A quiet corner of Scotland’s Shetland Islands was shaken to its core on February 11, 2024, when a brutal crime unfolded in the remote community of Sandness. In a case that has left both local residents and families across the Atlantic reeling, 41-year-old Aren Pearson was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, 24-year-old Claire Leveque, in a hot tub at his mother’s home. The verdict, delivered at the High Court in Edinburgh, brought to light a harrowing story of domestic abuse, denial, and ultimately, justice.
The facts of the case, as reported by BBC and STV News, are chilling. Pearson, a Canadian national who had moved to Scotland with Leveque in 2023, stabbed her more than 25 times—at least 19 of those wounds were to her face and neck. The attack was the culmination of what police described as a “controlling and violent” relationship, marked by Pearson’s attempts to degrade and abuse Leveque in the months leading up to her death. As Detective Inspector Richard Baird put it, “The level of violence Aren Pearson inflicted is truly horrifying.”
The events of that tragic evening unfolded rapidly. Pearson’s late mother, Hazel Pearson, who passed away in May 2025, was the first to raise the alarm. She dialed 999 from her home, telling emergency services that her son had just killed his girlfriend in the hot tub located in a shed on the property. According to her testimony, she found the water “red with blood,” and Claire “covered with blood” and suffering “severe injuries to her face.” Hazel described her son as looking like “a zombie” in the aftermath of the attack—a detail that would later haunt those who heard it in court.
During the emergency call, Pearson himself took the phone and confessed to the operator. “Hello, hi, my name is Aren Pearson. I’ve just killed my girlfriend in the hot tub in the garage. I stabbed her about 40 times in the heart, stomach, face, neck and back. I stabbed myself in the neck four times. I drove my Porsche right into the ocean – it’s gone yeah, she is dead. I definitely killed her – to make sure I drowned her after I stabbed her several times…” These admissions were repeated to police officers at the scene and to medical staff at Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick, where Pearson was treated for self-inflicted wounds and the ingestion of brake fluid.
Despite these repeated confessions, Pearson would later claim in court that he was not responsible for Leveque’s death. He alleged that Leveque, after a heated argument about her alcohol consumption, had struck him, grabbed a knife, and stabbed herself four or five times in the hot tub. The jury, however, found this defense “malicious” and “fabricated,” as Judge Lord Arthurson described it. The judge was unsparing in his condemnation, calling the murder “a crime of exceptional depravity” and “feral butchery.” 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 evidence presented at trial was overwhelming. Prosecutor Margaret Barron highlighted the confessions Pearson made at every stage: to the 999 operator, to police at the scene, and to doctors. Dr. Caroline Heggie, an A&E consultant who treated Pearson, recalled a chilling remark he made: “He said, ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of her for a while.’” Psychiatric evaluation found no evidence of mental illness in Pearson, further undermining his claims of diminished responsibility.
Jurors also heard an audio recording that offered a window into the couple’s troubled relationship. In it, Leveque accused Pearson of beating her on her 24th birthday. She said, “You beat the sh*t out of me on my 24th birthday.” Pearson replied, “You deserved every bit of it and more. You’re lucky I didn’t bash your head in.” In a moment of heartbreaking prescience, Leveque told him, “You are going to kill me.”
The impact on Leveque’s family and friends has been profound. Her father, Clint, described his daughter as “happy, positive and so friendly to everybody,” adding, “My daughter texted me every night: ‘I love you dad.’ Every night of her life. There’s nothing negative that anybody could possibly say about her.” Speaking to CBC, he remembered her as “a typical daddy’s girl” with a love for adventure, who grew up in Westloch, Alberta.
Hope Ingram, Leveque’s cousin, spoke movingly outside the court after the verdict. “Claire was the type of person that could make any person laugh at any moment of time. If I were ever having a bad day, the first person I’d go to was Claire because she could make light out of anything. She was such a phenomenal person. There truly is a shadow cast over our family now she is gone.” Ingram also expressed gratitude to those who helped secure justice, saying, “It’s so nice that we can now move forward and just remember Claire instead of thinking of this awful incident.” She voiced hope that the case might encourage other victims of domestic violence to “move forward and come forward.”
Others echoed the sense of loss and disbelief. Hope Saunders, a close friend in Canada, said, “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. 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.”
The local community in Shetland has also felt the shock. Andrea Manson, convenor of Shetland Islands Council, remarked, “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.”
After a trial described by Judge Lord Arthurson as having “substantial and compelling” evidence, Pearson was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 25 years to be served before he is eligible for parole. Defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson KC, acknowledging the gravity of the crime, told the court, “There was nothing he could say by way of mitigation.” He added that Pearson had been psychiatrically examined and “there’s nothing by way of mental disorder.”
The case has left a lasting scar on all those who knew Claire Leveque and the wider Shetland community. Yet, as her family and friends attempt to move forward, there’s a sense that justice, though slow and painful, has finally been served.