Become an Apple Subscriber or Patron to listen!
In 2019 Alex Rodda was a 15-year-old boy who lived in England. He was a year 11 student at Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School in Cheshire. Alex was born on March 5, 2004 to parents Adam & Lisa, who were divorced & he lived with his mom in Pickmere while his dad lived in the small village of Audlem where he ran a local pub. He was exceptionally close to his older brother Adam Jr. Adam & Lisa absolutely adored their son who was described as a popular, thoughtful, outgoing & loving. Those that knew him say he was driven & positively lovely. Alex was openly gay & his family & friends were fully accepting & supportive of him when he came out at age thirteen.
Alex had a group of best friends, all girls, who loved & adored their funny, loving friend. He always told his dad that when he got older, he would take over his pub since he loved the hospitality industry. Alex never shied away from expressing his love towards those he cared about.
While scrolling through Facebook in late October 2019, Alex’s attention was grabbed by an older boy who had previously attended the same school as him, 19-year-old Matthew Mason. Despite the fact that Matt was four years older & Alex was under the legal age of consent of 16 in the UK, he decided to send Matt a message.
Matt came from a very wealthy family & lived with them on a farm near Knutsford. His family were active members of the church & Matt was an agricultural engineering student at Reaseheath College at the time. Unlike Alex, Matt was not gay & had been in a relationship with a girl named Caitlyn for two years.
When Alex began messaging Matt, the conversation was very polite & surface level, just discussing the details of their days, but after about a week, they became more sexual in nature. According to Matt, the theme of their texts started to shift after Alex called him fit, which in the UK means really good looking. The frequency of their communication began to escalate & Matt went on to share his Snapchat username with Alex.
After an alcohol-fueled night out at the pub, Matt sent Alex a nude photo of himself which was technically illegal due to the fact that Alex was under 16. This was later referenced as a form of grooming since Matt was sending a child both sexually explicit photos as well as messages. Matt later claimed that the only reason he sent the images was because Alex asked him to, but regardless, it was still a crime. Matt also sent him a video of him masturbating.
A few days later, Alex was shocked when he found out through Instagram that Matt was in a relationship with a girl. In the meantime, he had been excitedly telling his friends about the new boy he was seeing & he felt terribly betrayed, believing that Matt had led him on. Fueled by anger, Alex made the decision to contact Caitlyn & tell her about what was going on between he & her boyfriend.
On November 3, 2019, he wrote, Are you going out with Matt Mason? Caitlyn wrote back & confirmed that she was. Alex then replied, Because I thought I should let you know that the past 2-3 weeks Matt has been trying to message me, he came to my house in his car to meet me last week but I told him my dad wouldn’t let me out so I didn’t meet him, I have told him it has to stop but just thought I’d let you know before he does a d**khead move & I didn’t know he was dating you until I went to go follow him on Instagram.
After he sent this message, he confronted Matt & let him know that he reached out to Caitlyn. Matt was absolutely furious & asked Alex why he did that & Alex responded, Because it’s wrong. U have a gf that loves you, there’s no need to speak to me. About an hour later, Alex messaged Matt again & told him that he should tell Caitlyn the truth.
Matt later indicated that while he had been messaging back & forth with Alex, he did begin to question his sexuality & wondered if he was bisexual. This was something he chose not to share with anyone else, including his girlfriend.
These messages were the catalyst to a troubling shift in Matt & Alex’s relationship. Alex threatened Matt & informed him that he still had the nude photo Matt had sent him. He told Matt that if he wasn’t open with Caitlyn about what was going on, he would post it online. Matt denied ever sending Alex such an image & Alex replied, Don’t lie, I will literally put it in my story if you don’t stop lying. Matt replied, I’m talking to her please don’t Alex.
Only minutes later Matt added Alex as a payee to his bank account & transferred him £50. Matt continued to beg Alex not to post the image & assured him that he was going to come clean to Caitlyn. When he did, it was too late; after Caitlyn got the message from Alex, she made the decision to end her two year relationship with Matt.
Despite the fact that Alex was threatening & bribing Matt, the two met up days later on November 9 & Alex performed a sexual act on Matt. Over the first two weeks of November, Matt went on to pay Alex a total of £1,270 with the payments being linked to their sexual encounters. Meanwhile, Alex was fully transparent with his friends about what was going on & they did not support what he was doing. They voiced their disapproval, but according to his friends, Alex continued on.
One friend messaged Alex, you actually need to stop though it’s not fair, if he doesn’t pay you what will you do? Alex responded, Tell the fed n get him on sex offenders. The friend responded, ..and then he says you blackmailed him & you get into s*it, yeah, great plan. It’s a criminal offense when are you going to stop seriously?
It was clear that Alex was naive & not grasping the seriousness of the situation. It later came out from Alex’s friends that Matt had gone to Alex’s house on at least five occasions, each time when his parents weren’t home.
