The teenage killer who raped and murdered six-year-old Alesha MacPhail ‘took his time’ with the crime because ‘enjoyed’ harming her and knew she would be his only victim, claimed a psychologist.
Aaron Campbell was 16 when he took Alesha, six, from her bed as she slept and carried her to a remote woodland.
It was there he killed her by applying pressure to her neck and face, just days after she arrived to stay with her father on the Isle of Bute in 2018.
The child was left with 177 injuries and subject to harrowing sexual abuse at the hands of Campbell, who according to psychologist Emma Kenny, ‘wanted to desecrate, violate and destroy her body’.
Speaking on upcoming documentary series Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close on Crime+Investigation, she claimed that it was clear from the ‘catastrophic’ injuries Alesha endured, that Campbell ‘really enjoyed harming her’.
‘When you think of the ways he injured Alesha, you have to assume that he knew he was going to be caught. So he took time’, said Emma.
‘He wanted to desecrate and decimate and violate and destroy her body, because he knew that he was not going to get to do it again. That is what makes this so reprehensible.’
Six-year-old Alesha MacPhail was murdered and raped just days after she arrived to stay with her father (pictured) on the Scottish island of Bute in 2018
Aaron Campbell,now 17, (pictured) was convicted of raping and murdering six-year-old Alesha MacPhail,, he was sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years
She said that Campbell, whose 27-year minimum prison term was cut to 24-years in September last year, ‘exists to destroy others’ and insisted that ‘sadistic, child molesting murderer’ is as ‘bad as a human can be’.
Emma later added that while people like Campbell are rare, ‘When they exist, they exist to destroy others.’
Alesha came to stay with her father Robert, aged 26 at the time, and his girlfriend Toni McLachlan, who was 17, at their in Rothesay home for what was meant to be three weeks on her summer holiday.
Psychologist Emma Kenny (pictured) appeared on ‘Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close’ where she opened up about the psyche of the killer
Campbell, who was popular among his friends and often posted videos of himself on social media, would often purchase cannabis from the couple, and on the evening of the murder had a party to mark the end of his exam season.
Following the event, where Campbell had consumed half a bottle of wine, the killer had told one of his friends he was feeling ‘suicidal’ and stormed off looking for cannabis, texting Toni around 1am with no response.
Armed with a kitchen knife, Campbell entered their home an hour later with the intention to steal cannabis, but stumbled across the sleeping child.
He then took her from her bed and carried her a secluded location, where he raped and murdered her before throwing his clothes in the sea, showered and returned to the murder site to retrieve his phone.
Alesha came to stay with her father Robert (pictured) , aged 26 at the time, and his girlfriend Toni McLachlan, who was 17, at their in Rothesay home
The documentary told how the killer was obsessed with violent online games like Slender Man, and how in in 2017, he sent a Facebook message saying that he ‘might kill one day for the lifetime experience’.
‘He didn’t know what he wanted in his future, but he wanted in that moment to fill out an ambition’, said Emma.
‘You have to ask yourself why he did that. Part of me can’t help but suspect, that in his level of psychopathic psyche, he had a level of pride in his work.’
Left with 117 injuries, the pathologist determined the cause of Alesha’s death to be ‘the result of significant forceful pressure to her neck and face’.
‘It’s clear from the injuries that Alesha experienced, that Campbell really enjoyed harming her’, said Emma.
‘The 117 injuries that were inflicted on a small child’s body were catastrophic, but none the less, the thing that killed her was the pressure that he applied to her neck and face.
‘The gratuitous violence involved in those moments, for that little innocent defenceless child, was incomprehensible.
‘The end that she met was something so far outside of what she deserved, it’s hard to imagine.’
Emma told how the teen killer is ‘about as against nature anyone can become’ and insisted that Campbell re-entering society would be nothing but ‘dangerous’
Campbell was sentenced to 27 years in prison after unanimous guilty verdict following a nine-day trial – however this wad reduced by three years on appeal last September.
Emma told how the teen killer is ‘about as against nature anyone can become’ and insisted that Campbell re-entering society would be nothing but ‘dangerous’.
She said: ‘Campbell isn’t just a child murderer, he’s a child molester, he’s a high level sex offender and that makes him about as dangerous as he could be.
‘That makes him a sadistic, child molesting murderer. That is about as bad as a human can be.
‘It’s about as against nature anyone can become, that is what makes him so dangerous.’
‘Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close’ will premiere on Crime+Investigation on Monday 30th March at 9pm.