Brianna Ghey best friend jokingly asked if she 'was still alive' after failing to reply to messages

• Granada Reports journalist Emma Sweeney spoke to Brianna Ghey's best friend Amelia as she shared her memories of the murdered teenager, and just why she was so special.

The best friend of Brianna Ghey says she spoke to her on the day of her murder - even asking her if she was "still alive" when she failed to respond to messages.

Amelia and Brianna became firm friends after bonding over their shared experience as young members of the trans community.

Despite living 200 miles apart, they struck up an inseparable online friendship and spoke every day, often for hours at a time.

The pair were so close Amelia says she initially did not believe her friend had been murdered when she was told, instead thinking it was an elaborate hoax made up by an online troll trying to make a "horrible article".

Brianna was found fatally stabbed in Culcheth Linear Park, in Warrington, on 11 February 2023.

Two teenagers, known as Girl X and Boy Y, have been convicted of her murder.

Paying tribute to her "rare, needle in a haystack" friendship with Brianna Amelia, from Edinburgh, says the pair dreamed of renting a flat together before undergoing transgender surgery.

"We were both so similar," she said. "Of course at first it’s because we were trans, but I feel like we just clicked immediately.

"My best description of our friendship was ‘needle in a haystack’, where it’s so rare that’s the best way I can describe it, I don't think I’ll ever experience that again.

"Our friendship was a lot of Facetime calls and we just spoke about life and we used to play games together, she was obsessed with Minecraft, she used to harass me to play it every night."

Amelia says she continued to speak to Brianna on the morning before she was brutally murdered, as she told her of getting the bus to the park and meeting up with Girl X.

"I spoke to her that day," Amelia said. "She was telling me how she was going to meet the girl, and then not long after she messaged me saying she was on the bus and the driver was bit driving a bit wonkily and she thought she was going to fall over.

"Then she didn’t message me until 2.40pm, when she messaged saying the girl she was with was acting really weird and she thought she was lying about having a drug dealer.

"From then on there were no messages because I was sleeping at that point, and when I woke up I responded.

"I just said ‘girl are you okay’, and then maybe about eight hours after her not responding I actually messaged her and said ‘girl are you still alive you’d better not be dead’.

"I didn't actually mean that, just in a like ‘hello, answer my messages’ way. I was worried."

Recounting the moment she found out Brianna had been murdered Amelia said she initially believed it was a troll making something up to get at her friend.

"Brianna before all of this happened she did have quite a big following on one of her TikTok accounts, about 180,000.

"I thought because she did have a lot of haters and a lot of trolls I maybe thought that it was just a sick person making a horrible troll article.

"At first it wasn't any major news outlets, it was just a website, and then I got sent the article from the Guardian I think and that confirmed it.

"When I got sent that my heart sank, I started crying... I was in my room for quite a while and bawling my eyes out."

Although she never met Brianna face-to-face, Amelia says it was important to her to be at the funeral.

"I needed to be at that funeral," she said, "and I needed to be there for my own sake mentally since I never got to meet my best friend in real life, at least I could say my final goodbye to her.

"I just miss her, nothing exactly, just her."