Northern Irish man convicted of suicide of West Virginia girl and other crimes

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Oct. 26 (UPI) — Alexander McCartney has been sentenced to life in prison for the manslaughter death of a West Virginia girl he “catfished” on a mobile messaging app and other crimes including blackmail.

McCartney, 26, from County Armagh in Northern Ireland, pleaded guilty on Friday to 185 charges relating to years of catching young girls online and through messaging apps, including 58 attempts to blackmail his victims.

McCartney created false profiles which revealed he was a young girl and he used social media to target up to 3,500 victims in more than 30 countries between the ages of 10 and 16.

He has entered a guilty plea to a manslaughter charge stemming from the death of a 12-year-old West Virginia girl who committed suicide in 2018 when McCartney was targeted.

John O’Hara, judge at Belfast Crown Court, on Friday McCartney convicted to life in prison, without the possibility of parole for at least twenty years.

McCartney “used social media on an industrial scale to inflict such terrible and catastrophic harm on young girls,” O’Hara said as he sentenced McCartney on Friday.

Among his victims was the West Virginia girl who attacked McCartney on Snapchat and committed suicide in May 2018.

The girl’s father, Ben Thomas, was a U.S. Army veteran and committed suicide 18 months after his daughter took her own life.

McCartney was also convicted of multiple offenses of causing children to engage in sexual activity and sexual communication with a child.

He also pleaded guilty to 58 charges of blackmail and possessing indecent images of children between 2013 and 2019.

O’Hara called McCartney’s crimes “exploitative” involving “sadism and depravity,” necessitating the life sentence typically imposed only on murder convictions.

The judge also said McCartney continued to commit offenses while awaiting trial and on bail.

Police first searched McCartney’s home in January 2016 and was arrested in July 2019, but he continued his activities, which “got progressively worse,” O’Hara said.

“I find it difficult to think of a sexual deviant who poses more risk than this defendant,” O’Hara said.

McCartney claimed he was a victim of online abuse as a teenager, but O’Hara dismissed the claim while condemning McCartney.

Police said McCartney primarily used Snapchat, Instagram and Kik to create fake online profiles to trap his victims and trick them into sending him sexual images of themselves.

After receiving the images, McCartney revealed his real identity and threatened to send images to his victims’ friends and family.

He also made sure some of his victims involved their younger siblings or pets, often targeting young girls who were gay or who were questioning their sexuality.

He told a victim that he had her address and that he would send people to rape her if she didn’t do what he said.