Logan MacPhail, then 16, was “calm and emotionless” when he was arrested after repeatedly stabbing his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend Holly Newton. When he was later told he was being charged with murder, he replied simply: “Is she dead?”
Darren Davies, the detective in charge of the murder investigation, remembered that MacPhail’s chilling demeanour was the same throughout police interviews. “For someone of his age to have that lack of emotion did seem weird.”
It may never be known precisely what was going on in MacPhail’s mind as he stabbed Holly in a frenzy. But the reason for it appears to be frighteningly mundane. He had been in a teenage relationship for 18 months and when Holly said it was over he could not accept it. He was jealous that she may have met another boy, so he killed her.
Holly Newton’s murder raises important issues about domestic abuse among young people, the intensity of their relationships and teenage knife crime more generally.
But for Holly’s family the biggest issue has been losing a happy, popular, adventurous girl who, they said, would do anything for anyone.
Holly and her killer, now 17, met at army cadets. A year or so later they were an item in an apparently normal teenage relationship.
Holly’s mother, Micala Trussler, said there was nothing out of the ordinary. They seemed happy together, with Holly helping MacPhail with his speech problems and reading difficulties.
A couple of months before she was killed, it became apparent Holly was not happy and no longer wanted to be in the relationship, Trussler said.
“Because she was so young, she didn’t really know how to get out of it … With Holly, she quite often felt sorry for people, which is why she kept going back and forward.”
The court heard that MacPhail was obsessed with Holly, and her mother agreed. “That’s the only way to describe it … but I don’t think we knew quite how obsessed until his behaviour changed.”
Trussler said MacPhail did not want Holly to go out, and “needed to know where she was all the time”. Even when she was at home he wanted to know what she was doing. At one point he changed all her passwords on her social media accounts. “There was just a lot of controlling behaviour going on.”
The red flags were there but Holly was too young to recognise them.
Holly was murdered one day after school in January 2023 while walking around shops in Hexham with friends.
She knew MacPhail wanted to talk to her, messaging a friend: “Apparently [MacPhail] is gonna meet to me outside of school. So he’s basically stalking me at this point. He’s gonna follow me until I talk to him.”
The jury was shown CCTV of MacPhail following Holly for 45 minutes as she walked around Hexham, ducking out of sight if he thought he had been spotted. Eventually, he approached Holly and she agreed to talk to him down an alleyway.
She had no idea MacPhail had a knife, which he used to repeatedly stab her. In less than a minute, he inflicted 36 knife wounds, stabbing Holly 12 times, slashing her 19 times, and leaving five defence-type wounds on her hands.
MacPhail told police Holly had been “horrible” to him, and: “I was meant to kill myself but it went too far”.
A striking part of the case was how long it took to come to trial. MacPhail is autistic and has a low IQ and learning difficulties, with his lawyers arguing he was not fit to plead or stand trial. It meant the trial did not take place until 18 months after Holly’s death – a significant delay.
Holly’s family say she was the victim of controlling behaviour but was too young to be classed as a victim of domestic abuse.
That is wrong, said her mother. “Coercive control comes under domestic abuse and because Holly was 15, we’re not allowed to call it that. It just goes down as knife crime, but obviously it was so much more than that. This is a huge part of the case … it is a massive part of it and it’s definitely something that people need to hear. He definitely felt if he couldn’t have her, then nobody could.”
As well as calling for a change in domestic abuse law, the family have been raising money for bleed kits to be put in towns across Northumberland to help save lives of people stabbed.
Davies, a detective in Northumbria police’s major investigation team, said of MacPhail: “He has ruined his own life but he’s also ruined many, many other lives through seemingly no other reason other than a girl didn’t want to go out with him any more. That is essentially what it boils down to.”
He said he had a son about the same age as Holly and that teenage relationships were different from when he was that age.
“They are so much more involved in each other’s lives these days. Their relationships are way more meaningful and intense. It’s something I think everyone needs to be mindful of. Promoting healthy relationships and a healthy stance on relationships is important.”
