Murder suspect 'emotionless' after fatal stabbing

Witnesses told police 15-year-old 'didn't look fazed'

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A warning that this story contains information which some readers may find distressing.

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A teenager accused of stabbing another boy to death outside his front door has been described as being ‘emotionless’ after the incident.

The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is currently standing trial for murder at Douglas Courthouse.

He’s accused of killing Christopher McBurnie, when both boys were 14, in Ramsey on 29 May last year.

Yesterday (6 October) the jury watched a Video Recorded Interview conducted with a teenage witness which was recorded around five hours after the Castletown boy died.

‘Fight’

The 15-year-old boy told a police officer, at Police Headquarters, that he’d witnessed what happened in the defendant’s front garden just after 3pm.

Jurors have previously been told a fight had been arranged, to take place between Christopher and the defendant, following a prolonged argument on social media.

The witness told the officer he’d heard people talking about the fight that day adding: “It’s just a regular fight - it happens a lot.”

He said he’d never seen the defendant and Christopher together before, but knew both boys, adding Christopher ‘didn’t really go to school’ and he’d last seen him in December 2023.

The witness was one of a group of five boys who met Christopher, and two friends, off the Number 3 bus when it arrived in Ramsey on the afternoon of 29 May 2025.

They walked together through the town to the defendant’s home.

On the way the witness told the officer Christopher had said: “I’m going to smash his (the defendant’s) f***ing head in and make sure he’s not breathing after.”

When they arrived the witness said the defendant ‘poked his head out the door’ adding: “The way he looked, I just thought something bad was going to happen.”

“It was like he was waiting at the door,” the witness recalled. “He said, ‘why is there so many f***ing people here?’.

“When he came out at first he (the defendant) seemed shocked at how many people where there,” the witness added.

The teenager told the officer the defendant might have thought everyone was there to fight him.

'Emotionless'

Giving his account of the fight the boy told the officer: “X (the defendant) just hit him (Christopher) straight in the face. They both went to throw a punch - X (the defendant) hit him straight in the face."

“We just thought X (the defendant) was battering him,” the teenager added; “That’s when I heard Chris shouting ‘what the f**k are you doing, get off me’" he recalled.

The witness said he saw the defendant holding a knife in his right hand adding that afterwards he 'just walked back into his house'.

"He didn’t say a word,” the boy said.

“He just looked emotionless." - Witness

‘Run’

“I didn’t realise how serious he (Christopher) had been stabbed," the witness told the police officer; "I thought it would be a minor thing.”

Apologising to Christopher as he fled the scene the boy explained: “I just ran. I didn’t know if I’d get in trouble for being there.”

Later that afternoon he said he was sent a photograph of Christopher, lying on the grass outside the property, over Snapchat.

“I know there’s a video,” he told the officer. "Y (another teenager) had it but he’s refused to send it to anyone.”

Earlier this week jurors were told police were unable to recover the video in its entirety.

‘Dramatisation’

In cross-examination defence advocate Siobhan Grey KC asked the witness again about the comments he said Christopher made on the way to the defendant’s property.

“I think it was a bit of dramatisation,” he told her.  

Prosecutor David Temkin KC also asked the witness about the comments with the witness replying: “People say stuff like that when there’s a fight happening.

“They usually never mean it. I believe in Chris’s case he didn’t mean it in the slightest. I think he might have wanted to win the fight but not in such a violent way.”

When asked by Ms Grey KC if he remembered telling the police there could have been 15 people outside the defendant’s home the witness replied: “I didn’t exactly do a headcount when I got there, did I?”

When asked why he didn’t ‘stick around’ to help Christopher the witness said he was worried he’d be in the ‘wrong place, wrong time’

“You ran off because you were worried about getting into trouble?” the advocate probed.

“Yep,” the boy replied telling her he was 'mates' with both boys and didn’t want to cause issues in the friendship groups adding: “I feel like I was wrong place, wrong time.”

‘Punching’

Another 15-year-old witness who gave evidence to police, at Police Headquarters on 11 June 2025, said he’d run to the area after hearing shouting.

After leaving school, on what was the Year 11 students' last day, he said he had initially been invited to watch the fight but declined.

When he did arrive at the defendant’s home, he said he thought he saw the defendant - who he told a police officer ‘doesn’t go to school anymore’ - punching Christopher and Christopher ‘punching back’.

“At the time I had no clue what was actually going down,” he remembered, noting that afterwards the defendant ‘didn’t look fazed or anything’.

The trial

The juvenile defendant denies the charge of murder.

The trial continues.