The crime of Olly Stephens, a 13-year-old minor diagnosed with autism, shook the United Kingdom in 2021 due to the key role that social networks played in a death as atrocious as it was absurd.
The stabbing murder of the British teenager Olly Stephens, at the hands of two other young people in a field behind his house, after they recruited a 13-year-old girl online to lure him there, caused a stir in January 2021, because it was promoted and planned through social networks.
Olly, 13, left home on a Sunday afternoon in Reading, Berkshire, in the south of the United Kingdom. He had told his parents, Amanda and Stuart Stephen, that he was going to meet a friend. Fifteen minutes later, he had been murdered. The attack was organized on social networks.
Besides: Jung Yoo Jung: the crime-obsessed Korean who ended up killing a stranger out of ‘curiosity’
The police investigation revealed that the motive behind the heinous crime arose from a dispute on social media, where Olly was wrongly perceived to have mocked another child.
The culprits, two schoolchildren aged 13 and 14, were later found guilty of her murder, along with a girl found guilty of manslaughter.
Just before he was murdered, Olly was diagnosed with autism and what he liked most was playing video games and listening to music in his room.
The night after her murder, reviewing social media posts about Olly and screenshots her friends shared with their daughter, her parents Stuart and Amanda began to realize the role social media had played in what happened.
Look this: ‘The darkroom killer’ who terrorized the nights of Berlin
“Is this secret world where you can do and say exactly what you want”says Amanda. “It was a world that we had no idea existed (and) that it was attacking,” commented the victim’s mother.
Olly’s parents became aware of the violent and disturbing world their son had been exposed to through his phone.
The voice notes and text messages discovered by the Police revealed chilling details of the attackers’ intentions for revenge, where digital evidence was a key piece to clarify this absurd homicide.
In addition, the minor murderers shared images on Instagram of people with knives, wearing balaclavas and hoods. Even the language used by the convicts in the audios was shocking, with comments such as: “You’re going to die tomorrow, Olly” and “I’ll hit him or stab him.” What is also chilling is the casual and cold tone they use to express themselves.
You are interested: The chilling story of Niels Högel: Germany’s “death nurse” who killed 85 patients
Detective Andy Howard, speaking to the BBC, highlighted at the time how technological advances allowed the police to access crucial digital data, which ultimately provided information about the motive behind Olly’s tragic death.
“If Olly had been murdered maybe six months earlier, we would have had to look at the investigation very differently,” Howard said. “We were able to gather so much information from the digital data that we didn’t have to rely on calling any young people or children into court, which I think was positive all around.”
Olly’s father, referring to his son’s crime, released this disturbing reality: “My son’s murderers hunted him, tracked him down and executed him through social networks. And the networks did nothing to protect it.”
