Adolescence: Is Katie Leonard Based on a Real Murder Victim?

Netflix’s ‘Adolescence‘ presents a case study of a normal family with normal values having to contend with accusations that their 13-year-old son, Jamie Miller, is a murderer. His jarring arrest kickstarts a domino of events, with the Miller family at the center of the piece. As the show picks the bones of the bigger picture behind the crime, it asks some difficult questions about parental responsibility, warped societal values, and online media culture. A combination of these factors and more leads to the death of a young teenage girl named Katie Leonard, the tragic victim of the crime Jamie is alleged to have committed. Her murder resonates throughout the series, forcing people to look within and the community to take stock of their responsibility in light of a young girl’s passing.

Katie Leonard is Inspired By a Long List of Young Female Murder Victims

Katie Leonard, who is brought to life by scriptwriters and creators Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, is a fictional representation of the women and girls who are constantly victimized by male killers in the UK. The story for ‘Adolescence’ is not centered on any single case or real-life incident. Instead, it is based on a series of growing reports surrounding knife crimes, mainly revolving around young male aggressors going after female victims. Graham was inspired by numerous news reports of young boys stabbing girls to death. Subsequently, he was gripped by the question of why such a thing would happen, which had no easy answers. Therefore, the story surrounding Jamie Miller and Katie Leonard, while fictional in the details, is rooted in the many serious cases of knife murders happening across the country.

By exploring the fallout from Katie’s murder, the show seeks to address the underlying issues that have been festering in communities whenever knife crimes occur. It also calls upon real incidents of tragedy that have plagued the UK over the years. For instance, in 2019, a 17-year-old girl named Ellie Gould was stabbed to death by Thomas Griffiths, a then 17-year-old boy she had been allegedly dating for three months before breaking up. Ellie was an English sixth-form student from Calne, Wiltshire. Her murderer, Griffiths, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 12 and a half years before being eligible for parole. Ellie’s tragic death is one of many instances that touches upon the reality ‘Adolescence’ seeks to address. The epidemic of male killers targeting women has continued raising alarm bells since her passing.

Graham also brought up the murder of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old British transgender girl who was murdered after being lured to a park by two teenagers, as an incident that spurred him to create the series. Ghey was killed by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, who were 15 at the time, in an incident that was described as “extremely brutal and punishing.” The two teen murderers were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 22 years for Jenkinson and 20 years for Ratcliffe. While Katie is distinctly different from the two victims mentioned above, her murder serves as a general touchstone for how such cases play out in the real world. More importantly, it tackles how the underlying context and reasons behind the crime are never dealt with properly.

Through Katie, ‘Adolescence’ asks its audience to look at knife crimes from a different angle. An angle that does not simply boil down every crime to a chain of linking events. Rather, it puts forward the proposition that understanding such cases and what motivates them is equally important to stop them from happening again. If women and girls continue to be victimized, then a society fails to address its collective responsibility to all its individuals. Her presence in the series is pivotal in bringing these discussions to life and putting them front and center at the thematic heart of the Netflix show. Yet, despite her prominence, the character remains a fictional creation of the show’s creative team, who leaves an indelible mark throughout each episode.