Schoolgirls beat woman to death, then took snapchat selfie

Two schoolgirls aged just 13 and 14 tortured and battered a frail woman to death then posted a mocking photograph on Snapchat as they were driven away laughing by the police, a court heard.

The girls caused over 100 wounds to harmless 39-year-old alcoholic Angela Wrightson in a ferocious beating using multiple weapons and then “heaped indignities” on her by stripping her half-***** and defiling her body, the jury was told.
But they left her house laughing – using the police as a taxi service to take them back to the homes where they were staying in local authority care

Showing no remorse for what they had done, it is alleged, the younger girl took a picture of her friend in the back of the police van and posted it on the Snapchat app with the caption: “Me and (name) in the back on the bizzie van again.”

The girls smashed a TV over her head and beat her with a stick studded with screws, a kettle, a pan and a ceramic vase. As she lay dying they stripped her from the waist down and left her legs spread apart, arranging gravel and grit around her private parts.

Through the attack, the court heard, Miss Wrightson pleaded for her life, saying: “Please don’t, stop, I’m scared.” Her pleas fell on deaf ears, the court heard, with the girls kicking her until pieces of flesh flew from her head.

Covered in their victim’s blood the girls tried to call one of their carers and got no answer, before ringing a local taxi firm who also failed to answer.

They decided to call the police for a lift home, giggling so much as they did so that the operator asked them “what’s so funny?”

Angela Wrightson was murdered at her home in Stephen Street near the centre of Hartlepool, County Durham, in an attack that may have begun as early as 7.30pm on December 8th 2014 and could have ended as late as 2.56am the following morning.

The girls left the house at 11pm on the 8th and went to visit a male friend, listening to pop songs by Eminem, Sia and Five Seconds of Summer on the younger girl’s phone. The girls then returned to Miss Wrightson’s home “to see if she was dead.”

The following day the older girl began asking her care worker how long the sentence was for murder.

When she was told it could be seven years for manslaughter she said the sentence might “sort her out” as she could do courses behind bars and would have her own TV and PlayStation.