10 Children Who Killed - A true crime list | ✔️

Mary Bell

Mary Flora Bell was 11 when, in 1968, was convicted for the murder of two little boys in Scotswood, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and many believe that she wouldn't have stopped killing if she wasn't arrested.

On May 1968 the dead body of 4-year-old Martin Brown was found on the floor of a derelict house by a group of boys that were playing in the area. Blood and saliva were trickling down the side of his cheek. The boys reported that almost immediately after their discovery, they saw Mary Bell and her 13-year-old friend Norma Bell (same surname, no relation) coming toward the house and stopping right by the window next to Martin's body.

Upon investigating, police found no evidence of foul play and believed, since there was an empty bottle of aspirin nearby, that the death was accidental. The official report declared the cause of death "open".

It wasn't until another little boy's dead body was found weeks later, that they started to look at Martin's death as a homicide.

In July, 3-year-old Brian Howe was strangled to death, his body abandoned in an industrial area of the town, mutilated on the thighs and genitals with a pair of scissors that laid in the nearby grass, the letter "M" carved with a razor on his belly. Inspector James Dobson, who investigated on the case, stated that there was a "terrible playfulness" about these mutilations.

Mary and Norma immediately stood out as suspicious to the investigators, both because they have been behaving strangely with Martin Brown's family, inappropriately keep asking questions about him with a creepy grin on their faces, and because they were literally showing excitement about Brian Howe's death.

When questioned by police, Mary admitted that she and Norma had seen Brian on the day he died, claiming that she saw a specific 8-year-old boy hitting Brian and, afterwards, playing with a pair of scissors. Her testimony was considered unreliable, though, as the boy in question had a strong alibi and no details about the scissors had been disclosed to the public. By mentioning the scissors, she implicated herself. The two girls were questioned again after Brian's funeral in August and Norma accused Mary of having strangled Brian and bringing her to see his body. Mary responded that this was a lie and made an official statement saying that she was incapable of harming anything or anyone and blaming Norma.

Both girls were arrested for the murder of Brian Howe and incarcerated at the Newcastle West End police station.

Their trial started on December 5 at the Newcastle Assizes Moothall and lasted for 9 days.

The prosecution suggested that whoever killed Brian Howe also killed Martin Brown, recounting about the suspicious behaviour of the girls, of Mary's long history of violence towards other children (Norma's little sister included) and of how they vandalized their school overnight leaving behind scribbled notes such as "I murder so THAT I may come back" and "we did murder Martain brown Fuckof you Bastard".

While Norma reacted childishly and was considered a mere victim of Mary's manipulations, the latter was the centre of press attention. Everyone in the courtroom reportedly were "watching her with a horrified kind of curiosity", especially because she showed no emotions whatsoever and, on the contrary, her mother, Betty Bell, didn't do nothing but put on a show of dramatic wailing and sobbing.

Psychologists and psychiatrists that examined Mary Bell over the years stated that she exhibited the classic symptoms of psychopathology, seen the lack of remorse for her actions and her completely unemotional behaviour. Dr. Westbury stated: "Manipulation of people is her primary aim" and all those who met her concurred that she was very intelligent. She clearly had issues with bonding with others due to her family background.

Her mother, Betty, was well-known for being a prostitute, she gave birth to Mary at the age of 17. Her biological father's identity is still a mystery, but Mary was raised by her stepfather Billy Bell, who also had quite a reputation in town. Baby Mary was often neglected by Betty: she tried to abandon her, sell her and even allegedly kill her numerous times – mostly with drugs - but always eventually kept her just to gain sympathy from others. Mary accused her mother to have used her during her prostitution, forcing her to engage in sexual acts with her clients. Although this abuse would explain Mary's disturbed behaviour, all her accusations remain alleged.

The jury found Mary guilty of manslaughter in both Brian Howe's and Martin Brown's deaths, even if neither she nor Norma ever admitted their responsibility for the latter. The judge pronounced a sentence of "Detention for Life" for an indeterminate amount of time, in hope that she could reform. All that was given to Norma was a 3 year probation for breaking in the school.

Mary was incarcerated at the Red Bank Special School in Lancashire, a high security all-boys facility, until 1973. During her stay there she seemed reformed at first, but growing up she started to have issues, as she started to sexually provoke the boys and to wound herself with cuts. She was then moved to a prison for women where she convinced herself to be gay and even asked for a sex change, because "it was the idea of not being me", she claimed. In 1977 she escaped from a less secured facility and was moved to a hostel a few months before her release in 1980, at the age of 23.

After this time, Mary Bell allegedly became a complete different person. The court granted her to change her name to protect her identity, she got married and had a daughter, whose birth, she claims, gave her a new awareness of her crimes.

Although she collaborated with author Gitta Sereny in writing the second of her biographies "Cries Unheard: the Story of Mary Bell", published in 1998, she never admitted her crimes and changed versions of the events many times, still implicating Norma in having responsibility in Brian Howe's death and portraying her mother Betty as the main villain of her story.

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