Nearly Every Vertebrae In Her Back Was Broken- The Story of Isabelle Welsh

Well, 11 days before Isabelle died, she was taken to hospital with a fractured leg. Her mother said at the time that it had been caused by the leg getting caught in a cot, but we now know this was not true. As Isabelle lay dying, her mother was smoking a cigarette and Googling, “Why would my toddler be bleeding?” >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Welcome or welcome back, and thanks for being here.

 I’m Cassie, and this is a Wicked World. The story I have for you today is about a 2-year-old little girl who was violently targeted by a man who always seemed much too interested in her, and her mother just let it happen. This is the story of Isabelle Welsh. Isabelle Rose Welsh was born in Barnard Castle, United Kingdom on June 27th, 2023, to her father, Joshua Welsh, and her mother, Alexandra Walker, or Alex for short.

Isabelle was a bubbly 2-year-old girl who loved dancing, feeding the ducks, and watching Peppa Pig. She also loved learning, talking to everyone, and exploring the outdoors. Isabelle’s mother originally moved to Barnard Castle to live with Joshua, but once their relationship ended, she returned back to Thornaby with Isabelle.

Then in June of 2025, 25-year-old Alex met 21-year-old Harrison Simpson on Facebook dating. And they quickly entered into a relationship that was fueled by drugs and alcohol. It wasn’t long until Harrison began spending lots of time at the home where Alex and Isabel lived. The couple also began selling marijuana out of the home together.

 And Alex was known to self-harm even when she was the sole caregiver of her daughter. When she first met Harrison, Alex claimed that her confidence wasn’t very good because she had previously been the victim of DV at the hands of Isabel’s father, Joshua. He, however, adamantly denies these accusations, saying that Alex is a liar who purposely kept him away from his daughter.

A little over a month after Alex and Harrison began dating in August of 2025, the little girl’s maternal grandmother, Claire Walker, noticed an unusual bruise on her hip. But she was told that the little girl had just banged herself on the couch. And at the time, she believed it.

 Claire had never met Harrison and always knew her daughter to be a loving and caring mom. But it seemed like Alex might have thought that something was off with her boyfriend. In text messages to her mother, she described him as possibly being a homeless romance scammer. That’s pretty concerning. From the very beginning of their relationship, Alex said that Harrison made a big fuss over Isabel.

 He would play with her all the time and regularly buy her sweets and treats. Alex later became concerned about the amount of attention that her boyfriend paid to the toddler and started to find it weird that Harrison only wanted to see them together. He never wanted alone time with just Alex. The mother also said that her new boyfriend bathed her daughter without her permission on a few occasions.

By September, Alex was so worried about Harrison that she even looked him up on the sex offender registry to see if his name was there. Clearly, she was worried that he was a PDF file. Yet, she still didn’t break up with him. Adding to the concerning things about Harrison was the fact that he liked to be called “daddy” during sex.

 Something even Alex said was a bit creepy. I think it’s a lot creepy, personally, but Then on September 2nd, 2025, Alex brought Isabel to North Tees Hospital emergency room, claiming that she’d hurt herself by poking her leg through her crib. An x-ray determined that the little girl had a spiral fracture to her tibia.

This type of injury would require a twisting motion. So, that immediately put up red flags for doctors and nurses. It was later discovered that Isabel’s leg had been broken for weeks at that point. But, when Alex was confronted with medical staff’s concerns, she became aggressive and lunged at a nurse.

 She told her that her concerns were over the top, then demanded another doctor, and eventually ended up leaving the hospital with Isabel without having her admitted for her injury. A few days later, on September 5th, Alex told her family via text message that she had submitted a formal complaint against the hospital. >> [snorts] >> Then just 11 days after the hospital visit, on September 13th, Alex called 999, saying that her daughter was unresponsive.

When paramedics arrived shortly before 4:00 p.m., they found 2-year-old Isabel lying at the foot of the stairs with no pulse and barely alive. She also had dried vomit on her face and clothing, and extensive bruising from her head to her legs. She was transported to a nearby hospital, but sadly died the next day on September 14th, 2025.

