The following contains descriptions of anti-trans violence.
The two teenagers convicted of murdering 16-year-old Brianna Ghey in 2023 both received lifetime prison sentences this week, with the possibility of parole two decades from now.
Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, now both 16, received their sentences from Justice Amanda Yip on Friday. Jenkinson will serve a minimum of 22 years before she is considered eligible for parole, Yip ruled, while Ratcliffe will serve 20. A jury convicted the pair of joint enterprise murder in December, which carries a mandatory life sentence in the U.K. (In a “joint enterprise” murder, defendants are charged collectively, even if only one of them carried out the actual attack.) The two teens’ names were sealed until now due to British law regarding the identities of juvenile defendants.
“You both took part in a brutal and planned murder which was sadistic in nature,” Yip told the pair during sentencing. Yip also noted “a secondary motivation was hostility to Brianna because of her transgender identity.”
On February 11, 2023, Jenkinson and Ratcliffe stabbed Ghey 28 times in a park just a few miles from Ghey’s home. During the trial, prosecutors demonstrated that the two had planned Ghey’s murder for months, in text messages that regularly used slurs and dehumanizing language in reference to her body. Although Yip made reference to anti-trans hostility in her sentencing remarks, transphobia itself was not investigated as a motive during the trial, The Guardian reported in December.
Instead, police and prosecutors mainly focused on Jenkinson’s violent thoughts and impulses, which reportedly began escalating months before she met Ghey. As the BBC reported Friday, Jenkinson, then 15, fed a THC-infused candy to a 13-year-old fellow student in November 2022, an incident that was recorded as a spiking — but which was not reported when Jenkinson transferred to Birchwood Community High School, where she befriended Ghey. Months later, Jenkinson attempted to poison Ghey with ibuprofen tablets, before eventually executing her final murder plan.
Jenkinson previously denied any involvement in the killing, pinning the blame on Ratcliffe (whose knife was used as the murder weapon). But as noted in The Guardian, Jenkinson changed her story as the trial wore on. “[Jenkinson] said she had snatched the knife from Eddie’s hand and stabbed Brianna repeatedly,” prosecuting attorney Deanna Heer told the court, adding, “[s]he said she understood she had stabbed Brianna enough times to kill her and was excited by what she was doing.” Jenkinson also apparently told a psychiatrist she wanted to keep parts of Ghey’s body as “tokens.” According to Heer, Jenkinson even began a new “kill list” while incarcerated during her trial, with names including “a number of people who were caring for her.”
Ghey’s death sparked vigils and protests across the U.K. last year, with many decrying mainstream media narratives that demonize trans youth. Few have felt the trauma of Ghey’s loss as keenly as her own family, who told the court her death has left permanent scars.
“[It was] Brianna’s friend who she trusted who ended her life,” Ghey’s sister Alisha said in her victim impact statement, quoted by the BBC. “No one can ever make me feel better. The only thing that would is hearing her voice and laughter, and I must carry that pain for the rest of my life.”
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