by Ray Black
In complete contrast to Jon, Robert was quite willing to re-enact his version of the murder but through the use of dolls. The psychiatrist that met with Robert brought some dolls that represented the primary characters in the crime. There was also a railway track laid out and miniature versions of the weapons that were used in the assault. As Robert picked up the dolls and moved them through the motions of the murder, he demonstrated how the ‘Jon doll’ senselessly beat the ‘James doll’, while the ‘Robert doll’ tried to stop the attack. Robert showed how he tried to pull Jon away and how they fell backwards in the struggle. He was unable to explain, however, how the ‘James doll’ sustained any form of sexual damage. When the psychiatrist persisted in asking about any sexual abuse, Robert became increasingly defensive and agitated. He was willing to re-enact everything else, but not this part of the attack. When the psychiatrist suggested that the entire attack was sexually motivated, Robert hardly reacted at all, as if he wasn’t surprised by that line of questioning. But he didn’t deny or confirm this possibility.
When Robert was asked how he felt about James, he didn’t have much to say except that he was a lot quieter than his own baby brother, Ryan. Robert described how Jon disliked babies, and he wished that he could kick Jon’s face in. The psychiatrist told him to go ahead using the dolls, and Robert acted out the scene by using one doll to beat up the other.
In conclusion, the psychiatrist reported that Robert was of above average intelligence, and exhibited no sign of mental illness or depression, but that he was currently displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
THE VERDICT
When the case came to trial on November 1, 1993, defence attorneys David Turner and Brian Walsh attempted to gain sympathy by giving the jury histories of the two boy’s dysfunctional backgrounds. But their ploy failed and Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were both found guilty, and given fifteen years imprisonment. Their real names were exposed in the media for the first time. Jon and Robert became the youngest convicted murderers for almost 250 years. After sentencing they were housed in separate, secret locations somewhere in the north of England and were expected to stay there until they turned eighteen, at which time they would be transferred to an adult facility to serve the rest of their time.
There is little information available about their years of internment. Robert initially suffered from symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, including rashes, illnesses, nightmares and insomnia. He was frightened by his own notoriety, and worried that photographers might be waiting just around the corner in the jail. He became agitated and wouldn’t leave his cell, and was frequently harassed by other inmates. Quite predictably he became involved in several fights with other inmates, for which he was punished. Robert was very slow about talking over what had happened, but in 1995 he seemed to have a sudden breakthrough. He started to talk about the murder, admitting his part in the killing. He used his time well and studied for an Open University degree. He also showed an interest in design and textiles and was said to have created an intricate wedding dress because he wanted to make ‘an object of beauty’. He also developed talents in cooking, catering and computers.
Jon Venables suffered with his memories of the murder and was frequently tormented by ongoing nightmares of a brutalized James. The psychiatrists said that the first two years behind bars were very difficult for Jon. He repeatedly fantasized about bringing James back to life, and even wished that he could ‘grow a new baby’ inside him. Apparently Jon responded far more favourably to therapy than Robert.
His remorse and guilt will remain with him forever, but the fact that he acknowledges his responsibility has helped Jon to accept it. He spent much of his time in the institution playing video games, and became an avid sports fan. The opinion of the psychiatrists is that Jon Venables is no longer a threat to the community.
THEIR RELEASE
Although they had originally been sentenced to a term of fifteen years, in December 1999, the European Court of Human Rights decreed that the boys had not received a fair trial and awarded costs and expenses of £15,000 to Robert Thompson and £29,000 to Jon Venables. In October 2000, the newly-appointed Lord Chief Justice Woolf, with the support of the liberal European Court of Human Rights, overturned Robert and Jon’s original sentences and released them in June of 2001 after they had both turned eighteen.
In the end Jon and Robert only served a relatively short sentence of eight years. Upon being freed they were placed in a government protection programme and granted new identities for their own safety. They were given fake birth certificates, passports and national insurance numbers and had money in their bank accounts. It is quite understandable, therefore, that the parents of the murdered James Bulger, feel that rather than being punished for their crime these two boys have been rewarded.
Willie Bosket
Willie Bosket was a petty thief with a propensity for violence. At the age of fifteen he shot and killed two men on the subway in Manhattan. Although only sentenced to five years’ incarceration, Willie’s fate has been sealed, and he is destined to spend the rest of his adult life in American maximum security jails.
It was Sunday, March 19, 1978, and fifteen-year-old Willie Bosket, was riding around on the subways of New York City, looking for someone to rob. Willie had been in and out of the juvenile courts since the age of nine, but as the penalties they issued were so minor, it had done nothing to deter his life of crime. In fact at this time he was waiting to face another hearing for an attempted robbery.
On the plus side of his life, a loving couple had started proceedings to adopt Willie as a foster child. This was something that Willie was desperately looking forward to but, as the state needed time to process the adoption papers, Willie was still free to roam around at will.
