by Ray Black
Their next victim was little Martin Brown. Martin’s body was discovered by three children who were looking for scrapwood in a derelict house so that they could build a dovecote. They made the grisly discovery shortly after 3.30 p.m. on Saturday, May 25. Martin had been seen only a few minutes earlier buying some sweets from a local sweetshop and, apart from some workmen summoned by the children who found Martin, Mary and Norma were the first people on the scene. In fact it was Mary and Norma who carried the news of Martin’s death to his aunt, Mrs Rita Finlay, who lived only a few doors away on the other side of the street.
‘I think it’s your June’s bairn and there’s blood all over,’ said Mary.
On investigation by the police there appeared to be no sign of either a struggle or a fall, and the autopsy failed to determine the cause of the little boy’s death. The only thing they could find that was out of the ordinary was a minor brain haemorrhage. The possibility of strangulation was dismissed because the pathologist could find no pressure marks. At the end of several days of inquiries, the police accepted that Martin’s death had been an accident and the matter was taken no further.
Mary and Norma were not prepared to let the matter rest here and started their own form of emotional torture on Martin’s poor aunt. The two girls visited Mrs Finlay each day asking if she missed Martin, and did she constantly cry for him. Mrs Finlay, overcome with grief, sent the girls away and informed the police of their constant pestering.
The persecution of Mrs Finlay, however, was not to be the only sign of Mary Bell’s demented mind. On her eleventh birthday, Sunday, May 26, Mary attempted to strangle a girl named Susan, who was the eleven-year-old sister of her friend Norma. Luckily, Susan’s parents heard her frantic screams and came running out of the house. What they saw to their horror was Mary with both hands around their daughter’s neck. Mr Bell managed to break Mary’s hands free and gave her a clip around the head, and the matter was taken no further.
The next morning teachers arriving at the nearby Nursery school discovered that it had been broken into during the weekend. Someone had managed to gain entry by removing some of the roof slates. Chalk, school books and cleaning materials had been scattered everywhere, and the police found four notes in childish writing among the debris. They said:
I murder so THAT I may come back
BAS . . . we murder watch out Fanny and Faggot
WE did murder Martain brown you Bastard
You are micey Becurse we murdered Martain Go Brown you Bete Look out THErE are Murders about By FANNY AND and auld Faggot you Screws
The police decided that the notes were just a sick joke, but as a precaution against further break-ins, it was decided to install a burglar alarm in the school loft.
Two days later Mary decided to turn her attention from Mrs Finlay to her sister, Mrs June Brown, the unfortunate mother of the dead Martin. Mrs Brown told the police that Mary knocked on her door and asked to see Martin. Mrs Brown told Mary politely that Martin was dead and Mary replied with a grin, ‘I know he’s dead. I wanted to see him in his coffin.’ Mrs Brown, who was left totally speechless, just slammed the door in her face.
On Friday of that week the newly installed burglar alarm at the school started to ring in the police station. Within minutes police constables arrived at the school only to find that Mary and Norma Bell had once again tried to gain entry by removing slates from the roof. This time they were charged with breaking and entering and released into their parents’ custody until their hearing in front of the Juvenile Court.
A few weeks later Mary brought up the subject of Martin’s death while she was visiting one of the neighbours, the Howes. She said that she knew something that would definitely put Norma away. When asked what, she replied, ‘Norma put her hands on a boy’s throat, and that boy was Martin Brown. She pressed and he just dropped’. However, later the same day she called on Norma’s mother and apologized for what she had said. All these events showed what sort of sick and troubled mind the young Mary Bell really had.
Mary’s next victim was the son of the family she had told about Norma, three-year-old Brian Howe. Brian’s mother had disappeared early in his life and since then he had been looked after by his elder sister, Pat. Pat noticed that Brian was missing on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 31. She enlisted a few of the local children to help her look for him, and two of these children were Mary and Norma Bell. The children knew that one of Brian’s favourite play areas was a stretch of waste ground which was nicknamed ‘Tin Lizzie’. It got this name because the ground was littered with concrete blocks, oil drums, old building materials and metal tanks.
It was on ‘Tin Lizzie’ that the police eventually discovered his body, soon after 11.00 p.m. His torso was covered with long grass and purple-flowering weeds, and he lay between two concrete blocks. Bloodstained froth was coming out from his lips which had turned a horrible blue colour. There were scratches on his nose and scratches and pressure marks on both sides of his neck. A pair of scissors with one broken blade and the other one bent back, lay a little distance from his body. What looked like the letter ‘N’, which had subsequently been changed into an ‘M’, had been scratched on his belly.
One of the policemen on the case, Detective-Chief-Inspector James Dobson of the CID had a gut feeling that this case was connected somehow with the murder of the toddler Martin Brown. The medical opinion, which was based on the small degree of violence used and the playful rather than vicious nature of the marks on Brian’s stomach, indicated that it was probably carried out by a child killer.
