Moment teen who stabbed love rival to death pleads not to call police

By ELIZABETH HAIGH, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER 17:02 13 Nov 2026, updated 17:04 13 Nov 2026

A teenager who murdered a 16-year-old love rival she had never met before in a row over a boy pleaded with her grandfather not to call the police, new footage shows.

Chloe Dransfield was stabbed to death by beautician Kayla Smith, 18, following an escalating row over a boyfriend, Blake Dowling, they had both been in ‘on-off’ relationships with.

Chloe went with Dowling, 18, in a taxi to Smith’s grandfather’s house in Austhorpe, Leeds, in the early hours of March 28 this year.

Minutes later, she had been brutally attacked by Smith and stabbed five times in the back and neck, with a fatal wound to the back leaving her with a punctured lung.

Smith, who was caught on CCTV inhaling laughing gas moments before the attack before approaching Chloe while holding a knife and shouting ‘come on big girl,’ pleaded guilty to murder on the second day of her trial on Thursday.

Previously, she had admitted manslaughter. Her two co-defendants, Dowling and Archie Rycroft, 20, both deny manslaughter and murder.

Harrowing CCTV footage at 5.12am, one minute after the stabbing, released by police shows Smith pleading with her grandfather not to call the police as Chloe lay dying in the street.

Dowling, sitting on the fence in her grandfather’s garden, can be heard saying: ‘You just killed her, stone dead.’

Smith replies: ‘No I haven’t, no I haven’t killed her. I haven’t killed her.’

Her grandfather, Geoff Smith, who is seen in a dressing gown, says: ‘I’m ringing the police.’

Rather than show any concern for her victim, Smith pleads with him: ‘You can’t ring the police, she’s dead.’

Smith had been staying at a garden annexe at her grandfather’s property at the time of the murder.

Neighbours tried to perform life-saving resuscitation after finding Chloe, who used her mother’s surname of Watson, gravely ill on the pavement in a large pool of blood.

Mr Smith called for an ambulance after the stabbing, and was seen by a neighbour performing CPR on Chloe on the footpath.

Chloe was taken by ambulance to hospital but was pronounced dead at 6.40am.

Smith was yesterday told by judge Mr Justice Cavanagh KC that she faces ‘custody for life’ when she is sentenced at a later date.

Dowling’s mother said Smith was ‘jealous and obsessed’ over her son’s relationship with Chloe, and it was heard in court they had rowed the evening before the killing.

The court heard that Smith and Chloe had been ‘at war’ over Dowling – despite never having met in person.

A friend of Chloe’s told the jury Smith had repeatedly threatened to stab her rival in messages and voice notes sent over social media apps.

Giving evidence at the opening of the trial, the teenage witness said Smith began dating Dowling when she was just 13 and remained ‘obsessed’ with him.

She said: ‘Chloe always told me “Kayla’s saying she’s going to stab me again”, laughing about it.

‘It’s been quite a few times – every time they’ve argued. About 20 times, probably.’

The friend told how tensions erupted in the hours before Chloe’s murder, when Smith repeatedly called Dowling from a withheld number.

Smith began ‘screaming’ after discovering her ex-boyfriend was with Chloe, with whom he had been in an ‘on-off’ relationship for around a year.

The witness said: ‘Kayla said: “Come here, I’m going to stab you in your throat”.

‘Chloe said: “Try stab me in the throat and I’ll take it right out of your hands”.’

Later the teenage friend told how Chloe had messaged her: ‘I’m off to go and fight Kayla.’

She added in her police-recorded interview: ‘Five minutes later she sent me a photo of herself in the taxi. That was the last time I spoke to her.’

Around 34 minutes before the 5.11am killing, Smith messaged a cousin to say: ‘I’m stabbing her, on my nana’s ashes’.

Seventeen minutes later she messaged again ‘she’s on her way’ and ‘I’m stabbing her.’

Footage from a neighbour’s Ring doorbell captured Smith ‘striding quickly’ across the pavement with ‘something shiny’ in her hand, shouting ‘come on, big girl’ and ‘come on then I will stab you’.

She was also captured on camera inhaling laughing gas before the attack, and running back to the summer house in her grandfather’s garden afterwards.

Chloe was stabbed three times in the back and twice in the neck with a 20cm kitchen knife. A fatal 13cm wound to her back penetrated her lung, a post-mortem concluded.

When police arrested Smith and Rycroft, they were ‘laughing and joking’ with two of their friends and using nitrous oxide in front of officers, it was said.

Police who arrived at the scene found canisters of nitrous oxide – laughing gas – scattered around Smith’s annexe.

They told how the outbuilding had a ‘strong stench’ of cannabis.

PC Nicholas Taylor said: ‘Kayla Smith came to the door and was wearing pyjamas, stating she hadn’t heard or seen anything.

‘Shortly after this, another female arrived at the scene and went storming into the outhouse, demanding to be let in.

‘We then noticed that inside the outhouse were also two males. They denied any knowledge or involvement in any incident, and stated that there had been nobody else present at the address the night before.

‘The building had a strong stench of cannabis. There were a number of large nitrous canisters.’

Dowling is accused of murder after allegedly travelling to meet Smith with Chloe, knowing that a fight was planned.

Rycroft is accused of murder after allegedly encouraging the violence by filming the fatal attack on Smith’s mobile phone before it was later deleted.

Smith will be sentenced at a later date, once the trial for the male defendants, which is ongoing, concludes.

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