Why Brianna Ghey police quickly ruled out transphobia as motive

Killers' messages led investigators to believe plot was not driven primarily by a hatred of Brianna's transgender identity

Within 48 hours of Brianna Ghey's murder, DCS Mike Evans of Cheshire police told the media that the force had no information or intelligence to suggest it was a hate crime". The statement caused an immediate uproar, particularly among the LGBTQ+ community, who held vigils in her memory. Many people suspected that Brianna being a transgender girl may well have played a role in her killing and were angry that detectives seemed so quick to rule out transphobia as a motive.

What the activists did not know was that police by then had already started trawling through thousands of WhatsApp messages exchanged between the two teenage suspects before and after the murder. What they discovered was highly disturbing but not, they thought, a plot driven primarily by a hatred of Brianna's transgender identity.