over two weeks before the fatal stabbing, Tyler “taunted the group” after he managed to escape unhurt, she told jurors.
“He was murdered, the prosecution say, in cold blood, intentionally and without emotion by this defendant,” she said.
“This defendant’s behaviour was an act of rage and, as you will hear, revenge, and Tyler Hurley’s young life was deliberately – brutally – cut short because of petty grievances, because this defendant chose to arm himself with a deadly knife and because he chose to attack Tyler Hurley with it in the middle of a Monday afternoon as he made his way home from school.”
Tanueh was armed with two zombie knives, including the murder weapon measuring 2ft 2in (68cm) with a 1ft 6in (50cm) blade.
He stabbed Tyler twice, inflicting a fatal wound through his arm and armpit and into his chest. The killer had admitted two counts of having a knife in a public place before the trial began.
Sentencing in front of Judge Deborah Taylor, the Recorder of Westminster, is scheduled for 11am on Thursday.
