A teenage boy who fatally stabbed 12-year-old Leo Ross in an unprovoked attack has been named for the first time as Kian Moulton.
Leo was knifed in the stomach as he walked home from school in Yardley Wood on 21 January 2025. The 15-year-old was detained for a minimum of 13 years on Tuesday after he admitted to murder during a hearing at Birmingham Crown Court in January.
Leo, a student at Christ Church, Church of England Secondary Academy, is believed to be the youngest victim of knife crime in the West Midlands. His family described him in a statement as an “amazing, kind, loving” boy.
He is not believed to have had any connection with his killer.
The murderer’s name can be published after a judge lifted the automatic anonymity granted to under-18s in court. Speaking during the sentencing on Tuesday, Mr Justice Choudhury KC said, in his view, the killer should be named because of the public interest in the case.
“The defendant has pleaded guilty and falls to be sentenced for very serious crimes, including murder – the most serious of all,” he said. He added the public would want to know “what could have led a child to commit such acts”.
Moulton, who was 14 at the time of the killing, also attempted to drown an 82-year-old woman and attacked two other elderly women days before the fatal incident, a court previously heard.
He admitted two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent on 19 and 20 January 2025, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on 21 January 2025, in relation to the separate attacks on other victims, as well as having a bladed article on the day he killed Leo.
Prosecution counsel Rachel Brand KC said the boy had told an 82-year-old woman, “I tried to drown you, but now I’m going to kill you,” after pushing her into a river and hitting her with her own walking pole just two days before Leo’s murder.
The woman was taken to hospital and was found to have sustained multiple bruises and a laceration to her head, a broken nose and black eyes. She had also fractured a rib and two of her fingers, which required surgery.
A second woman, aged 72, was left bleeding “profusely” from a head wound and later required surgery after she was attacked, the court heard.
In a witness statement given to the police, the woman said: “I think this incident will make me feel nervous about going out alone. I feel emotional about what has happened.”
A video released by police after the sentencing shows how the killer hung around to talk to officers at the murder scene, falsely claiming he had stumbled across Leo lying fatally injured beside the River Cole.
He denied assault occasioning actual bodily harm on 22 October 2024 and assault by beating on 29 December 2024 in relation to two further victims, and those charges were ordered to lie on file.