On one of his evening escapades, Willie had stolen a wallet containing $380 from a sleeping passenger on a subway train. He had used this money to buy a gun from Charles, who was the man currently living with his mother in Harlem. Charles told Willie that by using a gun he would gain respect on the streets, and sold him a .22-calibre handgun for $65. Willie bought himself a holster and strapped the gun to his leg, and he had to admit that he felt far more powerful just with the knowledge that he possessed a firearm.
It was around 5.30 p.m. on the same Sunday in March, that Willie found himself alone in a compartment on the subway train, with the exception of one man, who happened to be asleep. The passenger was middle-aged and the first thing that Willie noticed was that he was wearing a gold digital watch. Willie kicked the man in the leg to see if he would wake up, but when he got no response he started to work the watch off his wrist. Willie also spotted that the man was wearing a pair of pink sunglasses which reminded him of one of the counsellors at juvenile detention whom he disliked intensely, and this started to irritate him.
Quite suddenly the man opened his eyes and stared directly at Willie. Willie’s immediate instinct was to reach for his gun and he shot the passenger through the right eye of his pink sunglasses, penetrating his brain. The man screamed loudly and immediately put his hands up to defend himself. Willie was now in a state of panic, afraid that the man might not die and would be able to identify his attacker, he once again shot him in the temple. The man immediately fell back against the side of the train and his body slumped to the floor.
As the train reached its final stop near the Yankee Stadium, Willie removed the man’s watch, stole $15 from his pocket and also slipped a ring off one of his fingers. A ring which he sold for $20 on his way home from the attack.
The victim was identified as Noel Perez, aged 44, who worked in a hospital and lived on his own. The press reported that it was a random mugging, and that little could be done to apprehend the assailant.
That fatal encounter on the subway train predetermined the remainder of Willie’s life. He had always wondered what it would feel like to actually kill someone, and what made him feel really powerful was the fact that no one had se
en him do it. He even bragged to his sister about the murder, and feeling empowered by the fact that he appeared to have got away with the crime, told her that now he was ‘bad’, just like he’d told everyone he would be.
THE BOSKET FAMILY LEGACY
Willie was in effect living out a legacy that had been handed down to him from a history of violence rooted in Edgefield County, South Carolina. It appeared that almost every member of Willie’s paternal family – father, grandfather, great grandfather – had been convicted at one time or another of a violent crime.
However, this is not a story of inherited genes, it is one of brutalization and injustice that was handed down from generation to generation. The story starts with slavery in South Carolina, in a county called Edgefield. It was the scene of violence and mayhem and it became nicknamed ‘Bloody Edgefield’. The inhabitants of Edgefield were mainly Scottish–Irish refugees running from war and oppression. These refugees lived by a medieval code of honour and that was ‘if you insulted a man, cheated him, or cast a covetous eye on his wife he would kill you’.
In 1760 the Cherokee Indians ravaged the area, which caused gangs of outlaws to spring up in Edgefield. They took to abducting women and torturing planters and merchants for their valuables. This plundering led to outrage among the settlers and they formed bands of vigilantes in an effort to suppress the gangs. It was these vigilantes or ‘regulators’ that introduced the strain of violence that was to be the curse and fate of South Carolina. Their punishments were severe, and one recorded case was that a horse thief received 500 lashes for his crime.
Crime started to escalate in this area of South Carolina. In fact, records show that during the first half of the nineteenth century, rural South Carolina – and in particular Edgefield – had a murder rate four times as high as that of urban Massachusetts. This type of crime was white-on-white violence over topics such as ownership of land, their women and honouring the code of conduct the original refugees had established. While all this was going on the slaves had been observing from their fields and shacks, learning the ‘bloody code’. One of these slaves was Aaron Bosket, who was Willie’s great-great-grandfather. His master was a man named Francis Pickens who was the Governor of South Carolina. It was Pickens who helped to kindle the Civil War by ordering his military forces to seize Federal property in Charleston. Aaron, being a slave under white masters, after the war became a sharecropper under white landowners. Despite the fact that he had been terrorized and cheated out of his rightful money from his crops, he was too frightened to actually do anything about it. His son, ‘Pud’, however, was a totally different kettle of fish.
It was quite normal that even up until 1910 white landlords were known to have given their black sharecroppers more than a few lashes of the whip. It was meant to be a ritual of degradation, reminding them that they were no more than slaves. But Pud, who was now twenty-one, was not prepared to endure this humiliation.
‘This is the last nigger you’re going to whip,’ he cried, and grabbed the whip away from the landlord. Having defied a white master, Pud was turned away and was unable to get work within the area. Instead he turned to stealing from the local merchants, for which he punished by working a year on the chain gang. His hatred of the system seems to have been passed down through the generations and Pud’s son, James, ended up as a robber, a kidnapper and even a child molester. In turn, James’ son Butch also ended up a murderer.
As for Willie, Butch’s son, he is the child of violence. Having been raised on the streets of Harlem, Willie was known to be volatile and his killings were merely a way of earning ‘respect’ from his fellow beings.
WILLIE’S SECOND KILLING
Willie had a cousin called Herman Spates. Herman called round to see Willie on the morning of Thursday, March 23, 1978, to find him still asleep. When his cousin arrived Willie climbed out of bed, got dressed, and instinctively strapped his gun and holster to his leg.
