Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers

by Carol Anne Davis

  The grandmother came downstairs and found the rooms filled with smoke. She managed to get the seven-year-old girl to safety and her five-year-old brother made his own way out of the burning building. But, despite heroic attempts to save him, the one-year-old boy perished in the flames. Peter had done his work well, using paraffin as an accelerant, and the house was burnt to a shell. The grandmother assumed the five-year-old had been playing with matches, though his parents later explained they didn’t keep matches in the house. This fire too was seen as an unfortunate accident rather than an arson-related death.

  Cause for concern

  No one knew about Peter’s arson attacks but they could see that his behaviour was deteriorating rapidly. That year, 1976, the local authority sent him for psychiatric tests suspecting increasing mental illness. But the analysis showed that his disturbance was a result of his dreadful childhood and his physical handicap. In other words, he had behavioural problems rather than mental ones.

  Peter had by now been physically and emotionally abused for sixteen years and was increasingly out of control. He’d been told what to do so often in his formative years that he couldn’t stand authority. He’d quarrel with anyone who tried to direct him in any way.

  The sixth murder

  On 2nd January 1977 Peter entered a house by the back door. He knew the woman and her children who lived there, and he had fallen out with the children’s father. The man had struck him and now Peter was intent on revenge. He started a fire beside the couch, having seen a cot in the room. Peter fled as soon as the flames took hold, burning a six-month-old baby girl to death in the inferno. Unusually, he was seen with other onlookers watching this particular fire. He would later say that he was sorry about this death as he liked babies – but he clearly wasn’t sorry enough to stop his arson attacks.

  Eleven men die

  Three days after killing the baby, Peter killed again. By sheer chance, his next eleven victims were at the other end of the age scale, ranging from seventy-two to ninety-five. They had survived the rigours of war and illness, only to die at a teenager’s whim.

  Peter felt the familiar tingle in his hands that said it was time to commit arson. Putting his paraffin bottle and his matches under his coat, he hurried into the night. He stole a bicycle and cycled along till he saw a large building. Unknown to him, it was an old folks home.

  He broke a window, climbed into the home, found some kindling and soon had the huge house ablaze. Once again he felt powerful. Eleven men died and several of the rescuers were burnt. Peter allegedly heard some of them shouting ‘God help me’ – but no one saved them from the flames.

  A foster mother

  By now he’d been sent to stay with one of the area’s best foster mothers. She found him to be a very quiet teenager who had no friends. She had no idea that he was walking the streets looking for buildings full of victims that he could burn. Peter was happier with her than he’d been for a long time – but it was too little, too late.

  Though still physically weak, he fantasised about being important and strong. He started to watch Kung Fu films over and over. He was particularly impressed with Bruce Lee, who could defeat several opponents effortlessly. In real life, Peter was called a cripple by his mother and mocked by some of the local children for his epilepsy, but in his dreams he had a sweet revenge. He lay there night after night imagining whose house he would torch next, how strongly the fire would burn – and how shocked his victims would be when their happy family dwellings went up in flames.

  He began to take long walks along the old railway lines, thinking about his crimes. He soon felt depressed again and started to read a Bible that he found at his foster mother’s house. It said that ‘man cannot serve two masters’ so he decided that his master would be fire.

  Two more deaths

  Three months later, in April 1977, he set light to a family home, killing a girl of thirteen and a boy of seven. It’s believed that he killed such victims because they represented family happiness, something the rejected boy could never have. Ironically, the seven-year-old boy had reached a window and definite safety – but he went back into the smoke filled rooms to rescue the thirteen-year-old and both perished in the fire.

  Four more deaths

  In January 1978 Peter was feeling low and bored so went out with his beloved paraffin can. He chose a house at random and poured accelerant into it then lit a piece of paper. The resultant inferno killed a young woman and her three children, who were aged five, four and sixteen months. Peter didn’t know who he’d killed untill afterwards when he saw it on the news. Hearing that he’d incinerated four people in this attack seemed to shake him, and he again started to read his Bible, a book he turned to intermittently.

  This fire was typical of Peter’s arson attacks in that it occurred in winter. Most of his fires were set in October, December and January between 1973 and 1979. Only three occurred outside these months, taking place in April and June.

  The timing of these attacks presumably ties in with the depression that preceded them. Even those of us who have homes and life plans my tend to feel depressed in December and January. For a youth with no home, no education and no friends, the winters must have been incredibly bleak. But the anticipation of setting a fire gave him renewed purpose – and it was followed by the excitement of hearing the fire engines racing to the scene. Afterwards, Peter would hear people talking about the fire and about the victims and would feel a secret satisfaction in knowing that he’d caused such a destructive blaze. Most of us take pleasure in creativity, but he’d turned this value system on its head and taken pleasure in destroying buildings and their contents. And though he seldom said so, he clearly took pleasure in destroying the people that were inside.