Isabelle was found to have a fractured skull and catastrophic brain injuries. She was covered in bruises, some that looked like fingerprints. She’d suffered 21 broken bones in both her legs, her arms, and nearly every vertebrae in her spine. Some of these injuries were old and some were new. There was also undeniable proof that Isabelle had been SA’d.

 She had swelling in her genital area and blood in her urine as well as in her diaper. Hair was additionally discovered inside the diaper. The little girl’s mother told paramedics that Isabelle had recently gone to the hospital due to a fractured leg and she had been unwell ever since. She believed she just had a viral infection, so she never took her back for any further medical treatment.

 Then Alex said that her daughter had been lethargic since she had woken up that morning. Later on, before she put her down for a nap, the toddler vomited. Alex said that once her daughter was in her crib, she went to check on her every 10 to 15 minutes, but that was later discovered to be a lie. Soon after, she found Isabelle with her eyes rolled back and looking dead.

When first responders arrived at the home, Harrison wasn’t there. It was just Alex, Isabelle, and Alex’s stepfather, Dan Aykroyd. However, Alex told authorities that she believed her boyfriend had been the one responsible for her daughter’s bruises. The mother also texted Harrison when the ambulance was on the way, saying that she thought Isabelle was dead.

 She sent him a message later on, too, telling him not to go back to the house because it was now a crime scene. Then she claimed that Isabelle died as a result of a heart attack. On September 17th, 2025, both Alexandra Walker and Harrison Simpson were placed under arrest, and they were charged with the little girl’s murder.

Harrison was also charged with the toddler’s RAPE. Come to find out, Harrison should have been in jail much sooner, too. Apparently, a warrant had been issued for his arrest back in March of 2024 after he failed to attend court for a non-molestation order, which is a legal protection designed to prevent harassment or threats towards victims of DV.

But police had failed to apprehend him. And now that Harrison had been arrested for Isabel’s murder, he refused to answer any of detectives’ questions. Now, Alex had placed numerous cameras inside and outside of her house because she claimed she needed protection from Isabel’s father. She insisted that he was following her and watching her, but there was no proof of that.

While these cameras didn’t capture Isabel’s fatal attack, they did capture what had happened in the home in the time surrounding her death. On September 12th, around 5:30 p.m., Alex’s stepfather, Dan, brought her over a pack of Stella Artois lager. This was shortly after she texted her mother asking her to buy a 10-pack of beer because it would help her deal with the stress of Isabel being sick.

A little while later, the cameras caught Alex walking around her home drinking the alcohol and having an angry phone conversation. Then Harrison returned to the residence, and he went out into the garden to smoke some marijuana while Alex remained in the kitchen. A neighbor would say that around 7:30 p.m.

, they heard a loud thud come from the home. It sounded like someone hitting the wall, but the neighbor didn’t hear any adult screaming or a child crying. Shortly after 2:00 a.m., Alex was captured at punching cupboard doors in the kitchen. Harrison is seen continuing to walk around holding his bong. The pair went to bed shortly after.

The next morning on September 13th, Harrison got out of bed around 8:00 a.m. And he claimed to be looking after Isabel while Alex stayed in bed. The couple was captured again on camera in the kitchen at 11:00 a.m. At 2:53 p.m., Alex was heard telling Harrison that she was going to wake up the little girl when he returned back from the store.

 Because if she didn’t, she would never sleep that night. Harrison would leave the house shortly after 3:00 p.m. Isabel was never captured on the CCTV footage prior to that point. After that, Alex went upstairs to check on her daughter and found that she was only wearing a diaper. And that diaper was bloody. But instead of immediately freaking out and getting help for her baby girl, the mother instead decided to Google a few things, including “Why is my toddler bleeding?” Yes, I’m serious.

 That’s what she did instead of getting help. Around the same time, CCTV footage captured Alex saying out loud, “You’re scaring me.” Just moments later, she searched, “What should I do if my child has blood in his stool?” Then she repeatedly calls her daughter’s name before calmly sitting down to smoke a cigarette. Which you can see here in the reflection of the home’s window.

Clearly, Alex doesn’t have a care in the world. At some point, she also makes further Google searches for lethargy. Around 4:00 p.m., Alex is seen on camera taking Harrison’s bong and putting it in an outside trash can before she then calls her stepfather. A short time later, Alex enters the kitchen holding Isabella in her arms and repeating, “Please, please God.

