Kids Who Kill: Evil Up Close

The first episode of the series looks at the tragic murder of six-year-old Alesha MacPhail who was abducted from her bed whilst on holiday with her grandparents on the Isle of Bute. The then sixteen-year-old Aaron Campbell took neighbour Alesha and carried her to a nearby wood, where he raped and murdered her. In the dead of night, he was caught when his own mother inadvertently turned him in. He didn’t admit his horrific crimes until after his conviction

The second episode of the series looks at the youngest double murderers in Britain, Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham who committed such a horrific act , both at the age of 14. Edwards & Markham’s were young and in love. Both outsiders from troubled homes, they felt they understood each other when no one else did. Together they made a cold-blooded plan to get rid of the mum and sister Kim bitterly resented. After murdering both Edward’s mum and sister, the couple watched the film Twilight and had intercourse

The third episode of the series looks at Stephen Hough, who raped and killed 15-year-old Janet Commins in 1976. Hough had thought he had gotten away with the perfect murder having fabricated an alibi for his horrific crimes, resulting in an innocent man going to jail. But detectives never gave up; four decades later they made a breakthrough DNA discovery that saw Hough locked away. In 2017 he was convicted for his crimes of manslaughter and rape and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Hough was only 16 years old at the time of the crime

Dubbed the 'Vampire Killer,' teen Mathew Hardman thought that by taking a life he would become immortal. His victim was elderly neighbour Mabel Leyshon. After stabbing her to death, he removed her heart and drank her blood, before placing a cross at her feet.

Troubled teen Alyssa Bustamante was a self-styled 'bad girl' who boasted of loving knives, and said she wanted to know how it felt to kill. When she gave in to this curiosity and murdered her nine-year-old neighbour Elizabeth Olten, it devastated their rural farming community.