Drug courier, 19, found guilty of murdering teen with zombie knife

A teenage drug courier who stabbed a 17-year-old boy to death with a zombie knife has been found guilty of murder.

Tristan Kerr was attacked with a 13.5cm (5.3in) blade in February and collapsed and died outside a home in Abertridwr, Caerphilly county.

Georgie Mears, 19, from Cardiff, was found guilty by a jury at Newport Crown Court.

Drug dealer Conor Palfrey, 25, from Abertriwdr, who also went to the flat armed with a stick, was found not guilty of murder through joint enterprise, but guilty of manslaughter.

They will be sentenced on 18 November.

Ricardo Elliot, 27, of no fixed address, and Elexi Manny, 25, from Senghenydd, Caerphilly county, were found not guilty of murder by joint enterprise and not guilty of manslaughter.

Kerr, from Abertridwr, ran out of the flat and along the street before collapsing. His family sobbed when doorbell camera footage of his final moments were played in court.

He could be heard telling a friend, Conah Davies: "I'm hurting, I love you bro."

An off-duty nurse tried to stop the bleeding but Kerr died before he could be taken to hospital.

Mears admitted stabbing Kerr during a fight claiming self-defence, but denied murder.

"I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to kill him," he told Newport Crown Court.

He said he was at the flat on Lower Francis Street to deliver two £25 bags of ketamine to Kerr, claiming the 17-year-old had tried to punch and rugby tackle him as he walked into the living room.

Mears said he had hidden the blade in his jogging bottoms, but as the struggle went on he said the knife became increasingly visible. He said he was afraid it would be used against him.

A forensic examination of the jacket Kerr was wearing found three separate cuts or slashes on it.

But Mears' version of events was challenged by Davies, who was in the flat with Kerr and tried to help him when he collapsed.

He said Mears rushed into the living room "stabbing and swinging out" at Kerr, and said Palfrey was with him, armed with a wooden stick.

Ieuan Crane, who lived in the flat, said he saw Kerr run out of the back door, only realising shortly after that the teenager was seriously injured.

"I didn't see no blood as he ran out. I thought he was sound, then I saw him collapsed in the street.

"I could see blood dripping down to his socks, he had white socks. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move him," he said.

Kerr lived close to the flat where he was fatally stabbed with his grandfather Jason, visiting each day to see his lurcher dog that was being looked after by Crane.

On the day of his death Kerr, Crane, Davies and another man, Odhran Gulliford, spent the day playing the computer game Fortnite and taking drugs.

The court was told Kerr had to leave the flat before 20:00 because he was on a tag with a curfew.

Traces of cannabis and ketamine were found in his body during a postmortem examination.

Mears, described as a promising rugby player while at Llanishen High School in Cardiff, had a history of driving offences and earned money delivering drugs around the Caerphilly area.

Manny told police she went to the flat to look for someone she wanted to speak to about damage to her car. She said she had not seen the knife or the fight, and had nothing "to do with it".

Elliot told police he was shocked by Kerr's death, describing him as a "good guy", saying he had "no involvement in this murder or its planning".

After Kerr was stabbed, Mears, Palfrey, Elliot and Manny made their getaway in Manny's Volkswagen Polo, driving to Hereford where they were later arrested by armed police. Mears said he destroyed his phone's SIM card and also threw the knife away. It has never been recovered.