” Yet, she still didn’t call emergency services. She wouldn’t call 999 until her stepfather, Dan, told her to do so. According to the mother, while she had been concerned about finding bruises on her daughter’s face and body on the morning of September 13th, Harrison told her that the injuries had just been caused by the toddler throwing a tantrum.

 So, Alex just believed that her daughter was sick and needed some rest. Harrison and Alex would go to trial at the end of June 2026. The prosecution claimed that 2-year-old Isabella’s death was the culmination of a wicked campaign of essay and violence. She suffered multiple injuries in the weeks before she collapsed following a savage attack in her home.

During the trial, the court would be shown video of the little girl bouncing around on a sofa looking happy. This was just weeks before Harrison would enter her life and completely destroy it. Because only 99 days after Isabella’s mother began a relationship with the sick PDF file, the 2-year-old was dead. While both Alex and Harrison denied killing Isabella, there was no doubt that her death was not an accident.

Prosecutors alleged that Harrison had inflicted Isabella’s final blow during the time that he was solely responsible for her between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on September 13th while Alex was still asleep, after her late-night alcohol bender, it’s believed that Isabel was not only violently shaken, but she also had her head slammed up against the wall or floor.

Then, Harrison placed her back in her crib. Her final fatal injury was likened to that of a multi-story fall or a serious car crash. Isabel had so many hemorrhages in her eyes, the doctors lost count, indicating just how ferociously she’d been shaken. Additionally, a doctor testified that the toddler had bruising and hemorrhaging around her vagina, a tear on her anus, and serious internal injuries, including dense bruising beneath her intestines, which was likely from a hard punch.

Experts couldn’t be sure if Isabel’s death was sexually motivated or not, but they did know that she was SA’d close to the time that she received the fatal blow. Harrison wouldn’t be any help in answering the questions that still remained. He had not only refused to answer any of detectives’ questions, but he also wouldn’t testify during trial, and that spoke volumes.

However, Harrison’s defense was denying that his client had been the one who killed Isabel, and said that he had no prior history of violence. The lawyer also said that there was no evidence that his client was the one who had SA’d the toddler. Instead, the blame for Isabel’s death was put on Alex, whom Harrison’s defense claimed had plenty of opportunity to hurt her daughter, and had shown in text and phone messages that she was capable of violence.

Alex’s defense, on the other hand, didn’t believe that she was the one who had injured the little girl. They said she had never and would never hurt her and claimed that the mother was unaware that her daughter was being abused. Alex testified that if she had seen anyone being violent towards Isabel, she would have immediately kicked them out of the house and phoned the police.

 She said that the idea that anyone had SA’d her daughter or that she had encouraged anyone to do so absolutely destroyed her because Isabel was the person who meant the most to her in the world. Alex also told jurors that Harrison was the one who pressured her into selling cannabis and at one point she even stabbed herself to get out of selling drugs.

 In reality, Alex was really a huge liar and it was discovered that she had lied about multiple things including her education, the fact that she said she had breast cancer and she told people that she didn’t take drugs or sell them. Additionally, she said she hadn’t drank much on the night prior to Isabel being assaulted even though she’d had an entire 10 cans of Stella Artois.

The mother had turned a blind eye to her daughter’s mistreatment in the weeks leading up to her death. A pathologist testified that the vast majority of the little girl’s injuries would have been clearly visible to the naked eye. I mean, come on. Alex even took the little girl to the doctor with a spiral fracture to her leg.

She knew something was happening. The prosecution would tell jurors that in the weeks leading up to Isabel’s death, not only had the bone in her thigh been broken, but also the bones in her knee, foot, and almost all of her vertebrae in her back. The little girl would have been in an immense amount of pain, yet her mother did nothing.

Alex insisted that while she had seen the bruising on Isabelle’s body, she did not believe that it was the result of abuse. Then as the toddler lay dying, her mother delayed, deflected, and failed to act when the little girl needed her most. The judge said that she believed Alex had delayed getting her daughter help because she wrongly believed that she was already dead and was working out what to do in order to save her own skin.