  He later said that he ‘didn’t think’ about the potential victims of his fires – but after the first deaths were reported he must have known that his fires killed the occupants. If he’d really wanted to cause fire without death, he could have targeted abandoned buildings. Instead, he torched family dwellings and a residential home.

  Aware that he was often at a loose end, the authorities put him on a Community Action course. This involved painting, gardening and looking after children. He was to repeat this course and seemed to enjoy parts of it, later telling the police that he liked babies and was sorry when they died in his fires.

  Peter had at least two relationships with females during these teenage years and had both their names – Barbara and Yvonne – tattooed on himself. Name tattoos are often a sign of insecurity, for people in secure relationships don’t feel the need to make such obvious public statements about their love.

  What’s in a name?

  Peter continued to be obsessed by the Kung Fu film star Bruce Lee, and in the summer of 1979 he changed his name by deed poll to that of the actor. Or, to be more precise, he changed it to Bruce George Peter Lee, reversing his Christian and middle birth names to form two middle names. This involved consulting a solicitor so it was a remarkable action for a youth with such a low IQ. The police would later tell this author that Peter had no one to help him contact the solicitor, that he did it on his own. Bruce Lee was the name under which he would later be charged when he went to court so from now on he is referred to by that name.

  No place like home

  By this time Bruce was too old for council and foster care and ended up drifting from one place to another. Sometimes he’d stay at his mother’s house, though he’d be there alone if she was out drinking. At other times he’d sleep rough on the streets and on other occasions he’d rent a room in a Salvation Army Hostel where he kept himself to himself.

  To pay his way, Bruce found a labouring job at the local meat market where he was paid seven pounds a day for penning pigs. He also claimed unemployment benefit. For kicks, he hung around the public lavatories and had sex with other boys. Presumably he was now taking the predatory role for one of his sexual partners, fifteen-year-old Charlie Hastie, always asked him for money afterw
ards. Sometimes Charlie took a pound from Bruce forcefully and Bruce was enraged. Charlie had two younger brothers and all three of them were well known for their wildness in the neighbourhood. Eventually Bruce decided to kill them with his beloved fire.

  A final three deaths

  In December 1979 he crept up to the doorway of their house in Hull and put paraffin-soaked paper and rags through the letterbox and lit it. The three brothers – aged 15, 12 and 8 – all died in the flames and their mother was badly burnt. (Their father escaped injury as he was in prison at the time of the arson attack and their three sisters escaped as they were staying with friends.) As usual, Bruce disappeared unseen into the night. He spent the next few days alternately sleeping rough and hanging around men’s toilets in the hope of some sexual activity. At other times he played the one-arm bandits in a gaming parlour in a bid to stay out of the cold.

  A red herring

  Originally the police had thought that a poison pen writer was responsible for the Hastie fire, for a year earlier the Hasties had received an anonymous note written on a cornflake packet. It said that the Hasties were ‘a family of fucking rubbish’ and warned that if they didn’t move house ‘then we’ll bastard well bomb you.’ But further enquiries revealed that the letter writer was a pensioner who had been stoned and mocked by the Hastie children. She was a regular at her local Methodist church who had written the swear words because she thought it was the only language that they would understand – then had been terrified that she’d be sent to prison when she heard a year later that the house had indeed been set on fire.

  An unlikely suspect

  Shortly afterwards the police were faced with an equally unlikely suspect. In January 1980, the innocuous looking Bruce Lee was questioned by the police about so-called indecent acts with other men. He admitted having sex with Charlie Hastie and also admitted that Charlie had taken money from him. He didn’t say that he’d been enraged by this – in fact the police were impressed at how calm the thin, pale young man actually was.

  The enquiry dragged on, and in June of that year the police invited Bruce back in to talk about his relationship with Charlie Hastie. Detective Superintendent Ron Sagar began to interview the surprisingly likeable young man. Earlier that day Bruce had been drinking but now the police had given him cups of tea and fish & chips so he was sober and relaxed.

  Acting on a hunch, Sagar said to Bruce that he believed he’d started the fire at the Hastie house. Bruce’s features became serious but his voice was expressionless as he said ‘I didn’t mean to kill them.’ He went on to give full details of the accelerant he’d used, how he’d applied it and even what he’d worn that night. He seemed very proud of his actions, saying that the authorities tended not to assume house fires were arson and that he’d covered his tracks well. After taking many more details, the police took him to the cells for the night.

  A murder charge

  The next day, Ron Sagar spoke to Bruce again and got him a solicitor. A few hours later he charged him with Charlie Hastie’s murder. Bruce looked the detective square in the face but didn’t say anything.

  The following day Sagar and another detective visited him in prison and said they believed that he’d set previous fires. At first Bruce denied this but after a little more conversation he continued ‘Do you know somat? You are the only bloke I know who shows any interest in me. You said before that in my life I’ve never had a chance. You are right.’

  Sagar agreed that Bruce had ‘been kicked from pillar to post’ and then asked him if he had a grudge against various people. The youth replied that he did and added ‘My mum never cared a shit about me. No one ever has.’ At other times he swore that he just liked setting fires and hadn’t wanted to murder anyone. He was clearly reinventing history, either to gain favour with the police or to feel better about himself.