Friends at school noticed that Alex seemed very excited with what he saw as his new relationship. His confidence seemed to be visibly boosted, his friends recalled that he seemed to be glowing at school. It was later discovered that as time progressed, Alex continued to ask Matt for more & more money. In response, Matt messaged him that he was skint, meaning broke & indicated that he could not afford to keep up with the requests. However, he did go on to pay Alex an additional £700.
Alex’s friend would later testify that she believed that Alex saw what he was doing as some sort of game, saying, The difference between him being a child & an adult. He was naive. I don’t think he understood the concept of everything.
On December 7, Alex’s mom Lisa came home & apparently interrupted her son & Matt having intercourse. Lisa later indicated that her blood ran cold upon seeing Matt & described him as having cold & soulless eyes. She elaborated, I have never ever in my life felt fear.. My whole body felt fear. He was like a robot. She told Alex she didn’t want him to see him again because there was just something about him she didn’t trust.
Alex remained open with his friends about the situation between him & Matt & in response, Alex’s friend messaged him & called him a prostitute. Alex replied, Money, money, money. She wrote back, Infection, infection, infection.
On the same day Lisa met Matt for the first time, he transferred another £100 to Alex which would be his final payment before tragedy struck.
Over the next several days, Matt made many disturbing internet searches that included, what would happen if you kicked someone down the stairs, everyday poison, things that are poisonous, people missing in Cheshire & the mysteries of Cheshire unsolved deaths of missing people.
Alex was last seen alive on CCTV leaving his house on Holly Grove at 5:24 pm on Thursday, December 12, 2019 after Matt messaged him on Snapchat. His friends later indicated that before Alex left to meet Matt, he was very excited, however, this shifted on a second FaceTime call when he seemed a little concerned & said, How weird is this? This guy I’m meeting wants to take me to a special secret place in a forest.
His friend said that Alex seemed confused about the situation during their conversation, but decided to go against his better judgment & meet Matt because he needed the money. Alex planned to stay over at his friend Charlotte’s house after he hung out with Matt.
Minutes after Alex got into Matt’s car, he posted a picture to his Snapchat story that showed the inside of Matt’s car with a small heart emoji at the bottom. This ended up being the last message he ever sent.
When Alex didn’t return later that evening, Lisa began to worry & continuously called him to no avail. When she called around to his friends, they told her that they hadn’t seen or spoken with him that night. In the meantime, his friends continuously messaged Alex, hoping he had a reasonable explanation for his absence, but each message went unanswered. They told Lisa about her son’s ongoing relationship with Matt so she contacted Matt & then reported Alex missing. Meanwhile, Alex’s friend Georgia messaged Matt who told her that he’d dropped Alex off at train station since Alex told him he was going into Manchester to meet up with friends. When she asked him what friends, Matt said he didn’t know.
What they were unaware of at the time was that Matt had driven Alex in his black Renault Clio on that very cold & rainy night to a secluded, wooded area in Ashley, about 5 miles/8 kilometers from where he lived in Knutsford. After he parked, he dragged Alex from the car & battered his head at least fifteen times with a wrench.
After the attack, Matthew stood near Alex, smoking a cigarette as he slowly died & then walked away, leaving the partially clothed boy to die alone. Once he got back to his car, he came across Alex’s cell phone on the passenger seat & got rid of it, fully aware of the damning evidence it contained. Alex’s phone has never been recovered.
By this time, Alex’s family continued to desperately search for him as Matt made his way to a friend’s farm where he cleaned up before going to the Red Lion pub in the small village of Pickmere. When he arrived, he pointed to spots on his jeans & told his friends that he had a nosebleed. From there, he moved on to the Golden Pheasant pub in Plumley where he arrived shortly after 8 pm & met up to have drinks with friends. His friends indicated that nothing seemed amiss during their time together & Matt was his normal happy self. Afterwards, he headed home to Ash Lane in Ollerton. During the evening he sent a Snapchat selfie from the pub to his friends & another later, laying in bed, bare chested & smiling to Caitlyn. These were his attempts to try to cover his tracks.
In the early hours of Friday, December 13, the following day, Matt returned to the woods just after 1 am where he remained for about an hour, according to CCTV. During that time he dragged Alex’s lifeless body to his car, likely in an unsuccessful attempt to place his body inside his car. After failing to do so, he made the decision to just drive away. What he was completely unaware of at the time was that a witness had snapped a photo of his car in this location shortly after 6 pm on Thursday when he’d taken Alex to this location to murder him.
Later on Friday morning, Steve Wilson & his colleagues were collecting garbage from Ashley Mill Lane at 7:40 am when they saw what they believed to be a body laying in the road. As one of the men approached Alex’s body, he bent down & felt for a pulse. After he called emergency services, they instructed him to begin CPR & he did chest compressions for the next ten minutes until an ambulance arrived. They could see blood on Alex’s head & a wound to the base of his back.
