Man who murdered girlfriend in hot tub in Shetland is jailed for life

A man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in a hot tub in Shetland.

Aren Pearson, 41, stabbed 24-year-old Claire Leveque to death at his mother’s home in Sandness on 11 February last year.

Pearson denied murder and claimed in court that Ms Leveque had stabbed herself – but a jury found him guilty after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Judge Lord Arthurson said it was a crime of “exceptional depravity” and “feral butchery” and described Pearson’s evidence in court as “malicious” and “fabricated”.

He will have to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Police said Pearson had a “controlling and violent” relationship with Ms Leveque, and had attempted to degrade and abuse her before the murder.

“The level of violence Aren Pearson inflicted is truly horrifying,” said Det Insp Richard Baird.

Ms Leveque was stabbed more than 25 times on her neck and chest during the attack.

The couple, who are both from Canada, had moved to Scotland in 2023.

The trial was told that Pearson’s late mother Hazel Pearson, who died in May, had dialled 999 on the evening of the murder.

She told police that her son had walked into the kitchen and returned with a knife.

He stabbed himself in the neck and told her that he had hurt his girlfriend.

Ms Pearson then found Ms Leveque in the hot tub, which was in a shed at her home.

“The water was red with blood,” she told police.

“Claire was covered with blood. She had severe injuries to her face.”

Ms Pearson also told detectives that her son had looked like “a zombie” after the attack.

During the 999 call, Pearson took the phone and confessed to the killing. He said he had stabbed his girlfriend about 40 times.

He also confessed to police officers at the crime scene and to a doctor while he was being treated in hospital.

However, giving evidence during the trial he claimed Ms Leveque had struck him, grabbed a knife and then jumped into the hot tub, where she stabbed herself four or five times.

Pearson claimed she had lost her temper after hearing him speak to her father Clint in Canada about how much alcohol she was drinking.

After being detained by police, Pearson was taken to the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.

The jury heard that he said he had stabbed himself in the neck, consumed brake fluid and driven his Porsche car into the water.

A&E consultant Dr Caroline Heggie treated him for two days following his arrest.

Prosecutor Margaret Barron asked Dr Heggie if Pearson had said something that stuck with her.

She replied: “He said: ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of her for a while’.”

Lord Arthurson said the evidence in the case had been “substantial and compelling”.

He told Pearson: “Your much younger girlfriend – your victim in this case – was isolated and vulnerable in Sandness.

“You had from almost the outset of her arrival there subjected her to a cruel campaign of violence and coercive control.”

The judge said Ms Leveque had died “a squalid death of quite unimaginable multifaceted violence”.

“This was a sustained episode of feral butchery,” he added.

“You have sought to blame Ms Leveque for your own assaults against her, and you have, in a grave insult to her memory and to her bereaved family, put forward a defence that Ms Leveque inflicted these catastrophic injuries upon herself – a defence that the jury have unanimously rejected.”

Ms Leveque’s father Clint said his daughter had been “happy, positive and so friendly to everybody”.

Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Mr Leveque said his daughter was “a typical daddy’s girl”.

“My daughter texted me every night: ‘I love you dad’. Every night of her life,” he said.

“There’s nothing negative that anybody could possibly say about her.”

Mr Leveque said his daughter, who grew up in Westloch, Alberta, had a love of adventure.

Speaking after the verdict, Ms Leveque’s cousin Hope Ingram described her as “a bubbly, fun girl who brought life to every room that she walked into”.

“I miss her terribly,” she said

“It’s so nice that we can now move forward and just remember Claire instead of thinking of this awful incident.”

She thanked everyone who had helped get justice for her cousin.

Ms Ingram said she hoped that as a result, other victims of domestic violence would be able to “move forward and come forward”.

Hope Saunders, who still lives in Canada, was a close friend of Ms Leveque.

“It’s sickening that someone so bright and so young and so beautiful could have her life taken away from her in the flash of a moment like that,” she said.

“It is hard to comprehend and it gives you that sick feeling in your stomach, and her being so far away in the Shetland Islands breaks my heart even more.

“I don’t want to even think about how scared she might have been in that moment.”

Andrea Manson, the convenor of Shetland Islands Council, said she hoped that the guilty verdict brought some closure to Ms Leveque’s family.

“In a normally safe and caring community the tragic loss of a beautiful young lass is a tragedy that’s being felt by everyone in Shetland,” she said.