An internet search for “How do police find DNA” was allegedly made on a phone said to belong to the 16-year-old accused of murdering Alesha MacPhail.
A cybercrime expert told the jurors the request was made on Google at 00:32 on July 3rd last year. This was the day after Alesha’s body was discovered. He said the phone was then used to access a How Stuff Works article entitled: “Collecting DNA evidence”. The evidence came from cybercrime team leader Peter Benson.
The teenager denies abducting, raping and murdering six-year-old Alesha.
Alesha
The information was contained in an 89-page report which was produced after a forensic examination of an iPhone 6 which belonged to the accused.
Alesha’s body was found in a wooded area on the Isle of Bute on July 2nd 2018, the area was where a former Kyles Hydropathic Hotel on the island. The court heard how Alesha had suffered 117 injuries and died from significant pressure being applied to her face and neck. She was only days into the summer holidays when she was killed, she was staying at her grandparents’ house in Rothesay.
A 16-year-old girl said he made the comment in a Facebook Messenger chat after she started a conversation about a crime documentary. The girl told police about the post from 2017 after he was arrested. Another 16-year-old girl told the High Court in Glasgow, the accused sent a selfie-style video to a Snapchat group with the message: “Found the guy who has done it.”
The second young witness, who messaged the accused about the crime documentary, also said he privately contacted her just three hours after Alesha was found dead.
She said: “During the conversation he started to get anxious and he said the police were going to blame it on him.”
Coastguard volunteer Peter Morrison, 39, from Rothesay, told the court he was called out to carry out a shoreline search at 06:55. He said that opposite the house where Alesha had been staying, he found “what looked like a kitchen knife”. Mr Morrison said he did not touch the knife but noted its location before continuing to search for Alesha. He later told police who cordoned off the area. The accused teenager has also been charged with attempting to hide evidence.
