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

by Carol Anne Davis

  The Venables worked out a joint custody arrangement so that Susan had the children from Monday to Wednesday and Neil had them from Thursday to Sunday. When one parent couldn’t cope, they’d send the children to the other’s house.

  By the time Jon was ten, he was so disturbed that his concerned teacher kept a journal of his behaviour. The child would rock back and forwards in his chair, bang his head against the wall and cut himself with scissors. He threw things at other schoolboys and stuck pencils in the neighbourhood children. Finally he tried to choke another boy with a ruler – and it took two adults to set the victim free.

  School suspension

  Jon was suspended and in autumn 1991 was moved to a new Church Of England school where he met Robert Thompson. The boys very quickly became friends. Jon hadn’t played truant before – but Robert soon convinced him of how much fun it was and Jon’s attendance deteriorated significantly.

  Jon continued to bully younger children and many of them feared him because of his quick temper. He also remained self-destructive, throwing himself about the playground and often disrupting the class. An experienced teacher noted that the child was clearly desperate for attention – after all, most of the attention at home was going to his siblings as they had special needs. The teachers could see that he wasn’t a bad boy, that his antics were a desperate plea for help.

  Video

  But there were happier times, when the family settled down to watch videos together. And Neil rented adult-certificated videos to watch by himself after the children had gone to bed. Jon sometimes got up early and watched the video so it’s possible he saw at least part of an adult film that Neil rented called Child’s Play 3. The story revolves around a toddler-sized doll called Chucky which is possessed by the soul of a serial killer. It’s basic shock-horror, the strapline being ‘Don’t fuck with the Chuck.’

  Chucky eventually dies – with blue paint on his face – on the train ride in a funfair. To most children it would just have been a scary story, but to a boy as disturbed as Jon, it might have meant more…

  Abduction

  On 12th February 1993, the two boys slipped out of school and eventually made their way to The Strand, a large indoor shopping centre. There, they stole a little pot of blue modelling paint and a packet of batteries.

  Jon started to entice away a two-year-old boy but his mother called him back. He tried and failed to attract another little boy’s attention. Then they saw a third toddler, James Bulger, hurrying from a butcher’s shop whilst his mother queued inside.

  Jon beckoned to James, who happily followed him and took his hand. The trio were filmed by the security cameras. James was a month short of his third birthday, a happy and trusting child.

  Jon and Robert now took the toddler on a two and a half mile journey during which he understandably became increasingly tired and distressed, asking for his mum. But the ten-year-olds, probably egging each other on, felt no empathy for him. (In their own lives, they hadn’t been shown much empathy.) They let him fall on his head, leaving a bad graze, and they both swung him by his arms.

  Numerous people saw the three of them but just assumed it was two brothers taking their younger sibling home. One woman offered to take the toddler to the police station at which Robert looked ready to run away – but Jon told Robert to take James’s hand again and said that they would take him to the police by themselves.

  Sexual exploration?

  At last Jon and Robert reached an isolated part of the railway. The exact sequence of events will probably never be known, but at one stage they stripped the toddler below the waist. Jon admitted to taking James’s shoes off but said that Robert had taken off his trousers and underpants. He said that the child was unconscious at this time.

  Jon would later say that Robert touched the toddler’s private parts. It’s very likely that Robert had been sexually abused himself – and children who have been molested often feel compelled to repeat the abuse. What’s certain is that the toddler’s foreskin was retracted and his lower clothes had been removed.

  The killing

  This possible sexual exploration was preceded or succeeded by escalating violence. They threw the blue modelling paint and at least one of the batteries at the toddler, who continued to cry.

  Jon and Robert had a childish view of how easy it was to silence a Chucky-sized child. Robert said ‘Stay down, you divvie’ and both boys were clearly shocked when the toddler kept getting up.

  They threw stones and bricks and hit him with a heavy metal bar, fracturing his skull in several places. They kicked him and stamped on him. Blake Morrison said that the violence probably lasted for five minutes. They also put some of the batteries in his mouth in what was possibly a naive attempt to bring him back to life. Leastways, his mouth was damaged and Jon later told his father that they’d put the batteries there.

  The children placed the body over the freight line, presumably to make the injuries look like a train accident. Blood was coming out of the unconscious toddler’s mouth and they didn’t like to look at it, so they put bricks over his face. Shortly after this, James died. Cause of death was fractures to the skull. Later a freight train cut the little corpse in half, the driver thinking that he’d run over a large doll.

  Aftermath

  After killing the toddler, Robert and Jon went on to the local video shop. They were filthy, and Jon had some of the modelling paint on his jacket, but they acted normally. At ten years old they couldn’t fully comprehend the enormity of what they’d done. They’d been on the railway from approximately 5.30pm to 6.45pm and Susan had been looking for them for much of this time.

  She saw the boys entering the video shop and she hurried after them, grabbed Jon by his hair and started hitting him. She grabbed Robert by the wrist – and witnesses said she had him on the floor – and dragged him out of the shop, at which point he started to cry so she let him go. Susan then dragged Jon to the nearby police station for a telling off. The policeman shouted at Jon and he cried some more.