TIGHTENING THE NET
Within 24 hours of the discovery of the body questionnaires were handed out to all the homes in the area with young children. When questioned, Mary and Norma admitted to having spent most of Wednesday together, and yet their statements about what they had done and where they had been were totally different. Twice they had changed their statements, and at one point Mary had even tried to implicate an eight-year-old boy. She said she had seen him hit Brian, and that she had also seen him playing with a pair of silver-coloured scissors that had something wrong with them, ‘like one leg was either broken or bent’. At the time of Mary’s interview, nothing about the scissors had been released by the press, which made her a prime suspect.
By August 2, the police had eliminated just about everybody from their list of suspects, except that is, Mary and Norma Bell. On August 4, a detective called at Norma’s house to try to get her to clarify some of the inconsistencies in her statement. She immediately started to cry and asked if she could speak to the policeman without her father being in the room. As soon as he left she blurted out: ‘I was down Delaval Road with Mary and her dog. Mary took me to see Brian.’
Later that same day Detective-Chief-Inspector Dobson spoke to Norma again, this time with her father being present, and said he believed she had something she wanted to tell him about the death of Brian Howe.
Norma told him: ‘I went with Mary Bell down to the blocks the day that Brian was lost. I tripped over something. I looked down and saw it was Brian’s head. He was covered with grass, but I could see all his face. He was dead. Mary said, “I squeezed his neck and pushed up his lungs, that’s how you kill them. Keep your nose dry and don’t tell anybody.” Brian’s lips were purple. Mary ran her fingers along his lips. She said she had enjoyed it. Mary showed me a razor and said she had cut his belly. She pulled his jersey up and showed me the tiny cut on his belly. She hid the razor under a block and told me not to tell my dad or she would get into trouble.’
Norma was taken to the ‘Tin Lizzie’ in a police car and she produced a razor blade from under one of the blocks. She was then taken back to police headquarters where she made a formal statement.
Meanwhile, Mary Bell was taken out of her bed and escorted down to the police station for questioning. Although she was questioned for over three hours, she continued to deny it all, saying that she didn’t know a thing.
Brian Howe was buried on August 7,
and Mary came to watch as they bought the coffin out of the house. Detective-Chief-Inspector Dobson watched her closely as the coffin came into view. It was then that he realized that he couldn’t risk leaving Mary at liberty for another day because she just stood there laughing and rubbing her hands. He knew then that he had to keep her in custody or she would, without doubt, kill someone else.
A policewoman was sent to pick up Mary at 4.30 p.m. Mary arrived at the police station pale, tense and very apprehensive, as if she knew her day of reckoning had arrived. This time she agreed to make a statement, which was the complete reverse of Norma’s, implicating her friend as the murderer. A nursing sister who was present during Mary’s questioning said afterwards, that she was appalled by the child’s callousness. ‘She felt nothing. She said all those awful things they had done, but she didn’t feel a thing.’
THE TRIAL
The trial for the two girls for the murders of Martin Brown and Brian Howe began at Newcastle Assizes on December 5, 1968, and lasted for nine days. Probably the most critical aspects of the trial was the impression that the two girls created in court, and the psychiatric evidence. Both of them stuck to their story that the other was the killer. But Norma, who appeared the more fragile, came across as truthful. In contrast Mary appeared eerily confident, bragging to the prosecution that she wrote the graffiti in the school ‘for giggles’ and that, ‘Murder isn’t that bad . . . we all die someday anyway’. She was quick-witted and very much in command of herself, and was obviously the more dominant of the two girls. There was expert evidence that Mary suffered from a psychopathic personality, with symptoms including lack of feeling, a liability to act on impulse, aggression, lack of remorse and an inability to profit by her experiences.
As the trial continued, evidence started to build up against Mary. Firstly, how did she know that Martin had been asphyxiated as this was not general knowledge, and yet she demonstrated to the Howes how Martin was strangled? Forensic evidence also implicated Mary – grey fibres from one of her wool dresses were discovered on the bodies of both victims. Fibres from Norma’s maroon skirt were also found on Brian’s shoes.
Handwriting experts confirmed that the notes found at the school were written by both the girls. Every single letter had to be examined separately as Mary and Norma had taken turns to write the letters (they called it ‘joining writing’). Norma stated, ‘We thought it would be a great big joke.’ Mary was supposed to be ‘Faggot’ and Norma was ‘Fanny’.
The presence of Mary’s family at the trial certainly did nothing to help her case. Her mother Betty constantly disrupted the proceedings by wailing and sobbing, and her long blonde wig actually slipped off her head on one occasion. Like a poorly-played character from a soap opera, she stormed out of the courtroom, only to reappear moments later. Mary’s father, Billy, sat quietly ignoring his wife’s amateur dramatics.
Norma was cleared by the jury on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but Mary was found guilty, not of the murder, but of the manslaughter of the two boys. She was sentenced to detention for life in a suitable juvenile detention centre and later the penitentiary.
Norma Bell was given three years probation for breaking and entering the Woodlands Crescent Nursery and was subsequently placed under psychiatric supervision.
REFORM SCHOOL
After the trial Mary Bell was detained at the Red Bank Special Unit from February 1969 until November 1973. Red Bank was a reform school which had a separate high-security section. It was well-designed and offered a reasonable degree of comfort. The supportive staff were headed by a man called James Dixon, who was a former navy man and known for his strong moral influence over the inmates. Mr Dixon helped to provide structure and discipline for Mary, and in time she came to both respect and love him. He filled the role of the benevolent, strong father figure which was so lacking in her life. Mary loved Billy Bell (who was not her biological father but who was in her life right from the beginning) but, as a thief, he was not an ideal role model for Mary.
