NCJ Number
181964
Date Published
1998
Length
302 pages
Annotation
In 1968, 11-year-old, Mary Bell was tried and convicted of murdering two small boys in Newcastle upon Tyne, England; the author of this book carefully studied her case to explore pressures that lead children to commit serious crimes.
Abstract
Twenty-seven years after her conviction, Mary Bell agreed to talk to the author about her childhood, the murders she committed 9 weeks apart, her public trial, and her 12 years of imprisonment. She had no psychiatric care during her imprisonment but did come to respect the prison headmaster. Later, she was transferred from this setting to a maximum-security women's prison and was removed from the emotional security and academic structure to which she had responded earlier. She discusses her early childhood and sexual abuse with the author, as well her adolescent life in prison and the influence of her mother who directed the sexual abuse to which she was subjected. The author believes that Mary Bell's childhood experiences were very influential in the murders she committed in 1968. An appendix contains writings and drawings of Mary Bell.