A desperate 999 call made by a dog walker who found Brianna Ghey’s body as if he were living in a “nightmare” was played at the trial of two teenagers accused of killing the teenager.
The defendants, identified only as girl February 11.
Both defendants, who were 15 at the time and are now 16, deny murder. The jury heard they blamed each other for the murder. Both defendants cannot be named due to their ages.
On Thursday, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC sat in the jury at Manchester Crown Court into the harrowing 999 call made by Kathryn Vize at 3.13pm on February 11.
The court heard that while she and her husband Andrew were walking their two dogs, they spotted a male and a female on the road ahead and then came across the dying Brianna on a woodland path in the park.
Ms Vize is heard initially in shock, telling the call handler that “someone had been attacked”, possibly stabbed, and “the attackers ran away”, before later describing the suspects as a girl and a boy, both in their teenage years.
Vize, a distressed woman, takes a deep breath and repeats “Oh my God” throughout the interview, describing the incident as “like one of those nightmares.” She said: “I don’t know if he is alive… I don’t want to touch him. “This is a complete mess.”
Ms Vize described Brianna as “bleeding profusely”, wearing a “blood-soaked shirt”, with her face “covered in blood” and what appeared to be a “bloody wound on her back”. She said: “There is blood on your legs, there is blood on your back; He’s really injured… At first we thought he was a puppet. “He’s hurt really bad.”
When asked if the couple could give Brianna first aid, Ms Vize can be heard crying: “I don’t think there’s anything you can do for her. I really don’t think so.” She shouts, “I don’t know. This is terrible,” and begs the emergency services to “please hurry.” The call ends when Ms. Vize is heard telling the operator that she has seen the police.
In her witness statement the next day, Mrs. Vize said that while she was walking the dog with her husband, she noticed a male leaning down and climbing onto something ahead, where she and a female to the left of the male were standing. She was seen “lurching” towards a farmer’s field.
“Lolop was very suspicious. When they saw us, their speed accelerated,” he told police in the film of the interview shown to the jury, adding that the girl stopped for a few seconds and “made eye contact with me.”
Miss Heer had previously told the court: “Miss Vize saw the male bend down and bend down as if he were looking at a dog, before both he and the female left the road and started running towards an adjacent field. “That’s what they did.
“Continuing along the road, Mr. and Mrs. Vize discovered that what the man was bent over was not a dog, but the bloody body of a young woman lying face down in the mud.”
Ms Vize told police she was “scared” when she crouched down to look at Brianna. “There was a lot of blood,” she said. “I thought she was wearing thick, white pantyhose, but it wasn’t like that; His skin was so white. It was very bad, very bad.
“If someone were alive, he wouldn’t be in this distorted position; he would look like a rag doll.”
He told police he then called 999 and told them there had been a serious assault. He added: “I wouldn’t say he is definitely dead. I felt she was dying and I was very, very scared and thought we should contact the police immediately if there was any chance of helping this poor girl.
Ms Heer said Brianna was found stabbed 28 times in the head, neck, back and chest in a “sustained and violent attack”.
Ms Heer argued there was no dispute that the man and woman seen running away from Brianna’s body were the two defendants.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty and denied any involvement in Brianna’s murder.
During cross-examination, Ms. Vize was asked about the moment she saw the man and woman at the location where Brianna’s body was found. Richard Littler KC, defending boy Y, asked: “Did you not see any violence or aggression? … So you didn’t hear any noise or noise?” He answered “No” to both questions.
The trial continues.