However, Mary’s time at Red Bank was by no means uneventful. In 1970 she reported that she had been sexually assaulted by one of the housemasters and, although her account was considered unreliable, there were changes in staff shortly afterwards, which indicated that there may have been some truth in the matter. In 1972 she started provoking the boys and crept into their dormitories late at night. It was also around this time that she started to self-wound by making cuts on various parts of her body.
At the age of sixteen she was moved to a prison which was a very traumatic experience for the not only confused, but very angry, teenager. There can be no doubt that this transfer was very destructive in the rehabilitation of Mary Bell. She had to adjust from a mostly male atmosphere at Red Bank to a full women’s facility at Styal. It was here that she became a very rebellious prisoner who was frequently being punished. It was while at Styal that she decided to create a ‘butch’ image, doing everything in her power to persuade the world that she was in fact masculine. She strutted and made-up as if she had stubble on her face. She even went as far as rolling up stockings in the shape of male genitals, which she wore all the time. She later asked a doctor for a sex change, but her request was denied. ‘It was the idea of not being me,’ Mary later said.
In 1977 Mary was transferred to a less secure unit, but managed to escape. She was picked up, along with a fellow escapee, by two young men. In her brief time of freedom, Mary lost her virginity. The man she slept with later sold his story to a newspaper and claimed that Mary had escaped from jail so that she could get pregnant. A few months before her parole in 1980, Mary was moved to a hostel where she met, and became pregnant by, a married man. When Mary discovered she was pregnant she suffered a moral crisis, but feeling that she would not make a suitable mother, she chose to terminate the pregnancy.
AFTER HER RELEASE
Mary Bell was eventually released on May 14, 1980 and went to live in Suffolk. Her first job was in the local children’s nursery, but her probation officers felt this was inappropriate due to the nature of her previous convictions. She took waitress jobs, attended a university, but never seemed to be able to stick at anything for very long. She went back to live with her mother, and shortly afterwards met a young man and once again became pregnant. There was much concern over whether the woman who had murdered two children should be allowed to become a mother herself, but she fought for the right to keep her child, won, and it was born in 1984.
Mary claims that since becoming a mother herself she has a new awareness of the crimes she committed. She was allowed to keep the child, who was technically made a ward of the court until 1992. She eventually met a man and fell in love, settling in a small town. However, her probation officer had to inform the local authorities of her presence, and very soon the villagers were marching through the street with banners showing ‘Murderer out!’ signs. Apparently she had lived in constant fear of the moment when her true identity would be exposed, and her past continues to haunt her.
Medical experts do not believe that sociopaths can ever be ‘cured’. They are normally resistant to therapy, which Mary proved during her internment. Some experts consider that it is possible that aggressive tendencies begin to quieten down with age – perhaps Mary is better but that is something that no one can be really sure about.
The Boy Fiend
By the age of fourteen Jesse Pomeroy had killed two people, one male and one female. Prior to those murders, Jesse sexually and physically assaulted at least seven other male children. Jesse was a cruel child who revelled in the pain and terror of his victims.
Jesse Pomeroy was born on November 29, 1859, in South Boston. Jesse developed a mysterious illness shortly after his birth which left him with a noticeable scar in the white of his right eye, which later helped in the capture of the miniature madman. The absence of an iris and pupil gave the boy an evil aura even before his ghastly acts became public.
Because Jesse’s appearance made him stand out fro
m other children, he was an easy target for ridicule by others in his neighbourhood. Apart from his almost pure white right eye, he had a larger-than-normal sized head with overly large ears that stuck out noticeably. Add to this the fact that he very rarely smiled, preferred to play on his own, and suffered from epileptic-style shaking episodes, it was easy to see why he didn’t fit in and found it hard to make friends.
Jesse was the second son of Charles and Ruth Pomeroy. They came from a lower-middle-class family in the Chelsea section of Boston. Jesse’s home life was far from happy. His father, Charles, was a heavy drinker with a mean temper, and he was known to have violently beaten Jesse with a horse whip after he discovered his son had been playing truant from school. The young Pomeroy children lived in dread of being taken behind the outhouse in their garden, because this meant they would receive a severe beating which often ended in bloodshed. Before each beating their father would strip his children naked, and this act could possibly have contributed to Jesse forging a link between sexual satisfaction, pain and punishment. Jesse later emulated his father’s cruelty on his young victims.
Jesse’s evil side first came out when he started to torture animals. The family had owned a couple of birds but they both mysteriously ended up dead, with their heads twisted completely off their bodies. His mother had her suspicions and after Jesse was discovered torturing a neighbour’s kitten, she decided it would be unwise to allow another pet into their home. Jesse soon tired of his persecution of animals and turned his attention to human targets, apparently selecting victims that were smaller than himself. His attacks had an eerily familiar pattern – he acted out and enhanced exactly what he had experienced at home.
