Online Oli Sykes Impersonator Sentenced to Life

The internet makes it really easy to reach out to celebrities, and sometimes they respond. It can seem too good to be true.

And, well, sadly, sometimes it is.

A 19-year-old woman in California thought she was getting close to Oli Sykes, lead singer of Bring Me The Horizon, on Facebook. She even traveled to England to meet him.

Except, it wasn’t Oli. It was actually 20 year old David Russell who had been posing as Oli online. He lured the girl to England, met up with her, blindfolded her and took her to a nearby forest.

Where he slit her throat and stabbed her three times when she attempted to escape. Luckily, the intended victim survived and managed to find help at a nearby house.

To make it even creepier: the day before the attempted murder, Russell had searched online for “how to kill someone with bare hands and how to cut skin with a knife” among other damning phrases. And when he slit his victim’s throat, he did so while yelling “Why won’t you die? You’ve ruined my life. It’s all your fault.”

Russell was sentenced to life in prison. The sentencing judge went on record as saying “While she was able to escape, you intended to kill her and must have come very close. It must have been utterly terrifying and it went on for an extended period. This is one case when a life sentence is the only appropriate sentence.”