‘Cold-blooded’ killer who stabbed teen he met on Grindr more than 100 times jailed for at least 24 years
Jurors at Preston Crown Court took less than an hour to find Brian Healless, 18, guilty of murdering Alex Davies, also 18.
By Will Stroude
A “cold-blooded killer” who stabbed a teenager he met on Grindr more than 100 times in a “savage” killing has been jailed for at least 24 years.
Brian Healless, 18, murdered Alex Davies, also 18, in Parbold Hill, Lancashire, after arranging to meet him through the online app in April 2019, the BBC reports.
Healless, from Chorley, tried to set up meetings with four other men in the days after the killing, Preston Crown Court heard.
Brian Healless will spend at least 24 years in prison
Jurors heard how Healless stabbed “kind-hearted, gentle” sales assisant Davies more than 100 times before dragging him through undergrowth while still alive and leaving him under branches.
He was captured on CCTV on 29 April last year riding away from the scene of the killing on his mountain bike while carrying his victim’s rucksack.
Davies’ body was found three days later, leading police to Healless.
Victim Alex Davies
Sentencing him, Judge Mark Brown branded Healless a “a cold-blooded killer”, saying: “Alex was a kind-hearted, gentle and hard-working young man who would never have harmed anyone.
“You lulled him to his death and executed the killing in a savage way. You were undoubtedly setting him up to kill and you are a manipulative, calculating and devious person.
“It is extremely fortuitous that you were arrested before anyone else suffered the same fate.”
Psychiatrists assessing Healless agreed that the teenager was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing, but jurors rejected the defence of diminished responsibility, unanimously finding him guilty of murder in less than an hour.