Paramedics attempted life saving measures to no avail & tragically, Alex was pronounced dead at 8:12 am. Soon, the witness came forward to report seeing the black Renault Clio parked alongside the gated entrance to the woods. When police viewed the photo he’d taken & ran the plates, they were able to identify the car’s owner as Matt Mason.
By noon, Matt was in police custody after he was stopped & arrested by police on the A41 as he was driving towards Telford in Staffordshire. As he was apprehended, police noted dried blood on his hands & fingers & a garbage bag was found in his trunk with a blood-stained green fleece, a bloodied wrench & Alex’s jacket. After he was taken into custody, he was questioned & charged with murder.
Prior to being stopped, Matt was already aware that the police were on to him as shortly after midnight after murdering Alex & returning from the pubs, he received a text from the Cheshire Police that read, Matthew could you please contact Cheshire Police with regards to your friend Alex. Thank you.
One year later, the trial began at Chester Crown Court on December 7, 2020, during which Matt admitted that he engaged in sexual activity with Alex on three occasions between November & December 2019. As Alex began to blackmail him, he took money from his savings & borrowed additional funds from his grandmother in order to pay him. He claimed that he brought Alex to the secluded area in Ashley so he could confront him & tell him that the blackmailing had to stop. According to Matt, he only began to hit Alex in self-defense after first Alex attacked him. He admitted to bludgeoning him to death after he suffered a loss of control because of the blackmailing. Matt believed that if he came out to his friends as gay or bisexual, he didn’t think they would accept him.
Investigators attribute a lot of the information in this case to Alex’s friends as they allowed them to learn the true extent of their relationship. Through their grief & heartache, they were able to give key information to investigators in order to secure justice for their friend.
According to the prosecution, Alex was lured to the remote location under the pretense of sexual activity while Matt had murder on his mind. He killed Alex in cold blood & believed that his crime would go undetected, trying to make it look as if he simply disappeared. Messages ended up being the heart of the case that helped jurors understand the six-week-long relationship.
After nine & a half hours of deliberation, the jury found Matt guilty 10 to 2. As the verdict was read, both Matt as well as Alex’s family cried. On January 25, 2021, he was given a minimum life sentence of 28 years. Judge Steven Everett told the court that Alex had been groomed by Matt & indicated that the murder was premeditated & carefully planned with no empathy for his victim or his victim’s loved ones. He added, Although I accept that Alex Rodda may very well have initiated contact with you in the latter half of 2019, I’m sure that you not only responded but actively encouraged a sexual relationship. You groomed him. It was not your first sexual experience but it was his.
Alex’s family were given a chance to speak & said, Our son Alex was a wonderful, gentle, loving, kind, caring, respectful boy who loved life & lived life to the full. His precious life was cut short all too soon at the hands of Matthew Mason.
Alex’s father Adam indicated that he has struggled not to take his own life in order to be with his son. He went on to reflect that he will never have the opportunity to watch his son experience the things others take for granted; starting a relationship, getting married, having kids or even driving which was something Alex was particularly excited for. They shudder to imagine their sweet boy’s final moments before he succumbed to his injuries, how scared & alone he must have felt. Alex’s mother no longer envisions her future, unable to bear the thought of a future without her son. All they’re left with are the memories of Alex which they will cherish forever.
Five months later, in June 2021, Matt was successful in his appeal & his sentence was reduced to a minimum of 26 years after his initial sentence was considered manifestly excessive. It was argued that despite the fact that it was an extremely serious offense, the sentence was too long for a young man of his age. Had Matt been under 18 at the time of the murder, the starting point of the sentence would have been 12 years. With this, Alex’s father Adam spoke out in fury & said, If he’s not too young to have murdered somebody, then he is not too young to take the sentence.
Alex Rodda was laid to rest on January 29, 2020 where hundreds of mourners were able to pay their respects & celebrate his life.
References:
- StokeonTrentLive: Teenager guilty of murdering his schoolboy lover, 15, who threatened to expose their relationship
- Medium: The teen boy who was killed by his secret lover
- Sky News: Alex Rodda murder: Matthew Mason, 20, sentenced to life for killing 15-year-old boy
- Manchester Evening News: Murderer Matthew Mason who bludgeoned Alex Rodda, 15, to death over threat to expose gay relationship has jail term reduced
- Manchester Evening News: The devastating toll Alex Rodda’s murder has taken on his parents laid bare in heartbreaking statements read in court – as killer Matthew Mason handed life sentence
- CheshireLive: Cheshire teen accused of Alex Rodda murder ‘blackmailed by schoolboy lover’
- YouTube: Murder UK: The murder of Alex Rodda
