Joshua Davies, 16, has been named as the murderer of 15-year-old Rebecca Aylward, after killing his ex for a ‘free breakfast’.
16-year-old Swansea teen Davies is now facing life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering Aylward, while his order of anonynmity was broken by a judge that said the case was in the public’s interest.
His ex had thought she was meeting up with her on-again off-again boyfriend in a nearby woods to rekindle a dying flame back in October 2010, even buying a new outfit for the occasion. Her body was later discovered lying face down in the rain after she had been beaten to death with a rock.
The culprit, Joshua Davies, had texted the victim and arranged to meet up in woods so they could chat. Rebecca got a lift to the woods from an auntie and was said to have been excited about the prospects of getting back together with her ex-boyfriend.
A court heard that Davies attacked his ex with a rugby ball-sized rock. After being texted by a friend and asked whether he was with Rebecca, he replied “Define with,” implying that she had already been killed at the time.
Davies had talked so much about killing his ex that it had became a regular topic of conversation between friends. So much so that one friend said he would buy Davies a breakfast if he killed 15-year-old Rebecca.
In court, the 16-year-old murderer said that the talk of killing her amounted to nothing more then ‘talk’, though he had texted a friend two days before with the message, “You may have to buy me a breakfast”. On the day of the murder he told the same friend that “the time has come”.
Facebook cover-up
After killing Rebecca and getting caught, he tried to place the blame onto a friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, but the teen in question said Rebecca was already dead when he arrived at the scene.
The two boys then left Rebecca’s body behind and went to a separate friends house where they ‘drank tea and explained what had happened’. Rebecca’s family raised the alarm after she failed to return home.
This was when the murderer, Davies, went onto Facebook and posted he was having ‘a normal night in watching telly’ as an alibi.
Davies showed little emotion when the jury delivered his verdict yesterday, while a member of Rebecca’s family said: “Rebecca was killed in a senseless and barbaric act. She died at the hands of someone she loved and trusted. We will never forget what he did to her or forgive him for destroying our family.”
Sentencing will take place on a later date but the murderer was told by the judge he will be held in “detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure” and that Davies “can expect a sentence of indefinite duration”.
