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‘We cried with mum whose daughter was driven to her death by NI catfish killer Alexander McCartney'
Some readers may find the details of this report distressing.
A former police officer who flew to the United States to tell a mother that a prolific online predator was responsible for the death of her 12-year-old daughter has told of his pain of bringing the shocking news to her doorstep.
For three years, Cimarron Thomas’ family didn’t know why she had taken her own life.
All that changed in May 2021, when a PSNI team visited her mother Stephanie to tell her Cimarron had been driven to her death by merciless paedophile Alexander McCartney.
By then the family had suffered a second tragedy – unable to cope with the loss of his daughter, Cimarron’s father Ben had also taken his own life.
An experienced family liaison officer Wayne Campbell went with a colleague to Stephanie’s house, while investigators spoke to homeland security and witnesses.
‘’She was devastated all over again as were we having to tell her. We sat in her house and it is something I will never forget. We sat in her house and cried for hours just chatting – it was horrendous. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,’’ the former detective sergeant recalls.
‘’It is the worst case I have ever dealt with and hopefully nobody will ever have to deal with it again. Knocking on someone’s door on the other side of the world and why their own daughter took their own life, isn’t something anyone should have to do.
"This case alone has broken people in the PSNI."
In all, he says they stayed around a week during that first visit telling Stephanie what she wanted to know about her daughter’s contact with McCartney on Snapchat on the night she took her own life.
We know he was making sick demands of the schoolgirl and blackmailing her.
Cimarron was found clinging to life in her parents bedroom by her younger sister – was rushed to hospital but died a short time later.
McCartney’s undoing – a saved recording of that twisted Snapchat conversation he kept as a trophy on his laptop.
Asked if he felt Cimarron’s mum was able to take in the enormity of what he was telling her, Wayne Campbell recalls: "She was taking it in I think. But her world had been shattered all over again...
‘’We tried to do it as gently and compassionately as we could but there is really no easy way to tell someone your daughter was abused online by someone who did this to thousands of girls.’’
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