Life in prison for pushing a 12-year-old girl to suicide

Published25. October 2024, 7:24 p.m.

United Kingdom: Life in prison for pushing 12-year-old girl to suicide

A young American woman killed herself to escape blackmail from an online predator who allegedly claimed thousands of victims.

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Alexander McCartney pretended to be a teenager to deceive his victims.

DR

A 26-year-old online predator, who drove a 12-year-old American girl to suicide and killed up to 3,500 people in total, was sentenced to life in prison in Belfast on Friday.

“Disgusting child predator”

Alexander McCartney, who admitted to 185 charges involving 70 girls but is believed to have killed thousands around the world, is “a disgusting child predator” who committed offenses on an “industrial scale”, told the press after the verdict a Northern Irish police official, Eamonn Corrigan. Victims were located in the United Kingdom, Ireland and other European countries, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Judge John Ailbe O’Hara had shortly before declared at the hearing, considering that the accused, arrested three times before being incarcerated, had no attenuating circumstances.

Alexander McCartney, a former computer science student, pretended to be a teenager to connect with girls around the world on platforms like Snapchat, before blackmailing them. He operated for entire nights from his bedroom in the family home in Newry, Northern Ireland.

“He had no remorse”

Cimarron Thomas, 12, who lived in West Virginia in the United States, committed suicide in May 2018 to avoid having to comply with the demands of Alexander McCartney, who ordered her to implicate her younger sister in acts sexual. Eighteen months later, his father Ben Thomas, in despair, also killed himself.

Judge O’Hara denounced the accused’s “sadism”. “He had no remorse, he ignored multiple opportunities to stop,” the magistrate said. “McCartney is nothing more than a disgusting child predator who posed as a young girl online, to condition, manipulate and sexually abuse his victims, as young as four years old, to satisfy his perversions and those of other online sex offenders” targeting children, denounced Eamonn Corrigan. “It caused serious and lasting damage to what we estimate were 3,500 victims and their families,” he added, adding that police had tried to identify as many victims as possible but that over time, some would never be found.

Security sentence of 20 years

Alexander McCartney, who listened headlong and without reacting to the verdict, is the “first person in the United Kingdom to be convicted of homicide while his victim resided in a foreign jurisdiction”, according to Eamonn Corrigan, who thanked his foreign colleagues who assisted in a complex investigation. He notably cited the Department of Homeland Security in the United States.

The convict had pleaded guilty to homicide in the case of Cimarron Thomas, and dozens of other offenses. His sentence to life in prison is accompanied by a 20-year security sentence. He admitted to blackmail, making and disseminating “indecent images”, and inciting children to engage in sexual acts. “The damage he has caused is immeasurable,” said Catherine Kierans, head of the prosecution, during the same press briefing as Eamonn Corrigan.

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