Informational Article: CHILDREN WHO KILL

The Unthinkable:

Children Who Kill

By Katherine Ramsland

Jesse Pomeroy

Jesse Pomeroy was fourteen when he was arrested in 1874 for the sadistic murder of a four-year-old boy. He was quickly dubbed "The Boston Boy Fiend." His rampage had begun three years earlier with the torture of seven other boys. For those crimes Pomeroy was sentenced to reform school, but then he was released early. Not long afterward he mutilated and killed a 10-year-old girl who came into his mother's store. A month later, he snatched four-year-old Horace Mullen. He took Horace to a swamp outside town and slashed him so savagely with a knife that he nearly decapitated the child. Because of his strange appearance—he had a milky white eye---and his previous behavior, suspicion turned to him. When he was shown the body and asked if he'd done it, he responded with a nonchalant, "I suppose I did." Then the girl was found buried in his mother's cellar and he confessed to that murder, too. He was convicted and sentenced to death, although a public outcry against condemning a child to hang commuted the sentence to four decades of solitary confinement.

Mary Flora Bell wanted to "hurt" someone. She was an angry child, the product of an unsettled home in which chronic abuse was the norm. She had a friend, Nora Bell, and they often did things together. When Mary was eleven, she and Nora lured a boy to the top of an air raid shelter. When he fell and was injured, it was thought to be an accident. Two weeks later, the corpse of four-year-old Martin Brown was found, another assumed accident. Then police discovered notes that indicated that someone was taking responsibility. Then Mary showed up at Martin's home so she could "see him in his coffin." Two months passed and another local toddler, three-year-old Brian Howe, turned up missing. When Mary suggested that he might be playing on a certain pile of concrete, searchers looked where she indicated and found his body. He'd been strangled. The medical examiner believed it to be the handiwork of a child.

Mary and Norma were brought in; Mary made up a story but Norma described watching Mary kill the boy. They went to trial in 1968 in England, where Mary was convicted of two counts of manslaughter. People called her "evil" and a "bad seed," in part because she seemed so indifferent to the proceedings against her. A court psychiatrist said that she was manipulative and dangerous.

Willie Bosket had committed over two thousand crimes in New York by the time he was fifteen, including stabbing several people. The son of a convicted murderer, he never knew his father but revered him for his "manly" crime. Just before he was sixteen, his crimes became more serious. Killing another boy in a fight, he then embarked upon a series of subway crimes, which ended up in the deaths of two men. He shot them, he later said, just to see what it was like. It didn't affect him. He knew the juvenile laws well enough to realize that he could continue to do what he was doing and yet still get released when he was twenty-one. He had no reason to stop.

Yet it was his spree and his arrogance that brought about a dramatic change in the juvenile justice system, starting there in New York. The "Willie Bosket law," which allowed dangerous juveniles as young as thirteen to be tried in adult courts, was passed and signed in six days. Willie went on to commit more crimes, although none as serious as murder, and ended up with prison terms that ensured that he would spend the rest of his life there.

Cindy Collier was 15 and Shirley Wolf 14 when they started prowling condominiums in California in 1983. They knocked on doors at random to gain admittance. An elderly woman let them in and sat chatting with them as they thought up a plan to steal her car. Shirley grabbed her by the neck while Cindy found a butcher knife and tossed it to her. Shirley stabbed her victim 28 times, even as the old woman begged for her life. They fled the scene, but were soon arrested. Both confessed that the murder was "a Kick" and that they wanted to do another one. They thought it was fun.

Edmund Kemper in prison clothes

In 1964, when Edmund Kemper was 15, he shot his grandparents, killing them both. He'd been imagining this act for some time and had no regrets. The California Youth Authority detained him in Juvenile Hall so that they could put him through a battery of tests administered by a psychiatrist. Since the results indicated that he was paranoid and psychotic, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for treatment. There he learned what people thought about his crime and worked hard to convince his doctors that he had recovered. Although he was labeled a sociopath, he actually worked in the psychology lab to help administer the tests to others. In the process, he learned a lot about other deviant offenders.

Kemper was released five years later, although he remained under the supervision of the Youth Authority. His doctors recommended that he not be returned to his mother's care, but the Youth Authority ignored this. After Kemper murdered and dismembered eight women over the next five years, these same doctors affirmed his insanity defense. In fact, even as he was carrying parts of his victims around, a panel of psychiatrists judged him to be no threat to society.

