A 12-year-old boy who murdered a “completely defenseless” teenager posed for a photo with the murder weapon stuffed down his pants hours before the murder.
Dressed in a gray hooded tracksuit, black jacket and balaclava, the gun-obsessed schoolboy posted the image on Snapchat on the day he stabbed 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai with a machete alongside his accomplice of the same age.
Even after he was arrested, the boy remained obsessed with knives and made drawings of knives while in custody, which prosecutors said showed his interest in deadly weapons.
The pair are the youngest people to be convicted of murder since Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were held over the torture and murder of James Bulger in 1993.
Mr Seesahai, who had only been in the country for six months and was originally from the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla in the Caribbean, was attacked as he discussed plans for Christmas with a friend in a Wolverhampton park in November last year.
The fatal wound on his back was more than eight inches deep and the knife went through his heart and almost came out of his chest.
He died at the scene after being hacked by the almost 42.5cm long knife and beaten by his attackers, who are also believed to be the youngest boys to commit a knife-related murder in Britain.
Shortly before the fatal encounter, his attackers, who ‘often’ carried a machete, passed it between them at the Stowlawn playing fields in East Park, Wolverhampton.
Earlier that day, the boy with an obsession for knives had posted photos of the knife on social media.
The boy, whose grandmother was previously charged with cocaine smuggling, forwarded the image to his girlfriend and his accomplice, along with a song by a drill rapper who had also been convicted of murder by machete.
In the hours after the murder, the same youth, who admitted unlawful possession of the machete but denied any other wrongdoing, was given a ride home by a relative. He bleached his machete and hid it under his bed, but messages on Snapchat showed he was not concerned about the consequences of the murder.
Prosecutors told the court that “prior to this offence, officers had recovered knives” at his home address and that “this was a young man who enjoyed owning knives”.
Neither boy has any previous convictions, warnings or reprimands, but police said after the case that the youth who hid the murder weapon had previously been ‘treated’ for a theft incident unrelated to knives.
In conversations on social media between his co-suspect and a girl witness who later went to a police station with her mother to make a statement, the knife-obsessed boy said of the stabbing: “It is what it is.”
He wrote on Snapchat that he wasn’t scared and added “idrc” – a text message abbreviation for “I don’t really care”.
The chat had started with a video of the scene and the words ‘someone got stabbed’ before his accomplice said: ‘Everyone is talking about it. Literally everyone. Everybody knows.”
“I’m not saying it because every time I talk about it I seem to act weird,” he added.
Although his co-suspect seemed more concerned, police found the boy who owned the machete happily watching television at home when they arrested him the evening after the murder.
He was given a formal warning informing him of his rights, and replied: ‘What murder? Why would I kill someone?” and “I didn’t do anything.”
Both defendants wore shirts and ties to give their testimony, accompanied by intermediaries, because they were allowed to sit in the courtroom with relatives instead of in the dock.
The boy who owned the machete with the black blade was charged with his heavily bloodied clothing and man bag. He said he bought the machete for £40 from a “friend of a friend” who he declined to name, but police said there was evidence he had searched for knives online.
His hoodie, found inside out by police and mixed with other clothing in a laundry basket, had bloodstains on the front of the right sleeve, the front and back of the left sleeve, the right chest and the lower left front.
Officers searched a storage area under a bed and found a machete. A tracksuit with visible blood stains was also seized from a laundry basket at one of the schoolboys.
Prosecutors told jurors that the boys had screenshots on their phones of knives like the ones used in the killing and that they had searched online for news articles about the attack.
Cell phone images also revealed multiple images of large knives and weapons, including one with long knives and swords on a bed.
In an online search, one of the killers asked: “How many criminal records can you have to leave the country?”
The case mirrors another recent knife crime tragedy, where 17-year-old Rayis Nibeel had bought 65 knives online and sold them for a profit in the few months before he murdered 38-year-old Omar Khan in a drugs dispute in Luton. September last year.
Detective Inspector Damian Forrest, who led the Wolverhampton investigation, said the youngsters had shown an obsession with a gun that was unnecessary.
‘The weapon was a large machete and in fact no one who does not need it as a tool should have any reason to own it.
“It is clear that it was originally going to be a garden tool. Although, based on the facts of this case, we cannot say with certainty how that weapon came into the suspects’ possession, there is evidence that one of them attempted to purchase knives on the internet.”
Last month, police chiefs said illegal dealers were selling guns to under-18s through social media channels including TikTok, Snapchat and Meta’s.
Some teenagers, often involved in drug trafficking, want to buy high-status weapons such as zombie knives or machetes.
Commander Stephen Clayman, the police’s national lead on knife crime, said the accessibility of knives online was “a very worrying picture” for law enforcement.