  Susan took Jon home and started hitting him again. He fell on the floor but she kept hitting him. His father shouted at him too. Then Susan sent him straight to bed saying that he couldn’t have his evening meal.

  Meanwhile, Robert went home and told his mother that Jon’s mother had hit him in the face – so Ann went to the police station to complain about this alleged assault, saying that Susan was an alcoholic. The policeman couldn’t see any mark on Robert’s face so the two Thompsons went home. But it meant that, within hours of James’s death, both juvenile killers were briefly in the police station in a distressed and dishevelled state.

  At this stage the toddler was only reported as missing and it was hoped that he’d be found alive. The police were searching the centre’s shops in case he’d fallen asleep in one of them and were also looking for a known paedophile who’d been in The Strand shopping centre that day. They had no reason to suspect two sad-faced, frightened little boys.

  Arrest

  The footage taken in the Strand was soon shown on television and a friend of the Venables phoned in to say that it looked like Jon. The abductors were known to have stolen blue paint – and the phone caller said that Jon had had blue paint on his jacket. He was arrested at his mother’s house. When Susan saw the police she thought they’d come to give him an additional telling off for playing truant. The police already knew that Jon had truanted with Robert so Robert was arrested too.

  The boys were taken to different police stations and interviewed separately. At first both boys denied being in the shopping centre but by Robert’s second interview he admitted to being there but said that Jon had taken the child.

  For his first four interviews, Jon continued to deny going to The Strand. Then the police told him, truthfully, that Robert had admitted they were there. He became hysterical – and journalists who heard the tapes have said they never want to hear a child in such distress again.

  Jon was visibly distressed during much of the
twelve hours of interviews that spanned three days. Robert cried less often, but his body language showed that he was also very anxious. Robert had been teased for years for ‘acting girlish’ and for sucking his thumb, so he was now trying to act tough.

  Having admitted taking the toddler (whom they called ‘the baby’) they said that they’d left him by the canal. But eventually Jon sobbed ‘I did kill him.’ Robert continued to protest his innocence but his shoe print was found on James’s face so it’s clear that he kicked the child.

  Jon said that it had been his idea to take the toddler – but that it had been Robert’s idea to kill him. Jon said that he had only thrown stones at James, not bricks like Robert had, but he admitted to stamping on him. Robert said that Jon had hit the child with a metal plate and had kicked him – and James’s blood was indeed found on Jon’s shoes.

  At other times it was clear that the gravity of the situation hadn’t registered with the ten-year-olds. They were happy when offered a bar of chocolate or a Chinese takeaway and often asked if they could go home. Their lawyers said that they were more like eight-year-olds than ten-year-olds. Robert was more worried about his mother than about himself, wondering if she could have a glass of water and a headache powder and asking if she could see a nurse.

  A sexual motive?

  The police were convinced there was a sexual motive to the crime – and the fact that James had been stripped below the waist does tend to confirm this. Both children found it very difficult to talk about sex.

  Yet they were clearly preoccupied with it. When questioned about ‘dirty marks’ (meaning marks made by mud), Robert said ‘Oh, you mean sex marks.’ He said that Jon would lie and say that he, Robert, touched the toddler’s private parts.

  Jon also showed increased anxiety when being asked about a possible sexual assault. He suddenly launched himself at his father and started punching him, screaming ‘You think I know, Dad, but I don’t.’

  A baying mob

  When news of the children’s arrest reached the locals, many of them gathered outside the various houses where they believed the culprits or their families were and threatened to hang them. Completely innocent children were implicated by rumour and had to flee their homes.

  When the case went to court, men and women launched themselves at the van shouting ‘Hang the bastards.’ A man would later call a phone in radio programme with the suggestion that the judiciary should have hanged these disturbed ten-year-olds.

  Commenting on the situation years later on a television programme, a spokesperson for Consequences (which helps victims’ families) said ‘this lynch mob mentality didn’t really care who they took their anger out on’ and added ‘Britain was disgraced in that time.’ It’s certainly ironic that a crowd, ostensibly horrified by a violent murder, were willing to carry out two violent murders. And other members of the public with the same mindset attacked women in the street after mistaking them for the mothers of the boys.

  Secure units

  Aware of the level of hatred, the two children became increasingly anxious. They were sent to secure units, where they had nightmares and Jon soiled himself twice. They were afraid to play outside – and Robert apparently comfort ate – so they each gained over two stone, a third of their original weight. They were terrified of never having any friends, of going to prison. Robert continued to say that Jon was guilty of all the violence – and Jon was too upset to talk about it.

  Their childishness showed through their attempts to be grown up. Jon said that he’d like to be a Sylvester Stallone type figure such as Rocky – then added that he’d also like to be Sonic The Hedgehog. Robert, who had sometimes spent all day in the local video shop watching cartoons, admitted that he liked to collect trolls.