In 1998, 14-year-old Joshua Phillips bludgeoned his 8-year-old neighbor, and then hid her body beneath his waterbed. Seven days later his mother noticed something leaking from beneath the bed. Joshua claimed that's he'd accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with a baseball. She screamed and he panicked. He then dragged her to his home where he hit her with a bat and then stabbed her eleven times. His story failed to convince a Florida jury, who convicted him of first-degree murder.

For many people, children who kill are monstrous, unthinkable. Yet where they once were rare deviants, they are now becoming more commonplace. Let's look at the types of killings that children initiate to see the variety of motives involved.

Types of Killers

Kids who kill fall into different categories, according to their traits, situations, and motivations. Some kills are accidental, such as those involving kids who find their parents' guns, but many occur within a specific type of context and have motives. Most of the experts categorize these killings by kids as:

1. Inner city/gang killers these are kids who grow up in violent environments and who may have violent role models, such that their typical mode of response, whether for self-defense or just to get what they want, is violence. This also includes gang killers, or children who are pressured from within a gang to kill. They feel more powerful as a member of the gang, so they will do what it takes to get respect. In fact, within some gangs any restraint on violence is viewed as weak.

2. Killing within a family: Kids who kill members of their family for reasons other than an accident, feel pressured by demands, abuse, hatred, desire for gain, and even by the need of other family members. One 14-year-old enlisted this brother to help him murder their parents, and one mother provoked her son into killing his father. A fourteen-year-old in China killed his family because he thought his mother was not taking care of him properly. When he was ill one night, she ordered him back to bed. Instead, he stabbed his father 37 times, his mother 72 times and his grandmother 56 times. Then he washed his hair and watched a videotape.

3. Cult killings: 16-year-old Roderick Ferrell killed the parents of his former girlfriend in order to steal their car so he could take his friends—members of his vampire cult—to New Orleans. A lot of kids identify themselves as Satanists because it gives them the feeling of power over others and the mystique of having secret associations with another world. It also gives them license to do things like rob, damage property, and kill. Sometimes they decide that human sacrifice is necessary to increase their powers, so they kill. Ferrell claimed that he needed many victims in order to open the Gates of Hell.

4. Mental Illness: Sam Manzie, 15, opened the door to eleven-year-old Eddie Werner, who was out raising money for his school. He invited the boy in, then raped and strangled him, hiding Werner's body outside. Manzie had been the victim of a child abuser and had shown signs of serious mental illness. His parents had desperately tried to get him help and were convinced that he would become violent. A doctor interviewed the boy for about ten minutes and told the parents to take him home. They were over-reacting, he said. Only three days later he murdered Werner. Many people have a difficult time believing that children can be mentally ill, but they suffer depression and paranoid schizophrenia just like adults. When it goes undiagnosed and untreated, it can spell trouble.

Michael Carneal

5. School killers: They generally act on a perceived wrong done to them by others and view a climactic closure to the situation as the only way out. Frustrations accumulate into rage that motivates a spree. Michael Carneal, who shot into a prayer group in Paducah, Kentucky, was constantly baited by the other students. They said he had "Michael germs" and stole his lunch. One day he had a gun and even then the other boys taunted him. Finally he decided to act out and he ended up killing three students.

6. Killing committed during another crime: Fifteen-year-old Sandy Shaw lured James Kelly, 24, into the Nevada desert in 1986 so that she and two friends could rob him. They needed money to post bail for Sandy's boyfriend. They lifted $1400 and then shot him six times. They even took friends out to see the body.

7. Hate crimes: Two boys, 17 and 14, shot a man in the head and then ran over him repeatedly with their car just because he was gay. Such crimes begin with anger and hate and often involve a build-up of rage. However, there are cases where the killings happened just so the killers could brag to their friends that they'd rid the world of such a person.

Perhaps the most disturbing motive for killing is just for the thrill of it. Let's have a look at two cases, one historic, the other contemporary. We'll begin with Leopold and Loeb.