 The jury was then shown CCTV footage that was taken inside Alex’s home in the weeks leading up to the little girl’s murder. On August 23rd, a camera in the garden recorded Isabelle sitting on her mother’s knees before Harrison enters the area, after which time Isabelle starts crying as he picks her up. Later footage from the same day shows Alex and Harrison inside the home discussing marks that the mother had found on the little girl’s legs.

 This was also the same day that Alex searched for her new boyfriend in the sex offender database. On August 25th, Harrison asked Isabelle if her leg was hurting while he was having a conversation with Alex. On August 27th, CCTV footage shows the 2-year-old walking around the garden with a noticeable limp.

 Then Alex starts growing increasingly frustrated with her daughter as she cries out in pain. A little while later, Alex decided to leave Isabelle alone with Harrison while she went out. When she returned, Isabelle was crying and Harrison claimed that he didn’t hear her. On September 1st, CCTV footage again shows the toddler walking with a noticeable limp as her mother decides whether or not to seek medical attention.

 The next day, the camera caught Isabelle crying and repeatedly saying “knee” as her mother tried to dress her before she eventually gave in and decided to finally bring her daughter to the doctor. During the trial, Alex’s mother, Claire Walker, would testify. She said that she had seen her granddaughter the day before she was fatally injured and she looked the worst she’d ever seen her.

Isabelle was white as a sheet, limping due to her broken leg, and complaining about a stomachache. At the time, the grandmother believed it was just due to a stomach virus. However, Claire was now saying that she was going to regret it for the rest of her life that she didn’t insist that Isabelle be taken to the doctor the day before she died.

 It was also revealed that a few days after Isabelle was taken to the doctors for her broken leg, her grandmother saw her and commented to Alex that it looked like the little girl was being abused. However, Alex just told her mother to chill out. And that was that. In the end, Alexandra Walker was found guilty on her charges of murder and child cruelty.

 Harrison Simpson was found guilty of the same as well as essay of a child. Both were jailed for life with Harrison ordered to serve a minimum of 28 years and Alex ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years. Isabelle’s father, Joshua Welsh, would speak about his daughter and he said, “My beautiful daughter Isabelle will always be loved and never forgotten.

” Her family also said that Isabelle should have had her whole life ahead of her, but she was taken from us in the most heartbreaking way. She was so loved and our lives will never be the same without her. The 2-year-old’s funeral was held on January 13th, 2026 at St. Paul’s Church in Evanwood. Her casket was decorated in pink and brought to the church by two white horses who were also adorned in pink.

 At the service, the reverend said about Isabelle, “The day would start with her beautiful hair popping up above the cot at about 5:00 a.m. Clearly, Isabelle loved to learn. Talking and her hands were always full. Breakfast would not happen unless Peppa Pig was there. Later in the day, a Greggs sausage roll would be taken, supposedly to feed the ducks.

How much the ducks actually got was open to question. Isabelle loved Greggs sausage rolls. Keys and TV remotes would get lost or sometimes found tightly clasped in Isabelle’s hands.” Shortly after her death, a GoFundMe account was opened for Isabelle with the plans of buying a memorial bench and an engraved plaque with the donations.

I’ll include a link for the fundraiser in the description box below. So, according to the Facebook page, Teesside’s Inside Man, and Isabelle’s father, Joshua Harrison, was attacked in prison on August 6th. And his injuries were initially so bad that they weren’t sure if he was going to survive. As of right now, I haven’t heard anything else, so it seems like he has survived, but I don’t know, maybe there’s a chance he didn’t.

Thank you for listening to Isabelle’s story today. The injuries that Harrison inflicted on her were unbelievable. And he thought he was just going to get away with it? I also have a hard time believing that Alex didn’t know that anything was wrong with her daughter and that her boyfriend was seriously mistreating her in the same house.

 The little girl’s injuries were nothing short of horrific. What do you think about this one? So, if you like true crime and you want hear it from me, then don’t forget to hit that subscribe button below. And turn on your notifications, too, so you’ll know when I upload a new video, which is at least two times every week. Thanks for watching A Wicked World today. Until next time, take care. Bye.