‘Let’s go get some money,’ Willie said to his cousin. Willie was feeling tough and empowered, since it was only four days since he had actually killed a man.
The pair walked to the Number 3 subway train on 148th Street and Lexington Avenue. As they were crossing the station yard they noticed a man, Anthony Lamorte, carrying a CB radio. The boys knew that this radio would bring them in quite a lot of cash if they sold it on the streets, and so they followed the man.
Lamorte noticed the two boys hanging around the yard and yelled at them to get out as they were not supposed to be in there. This, however, incensed Willie – he wasn’t going to be told what to do by a white man – and so he challenged him. Lamorte climbed down from the steps of the train carriage and started walking towards the boys. He thought Willie looked far too young to be hanging around, but as he got closer Willie pulled out his gun and demanded money and the man’s CB radio.
Fearing that something bad was about to happen, Lamorte turned his back on the two boys and started to walk back to the carriage. As he walked away he heard a loud bang and felt a numbness creep over his back and right shoulder. He then heard the boys run away, and staggered to the dispatcher’s office where he told them that he thought he had been shot.
Willie and his cousin fled the scene of the shooting as fast as their legs would carry them. Undeterred by the fact that they could have been caught, over the course of the next three nights the pair were involved in three more violent assaults and robberies. They stole $12 from a man they had kicked down the stairs at a train station. They shot a 57-year-old man called Matthew Connolly in the hip, when he was foolish enough to try and resist them.
On Monday, March 27, Willie and Herman were out looking for trouble once again. They jumped over the turnstile on 135th Street and climbed onto the last carriage of the uptown train. There was only one other passenger in the car, a Hispanic man in his late thirties. Willie instructed his cousin to stand guard at the front of the carriage, while he demanded money from the passenger using his gun as an added threat. The man told Willie that he didn’t have any money, but that was the wrong thing to say, and it made the boy very angry. Without any hesitation Willie pulled the trigger and the man slid to the floor, a pool of blood quickly forming around his inert body. Willie quickly went through the man’s pockets but only found $2 in his wallet. Willie tossed the wallet into a rubbish bin and walked back home with Herman, laughing about what he had done. Willie now felt like a big-time killer and when it made front page news the next morning, he proudly showed his sister his newfound fame.
What Willie didn’t know, however, was that on that same day the courts had finally given approval for him to be adopted as a foster child by the couple he had been looking forward to living with. But of course all of this was to change, as there was shortly to be a huge turnaround in Willie’s fortunes.
THE CASE AGAINST WILLIE
Police investigating the recent subway killings felt that they possibly had a serial killer on the loose. When the police did a computer search the names of Willie Bosket and Herman Spates kept cropping up. They had been arrested earlier for the shooting of Matthew Connolly, but he had been unable to identify the pair and consequently they had been released. They had been called into the police station on numerous occasions, and now the police considered they should be questioned further.
Willie was still a juvenile at this time, only fifteen, and as his cousin was seventeen, the detective in question decided to go after Herman first. However, some over-ambitious policeman had already picked up Willie which meant that the detective had to move quickly. He found Herman with his probation officer and he quite willingly accompanied the policeman back to the station. He was questioned about his activities on the day of the shooting, and Herman responded by saying that he was asleep in the cinema. The detective replied that Willie had already given him up, to which Herman responded that it was Willie who had carried out the shooting. He also told the police about the earlier shooting on the subway and the whereabouts of the gun.
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p; With this information the police obtained a search warrant and went to Willie’s house. Willie’s mother reluctantly showed the police where the gun was and then accompanied them to the police station where they were still questioning her son. During interrogation Willie threatened the District Attorney, and made a fatal blunder by actually admitting that he owned the gun.
Willie’s previous cases had always gone before the Family Court and he was punished by being sent to a reformatory. However, as the amount of juvenile arrests had grown so dramatically in the mid-seventies, the system was in the process of being revised. In 1976 the Juvenile Justice Reform Act created a new category of juvenile crime, the ‘designated felony’. This meant that children as young as fourteen, who committed violent crimes, could be given longer sentences than the original maximum of eighteen months. This meant that they could now be sent to a training school for anything from three to five years. It also allowed the presence of a District Attorney at the court sessions.
The District Attorney who acquired Willie’s case was Robert Silbering. Although they had no witnesses or confession, they did have the gun and a ballistics test that linked it to the murder. Anthony Lamorte had picked Willie out of a line up and the District Attorney pressurized Herman to testify against his cousin in return for a more lenient sentence.
The trial took place at the Family Court building on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. Willie was being charged with three different felonies – two counts of murder and one of attempted murder – this meant three separate trials.
During his trial Willie was so belligerent and foul-mouthed that on occasions he had to be restrained. He appeared to lack any sense of morality or indeed sensitivity to the families of his victims. In fact he appeared proud of what he had done and later bragged that, although he was only fifteen years old, he had committed over 2,000 crimes, 25 of them being stabbings.