Thrill Killing

The Leopold and Loeb Case

Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb

The year was 1924. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, both 19, were close friends. Loeb worshipped power and Leopold worshipped Loeb. One day in May, they decided to find a child to kidnap for ransom and murder. They had devised "the perfect crime," they believed, and had rehearsed it down to the letter. The day finally arrived and they randomly selected young Bobby Franks outside his school. He knew them, so he climbed into the car. They hit him with a chisel, then smothered him. Afterward they drove some distance away so they could pour acid on his face to prevent people from identifying him. Finally they tossed him in a covert where Leopold often went birding, and went home to write a ransom note.

Unfortunately for Leopold, he dropped his glasses near the covert and from the unique hinges, the police traced them to him. However, since he often went to the area, he quite believably said that he'd dropped them while birding. The police continued to look into his background, along with that of Loeb, and eventually found samples of Leopold's typing that matched the ransom note. They did not find the portable typewriter in his possession, but when they caught Loeb in a lie about his car, he rolled on Leopold. They both confessed.

It turned out that the murder had been committed to entertain two bored intellectuals. They wanted to test their ability to plan and carry out a crime without being caught. It hadn't mattered which child. They hadn't targeted anyone in particular. They just needed a child who couldn't fight back. Neither expressed remorse or thought that what they had done was reprehensible.

The press reported this kidnap/murder as unique in the annals of American crime. There had been no particular motive other than to see if they could get away with it. They were monstrous, without human feeling. The like had never been seen.

The James Bulger Case

James Bulger

At 3.39 p.m. on February 12, 1993, a surveillance camera in the Bootle Strand shopping center in Liverpool, England, filmed Robert Thompson and Jon Venables casually taking two-year-old James Bulger by the hand. They were just outside the butcher's shop, where James's mother was delayed when the butcher misunderstood her order. Having lost her first child to a miscarriage, she tried always to be vigilant, but to her shock, James was gone.

Thompson and Venables, both age ten, were skipping school that day, shoplifting and looking for something to do. For a lark, they decided to see if they could get away with a kidnapping. According to reports, they had already tried with a four-year-old, who'd resisted them. Then they came upon James. With him in tow and Thompson leading the way, they left and headed toward the railroad tracks at Walton, over two miles away.

Along the way, as many as thirty-eight people spotted them and some even inquired what they were up to, but no one stopped them. Several had noticed that James had a head injury and appeared distressed. They did not realize that the boys had dropped him on his head. One woman wanted to escort him to the nearby police station, but no one would watch her dog so she let the boys go off by themselves.

The lifeless body of young James was soon discovered on the tracks. Clearly the boy had not just fallen onto the tracks. Someone had seriously injured him beforehand.

During the weeklong investigation, an innocent boy named Jonathan Green was arrested first, only because he'd been turned in by his own father. Yet he hadn't been near Bootle Strand that day, so he was released.

Then suspicion turned on Thompson and Venables. They quickly confessed, each pinning the blame on the other, and were taken into custody.

The trial lasted three weeks, beginning with extensive descriptions by the prosecutor of the brutality of the crime. Venables leaned back and cried, but Thompson merely appeared curious. The impression was formed that he was the ringleader and Venables the follower (the same perception as with Loeb and Leopold), although Venables was the one who clearly stated in his confession, "I did kill him."

While the people of Britain who were ready to hang them believed that all along they'd plotted to kill a child—any child---there was no evidence to support this. The boys had taken no weapons and had ended up using whatever was available. It appeared to be the case that they'd simply come up with the prank of taking a child, and then unable to think of a way to end it, they'd simply killed him.

Expert testimony from psychiatrists affirmed that these boys were not insane; they had understood the nature of their crime and knew it was wrong. Thus, their state of mind at the time of the crime was not psychotic. In essence, they acted with adult consciousness. The pathologist confirmed that the wounds showed brutal intent.

It was decided that the boys would not do well on the witness stand, so they were not offered in their own defense. The jury deliberated for several days and then came back with a verdict: both boys were guilty of abduction and murder, although no verdict was reached regarding the attempted abduction of another child. Judge Michael Morland sentenced them to a rather indeterminate prison term: "very, very many years", until it was clear they had been rehabilitated and were no longer a danger to society.

What did not come into court, but what the psychiatrists had found, was that both boys were from troubled homes. Thompson had been abused. Together, they seemed to spur each other on to do things that neither would have done alone. Had an adult actually intervened, they would have given James over. They were scared of getting into trouble and they didn't understand the irrevocable nature of death.