  The trial

  Nine months after the murder, Jon and Robert (now aged eleven) were tried at Preston in an adult court. Jon’s lawyer later admitted to being petrified when entering the packed courtroom and said it must have been terrifying for the two boys.

  Jon cried frequently and often looked back at his parents, but they kept their heads bowed. Robert looked defiant – but he would later tell his mother that he felt like crying but didn’t want everyone to think that he was a baby. The press misinterpreted this and described him as diabolical, a fiend. Ann was occasionally in court, heavily tranquillised.

  Numerous witnesses testified to seeing the two boys with the increasingly tired and occasionally sobbing toddler. Another witness had seen James laughing. It doesn’t seem that the original plan was to kill him as they had taken him into the local pet shop and had spoken to the assistant there. They had also spoken to two other boys they knew, saying that James was Jon’s little brother and that they were taking him home.

  Forensic evidence was introduced that proved James’s blood was on Jon’s shoes and that Robert’s shoeprint appeared on the toddler’s face, suggesting a glancing blow rather than a deep, bruising one. The toddler’s lower lip was badly damaged, probably by the batteries. Death had been due to heavy blows to the skull.

  There was little doubt that Robert and Jon were the killers so the trial centred around whether they knew it was wrong to take a child from its his mother, injure him and leave him on the railway line. Psychiatrists testified that the boys were of average intelligence and were fit to plead.

  The children’s interviews were played over the speakers, their voices high and unbroken. Robert looked upset when he heard Jon say that he, Robert, was girlish. (Robert, who spent much of his time in the secure unit knitting gloves for his baby brother, was happiest spending time in the playground with the girls.)

  Attending the trial, author Blake Morrison noted that the court was only interested in the children’s intelligence, not in the mental disturbance both obviously had.

  Robert had put a flower on James’s tribute site – and one court observer later said that this ‘wasn’t the normal action of a ten-year-old.’ But Robert wasn’t a normal ten-year-old. He’d been neglected, kicked, punched, tied up, tortured and possibly sexually molested. How much normality could the rational world expect?

  After six hours of deliberations the jury came back with unanimous Guilty verdicts for both boys. Jon cried and Robert looked confused. Moments later, out of sight of the many spectators, he would hyperventilate. The judge told them that in his judgement their conduct was ‘both cunning and very wicked’ and that they would be ‘securely detained for very, very many years.’

  After the eleven-year-olds had been taken from the court, the judge said that violent videos might have played a part. This came as a surprise to those who’d noted the background of violent parenting, violent siblings and violent school bullies. He wished everyone a peaceful Christmas and thanked Mr and Mrs Venables and Mrs Thompson for trying to get Jon and Robert to tell the truth.

  Allocating blame

  In search of a scapegoat, the tabloids picked up on the judge’s comment about violent videos and had a field day with stories of evil horror films and ‘born bad’ boys.

  But other authors – each of whom wrote a book about the case – brought more understanding to the discussion. Mark Thomas quoted a report on reducing delinquency which said ‘poor parental supervision, harsh, neglectful or erratic discipline, parental discord and having a parent with a criminal record’ were the childhood factors ‘consistently and significantly linked to later teenage offending.’

  David Jackson wrote that the ‘suggestion that the killing was a freak happening… erodes our personal responsibility for understanding and challenging the individual and social forces that have produced such a numbing event.’

  David James Smith was equally aware that children of ten don’t think in the same way as adults do, offering a Rousseau quote which tells that ‘childhood is the sleep of reason.’ He also spoke honestly in a later Despatches television programme about how unhelpful it was to demonise these damaged boys. And Blake Morrison wrote that ‘between the ages of eight and fourteen, most of us d
o something terrible, performed in a childish, first-time daze.’

  Other journalists came forward with their own stories of destructive acts they’d carried out in childhood. One could remember prodding a distressed toddler repeatedly into a lake, egged on by his equally bored friends.

  Both boys came from the family backgrounds that make a child most likely to become extremely violent. That is, they had abusive childhoods, had fathers who were absent in Robert’s case and passive in Jon’s case. Both had dominant mothers – and Jon’s mother was also over-protective. Both had seen violence in the home.

  Both experienced a fear of abandonment – Jon in particular was shown to be terrified of his mother’s rejection. Both lived in environments that were emotionally chaotic. The final factor is that the mother may come to fear her children – and Ann Thompson had been hit by one of her older sons.

  Explanations

  It’s likely that many factors came together on the day that the boys lured little James away from his mother. It seems that the original idea was Jon’s – he’d been so excited at school the day before that his teachers couldn’t get any work out of him. The theft of the batteries and the blue paint (the latter appearing in the Chucky film Child’s Play) suggest he may have had some vague plan – based on childish logic – to have access to his very own Chucky-sized living doll.

  Robert was initially less interested in keeping the toddler, and was ready to hand him over to a concerned passerby. But Jon told him to take the child’s hand, and he did. There was clearly a strong folie a deux element to the crime, for Jon admitted later that he did things with Robert that he was too scared to do on his own.