  The boy seemed grateful for the few kindnesses the police had shown him and admitted that he’d expected to be beaten up. He talked some more about his life then the detectives suggested he might have set further fires. At this stage, Bruce’s eyes became tearful and he admitted that he’d killed a baby in a fire in West Dock Avenue. He also talked about killing a handicapped boy he went to school with in another house fire, a boy he claimed to have liked.

  Promising to come back and see him tomorrow, the police left. They checked and found that a fire had occurred in West Dock Avenue in which a six-month-old baby girl had died and that another fire had killed a handicapped boy. Moreover, a woman who had been burned in a separate fire told the police that she and Bruce Lee didn’t like each other and that he’d been seen in the area shortly before her home became an inferno. Everything that Bruce said was checking out.

  Detective Superintendent Sagar and Sergeant Martin went back to Leeds Prison the following afternoon and Bruce said that his solicitor had told him not to speak to the police but that he would anyway because ‘it’s on my mind, not his.’ He then spoke of setting the fire that killed a fellow school pupil, of setting the fire which killed Charlie Hastie and his two brothers, of torching the old folks home at Hessle in which eleven men died. He then asked if he could have a Bible to read, and Ron Sagar duly got him one.

  A change of scene

  On 30th June the police asked Bruce if he was willing to show them the houses he’d set on fire. Sagar privately thought that Bruce might have made the whole thing up to get attention. Deep down he hoped that the undernourished and ill-educated youth wasn’t guilty of the crimes.

  Bruce seemed to enjoy the ride in the car and pointed out the scenes of his arson attacks. He was able to give full details of the fires he’d started – what his mood had been like at the time, which windows he’d broken or door he’d entered by, what accelerant he’d used.

  Though responsible for twenty-six deaths, he was still only twenty. But he had far more insight into his problems than most serial killers, admitting that he’d caused such mayhem because no one had ever shown him love and his mother had failed to provide him with even a basic home.

  Orgasms by arson

  Some arsonists fall into distinct groups. That is, they set fires for a revenge motive or because of some pathological compulsion (a form of mental illness) or because they are fire fetishists so it excites them sexually. Bruce could claim all three motives. Fire had become all things to this alienated boy. It rid him of his enemies, it calmed the restlessness in his psyche and it gave him sexual pleasure. (Though it’s untrue that this was his sole form of sexual release.) A legal report produced in December 1980 on his offending would say that he was likely to ‘continue to be sexually aroused by thoughts or acts of fire setting particularly in relation to killing people by fire.’

  Bruce had the typical background of a pyromaniac. That is, he was abused during his childhood and was poorly parented. He also showed the common pyromaniac traits of sexual sadism and paranoia. He told the police that when he had the urge to start a fire it was very hard to ignore it. He even admitted that he’d felt like setting fire to his cell whilst he was awaiting trial. He added that he’d like to burn his mother for what she’d done to him – that is, for failing to provide him with love or a decent home. His mother would later take part in a documentary admitting that she was ‘back on the game’ within weeks of his birth.

  Friendless

  Detective Superintendent Ron Sagar continued to feel sorry for Bruce Lee as a result of his sad childhood. He visited him in prison to make sure that none of the other prisoners were beating him up. By now Bruce had been on remand in prison for several weeks without a single visitor.

  Ron Sagar also spoke to the prison doctor who confirmed that Bruce was immature and indifferent. But he was also streetwise as a result of his very tough life. Other professionals who spent time with him confirmed that he was perceptive and alert.

  The trial

  Bruce Lee’s trial, on 28th January 1981, only lasted for a few hours. He was charged with twenty-six counts of manslaughter and ten counts of a
rson. The victims were aged from six months to ninety-five years old. It was noted that he had a grudge against four of the victims, though the grudges were trivial. (That is, they seemed trivial to someone who was thinking rationally – not to a rage-filled youth who’d been mocked and rejected all his life.)

  Bruce’s defence was one of diminished responsibility though he pleaded guilty to each of the charges. He was sentenced to be detained indefinitely in Park Lane Special Hospital near Liverpool under the Mental Health Act.

  Change of heart

  Bruce had initially wanted to go to such a hospital – but in time he changed his mind and decided he’d rather be in prison or have his freedom. This decision may have been prompted by newspaper reports which cast doubt on his convictions, suggesting that a physically handicapped boy could not have climbed into houses to set these fires. But Bruce had shown Ron Sagar how he held the petrol can – and he clearly was not without dexterity as he could even ride a bicycle. He’d also held down a job at the local cattle market for a while.

  Most of the fires had originally been viewed as accidents, caused by gas leaks, lit cigarettes and so on, and a newspaper suggested the fires were still nothing to do with Bruce Lee. But several of the victims had attended the same special school as Bruce and several others had had arguments with him. There were too many such factors for it all to be coincidence.