Island of HORROR

After graduating from high school, Claire Leveque dreamt of being a psychologist. But she was keen to see the world first.

Funny and adventurous, she never wanted to sit still. With a captivating smile, friends said she looked a lot like her late mum.

Losing her to breast cancer in 2019 had left Claire bereft. Her mum had been such a big part of her life.

In October 2023, Claire, then 24, made a big decision. Just months after meeting her new boyfriend, Aren, then 39, she left her home in Alberta, Canada, with him, agreeing to move to Scotland.

The pair moved in with Aren's mum, Hazel, then 71. She lived in the small, isolated village of Sandness. Her home was at the end of a single-track road on the remote Shetland Islands.

The move was so quick, Claire didn't even say goodbye to all her friends and family. But she was excited about her adventure, later sending them videos and pictures of boat rides and dog walks on the beach.

The sweeping moorland and dramatic cliffs made her new life look idyllic.

But in November 2023, Claire texted her cousin, Ryley, that she felt lost, confessing that Aren had abused her.

I don't know if I should stay with him or go back to Canada, she told him.

Ryley told her she had to get out of the situation, that it would happen again.

But the next day, Claire said everything was fine.

Don't worry about what I said last night, she texted.

One Sunday morning on 11 February 2024, Aren and Claire were seen on CCTV going into a service station to buy alcohol.

Running back to the car, Claire looked energetic.

But just hours later, at 4.55pm, emergency services got a phone call from a distraught Hazel.

'My son... he's just... he's hurt his girlfriend,' she said to the male operator.

'She's desperately hurt, she's bleeding and dying in a hot tub in the shed,' she cried.

With Aren's voice in the background, Hazel said he'd killed his girlfriend and driven his car into the sea.

'He's had some kind of an attack, a psychotic...' she said before being cut off by the operator.

'I thought you said she was in the hot tub?' he asked.

'The hot tub is full of blood and I didn't recognise her, she's so badly beaten up,' Hazel explained.

'Are you able to check she's alive?' the operator asked.

Hazel burst into tears. 'I don't want to,' she sobbed.

During the call, Hazel tearfully described Claire as a lovely young girl.

Aren later joined the call and admitted killing Claire.

'I just killed my girlfriend in a hot tub in the garage,' he slurred. 'I stabbed her about 40 times, in the heart, in the stomach, in the face and in the back, and I'm covered in blood.'

He then said he'd stabbed himself four times in the neck.

'I don't know why I'm still alive, I should be dead,' he said, threatening to stab himself again.

'She drank too much and acted like an idiot,' he went on. 'I drove my Porsche right into the ocean, it's gone.'

Police rushed to the scene. When they arrived at the house, it was getting dark.

An officer discovered Aren in the hot tub with Claire's fully clothed lifeless body. She was floating on her back, with cuts to her face, in the dark, almost-black water.

'Stand up and show me your hands,' ordered an officer, pointing a taser at Aren's chest.

But Aren stayed there, holding Claire's bloodied body. Eventually, he was arrested, and paramedics declared Claire dead at around 6.20pm. Tests revealed she'd suffered 55 separate injuries, including 26 stab wounds.

A small metallic fragment, the tip of the knife used to kill her, was discovered lodged in the front of Claire's skull.

While Aren was held in custody awaiting trial, in May 2024, Hazel passed away.

In October 2025, Aren Pearson, then 41, appeared at Edinburgh High Court and pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including assault and murder.

The prosecution claimed Claire had been the victim of a prolonged period of domestic abuse and controlling behaviour at the hands of Aren, which led to her brutal murder.

A recording was played in court that Claire had taken on her phone months before her death.

In it, the couple rowed and Aren admitted beating her twice before, including on her 24th birthday.

'You're lucky I didn't gash your f***ing head in, OK?' he told her.

'You're going to kill me,' Claire said to him during the recording.

But in court, Aren claimed they abused each other and said their relationship was toxic when they drank.

He said Claire had been drinking whisky and became angry when she'd heard him call her dad, Clint, back in Canada, complaining about her drinking and threatening to send her home.

Aren claimed she'd punched him in the face before grabbing a knife lying nearby and jumping into the hot tub.

'She looked at me, looked at the knife and stuck it in her stomach,' he told the court.

Aren claimed he didn't remember attacking Claire, or driving his silver Porsche into the sea a short drive away afterwards.

And he had no memory of admitting to the murder during the 999 call with his mum either.

After an eight-day trial, Aren Pearson was found guilty of murder and guilty of a separate charge of assaulting Claire.

'This was a sustained episode of feral butchery,' the judge said before sentencing him to life in prison, with a minimum of 25 years.

Afterwards, in a public statement, Claire's dad, Clint, who had travelled from Canada with his wife and Claire's cousins for the trial, said: 'My little girl was stolen from me. I'll never get to hug her again, hear her laugh or see her smile. I'll never see the woman she would have become.'