How a 15-year-old exchange student's life ended on the Isle of Wight
Camilla Petersen, a 15-year-old Danish exchange student, was found dead in woodland on Brading Down, Isle of Wight, in July. She had been asphyxiated and sexually assaulted. Her killer, Richard Kemp, a Salvation Army volunteer, confessed to the crime in written notes.
Camilla Petersen arrived on the Isle of Wight on Thursday, July 18, as a foreign exchange student from Holbaek, Denmark. Accompanied by a Danish psychologist, the 15-year-old had come to the UK with the promise of a memorable summer abroad. Days later, her life ended in the woodland of Brading Down in a case that would shock both her adopted community and her grieving family across the North Sea.
On Tuesday night, Camilla's body was discovered in the rural area. A post-mortem examination revealed she had been asphyxiated—strangled with the top she had been wearing at the time. The pathologist's findings also confirmed she had been indecently assaulted. The case quickly became a murder investigation, and police resources mobilized across the island.
Camilla's mother, stepfather, and three sisters made the devastating journey from Denmark to formally identify their daughter's body at St. Mary's Hospital mortuary in Newport the following morning. The family, already reeling from the sudden loss, now faced the broader horror of understanding how and why their child had been killed.
The perpetrator was Richard Kemp, a man with connections to the Salvation Army. His actions would be revealed not through a lengthy investigation but through his own admission. Kemp wrote a confession detailing the killing: "I confessed to killing a young 14-year-old girl on Brading Down. I don't know why. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why I murdered her, I just don't know. I could have let her go, but I didn't."
