Catfish killer hunted down with one phone call

It was a call from a 13-year-old girl in Scotland in 2019 that ultimately led to the capture of a social media predator described as one of the world’s most prolific child abusers.

Alexander McCartney, from Northern Ireland, pretended to be a young girl to befriend, abuse and blackmail children around the world, often sharing images with other pedophiles.

Some of the children were only four years old. Some hadn’t told anyone what they’d been through – until the police knocked on their door.

McCartney gradually admitted 185 charges, including manslaughter after a twelve-year-old girl he had abused took her own life.

He was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison.

Following contact with police in Scotland, an urgent investigation was launched by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in March 2019.

Investigators identified Alexander McCartney’s home address, arrested him and questioned him.

In four separate raids, 64 of McCartney’s devices were seized from his home in the rural Lissummon Road area outside Newry.

These devices contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photos and videos of underage girls performing sexual acts while being blackmailed.

McCartney created and used numerous fake accounts on online platforms, especially Snapchat, in order to manipulate them.

PSNI Det Ch Supt Eamonn Corrigan said McCartney had committed “offences on an industrial scale”.

He tricked victims into believing they were talking to a girl their own age online before encouraging them to send indecent images or engage in sexual activity via a webcam or mobile phone.

McCartney used the same pattern each time, the detective said, adding: “He threatened to share these images online for the enjoyment of other pedophiles and to use them to further abuse and harass the already frightened and exploited children.” “

In one incident, McCartney took just nine minutes to groom, sexually abuse and blackmail a girl as young as 12 years old.

As time went on, it became clear that McCartney’s depravity extended not just across Britain, but across the world. The abuse also included other people, pets and objects.

The PSNI worked with colleagues from the US Department of Homeland Security, the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Crime Agency. The victims were in America, New Zealand and at least 28 other countries.

Many of these children could only be identified through the evidence found on McCartney’s devices.

According to police, he “set up a pedophile enterprise” and “stole the childhoods” of his victims.

In spring 2019, police called Catherine Kierans, the acting head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Serious Crime Unit.

They said that “something big was going on… it involved catfishing.”

Catfishing is when a person creates a false identity to gain the trust of others and exploit them.

Ms Kierans said little girls “have an average age of 10 to 12 years”. [were] to be threatened in the most depraved way.”

She said some of the exploited children had previously spoken about their abuse, but others had remained silent.

“Some of the children had raised the alarm, which helped the police identify him in the first place.

“But some of the children had not told anyone what they had been through until the police knocked on the door.”

According to Ms Kierans, McCartney insulted “24/7”.

As the investigation spread across the world, Ms. Kierans said, prosecutors realized that McCartney had been “very diligent about storing the images.”

“In some cases, he would also save the map of the child’s location on Snapchat, which allowed police to then locate the children.”

His arraignment in 2021 was delayed when police discovered the suicide of a little girl in West Virginia, US.

“From the outset the level of abuse was so horrific that we feared that if these children were identified, ‘would these children be okay?’” Ms Kierans said.

“Unfortunately, our worst fears came true when we eventually discovered that one of the little girls had taken her own life.

“Working closely with the American authorities, we were able to prove that this child committed suicide during the abuse while still online with McCartney.

“At that point, the child’s death was so closely linked to the abuse that we felt we had good evidence that he killed her.”

That little girl was 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas, who shot herself in 2018 while McCartney was abusing her.

McCartney was charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Ms Kierans said it was believed to be the first time in the world that a perpetrator had been held responsible for a homicide where the victim and perpetrator had never met in person.

The scope of the case was so large that prosecutors had to be careful in handling the charges.

“We couldn’t add 3,000 counts to the indictment,” Ms Kierans said.

“In the end there were about 200 charges [relating to around 70 victims] This is probably one of the biggest charges we have seen in Northern Ireland.”

McCartney grew up five miles outside Newry, just off the main road to Armagh.

It’s as rural as it gets. Farms, a church and a few shops.

When he first appeared at Newry Magistrate’s Court in July 2019, he was just 21, with long, shaggy hair and the look of someone surprised to be sitting where he was sitting.

He spent more than five years on remand in Maghaberry Prison – only for court appearances and further questioning by police.

At these hearings he said little other than confirming his name and date of birth and gradually making quiet guilty pleas.

McCartney attended Newry High School and was interested in games.

A source told BBC News NI: “He was introverted and socially awkward. He barely had any contact with people outside of his circle of friends.”

“He may have been on the fringes of things, but he had friends who obviously didn’t know about it.”

He then took a course at Southern Regional College in Newry, where he was described as “quiet and not really engaging with the rest of the class”.

When he was finally charged in 2019, he was a computer science student at Ulster University.

The case was shocking for the residents of his house and the surrounding area.

“The whole place was stunned,” said one resident.

“At first it was a whisper, then disbelief. I’m sure people are talking about it at home, but it’s not discussed publicly because people don’t know what to say.”

Another said: “He seemed like a pleasant, affable and intelligent young man.

“There’s nothing unusual about him.”

But what is extraordinary is the extent of his offense; Many of his victims had pleaded for the abuse to stop, but prosecutors said he “carried on callously, at times forcing the victims to involve younger children, some as young as four years old.”

According to Catherine Kierans, McCartney’s depravity was such that it was “one of the most shocking and common cases of child sexual abuse we have ever seen in the PPS”.

Ms Kierans said some of the victims had still never been identified despite extensive police efforts.

“McCartney’s crimes have harmed thousands of children, leaving them and their families facing the traumatic consequences,” she said.

“Her courage stands in stark contrast to his cowardice in targeting vulnerable young girls.”

For more information and support for those affected by this story, please visit BBC Action Line.