"Are you looking for your Brian?" asked Mary Bell, Brian’s sister, Pat, who was worried about her brother, that should have been home by now. Mary and her best friend, Norma, eagerly offered to help search for him. They led Pat through the neighborhood, looking here and there, all the while knowing exactly where Brian was. Pat was worried -- only a few weeks ago little Martin Brown was found dead inside of a condemned house. Mary pointed to some large concrete blocks. "He might be playing behind the blocks, or between them," she said. "Oh no, he never goes there," insisted Norma. In fact, Brian lay dead between the blocks. Mary wanted Pat to discover her dead brother, Norma later said, "because she wanted Pat Howe to have a shock." But Pat decided to leave. The Newcastle Police would find his body at 11:10 later that night. Brian was found covered with grass and purple weeds. He had been strangled. Nearby, a pair of broken scissors lay in the grass. There were puncture marks on his thighs, and his genitals had been partially skinned. Clumps of his hair were cut away. The wounds were bizarre. Brian’s belly had been signed "M" with a razor blade. This cut would not be apparent until days later. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In this summer of 1968, Scotswood, an economically depressed community north of London, was in a state of panic. Police flooded the community, interviewing kids between the ages of three and fifteen. The adults wondered if Martin Brown’s "accident" was also murder. Suspicious Behavior Among the children who stood out as suspicious to the investigators were eleven year old Mary Bell and thirteen year old Norma Bell (no relation). As the investigation narrowed on Mary, she suddenly "remembered" seeing an eight year old boy with Brian on the day he died. The boy hit Brian for no reason, she claimed. She had also seen the same boy playing with broken scissors. But that boy had been at the airport on the afternoon Brian died. By revealing that she knew about the scissors, which was confidential evidence, Mary implicated herself. She described them exactly: "like silver coloured and something wrong with the scissors, like one leg was either broken or bent." It was becoming clear that either Mary, Norma, or both, had seen Brian die. And one of them was probably the killer. Brian Howe was buried on August 7th. Detective Dobson was there: "Mary Bell was standing in front of the Howe’s house when the coffin was brought out. I was, of course, watching her. And it was when I saw her there that I knew I did not dare risk another day. She stood there, laughing. Laughing and rubbing her hands. I thought, My God, I’ve got to bring her in, she’ll do another one" Before Brian’s funeral, Dobson questioned Norma again. She now claimed that Mary told her she killed Brian, and brought her to see his body at the blocks. Mary told Norma "I squeezed his neck and pushed up his lungs that’s how you kill them. Keep your nose dry and don’t tell anybody." When she saw Brian, Norma knew he was dead. "His lips were purple. Mary ran her fingers along his lips. She said she had enjoyed it." That night, Norma was taken to the police station to give an official statement. Norma’s story shocked the police, who wasted no time in picking up Mary Bell that night. Her intense-blue eyes were bleary, but she kept her wits. "She appeared to see herself in a sort of cliché scenario of cops-and-robbers film: nothing surprised her and she admitted nothing," Dobson told Gitta Sereny, who has written extensively on the case. "I have reason to believe that when you were near the blocks with Norma," said Dobson. "A man shouted at some children who were nearby and you both ran away from where Brian was lying in the grass. This man will probably know you." "He would have to have good eyesight," she responded. "Why would he need good eyesight?" Dobson said, ready to catch her in a lie. "Because he was . . ." Mary said, after a moment, "clever to see me when I wasn’t there." She stood up. "I am going home. . . This is being brainwashed." But Dobson wasn’t about to let her go. At one point Mary asked, "Is this place bugged?" In the end she refused to budge. "I am making no statements. I have made lots of statements. It’s always me you come for. Norma’s a liar, she always tries to get me into trouble." Mary was permitted to leave. Dobson second-guessing himself. But after seeing Mary’s behavior at Brian’s funeral, and gathering additional testimony from Norma, he brought Mary back into the station. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Marys statement: Brian was in his front street and me and Norma were walking along towards him. We walked past him and Norma says, ‘Are you coming to the shop Brian?’ and I says, ‘ Norma, you’ve got no money, how can you go to the shop? Where are you getting it from?’ She says, ‘Nebby’ (Keep your nose clean). Little Brian followed and Norma says, ‘Walk up in front.’ I wanted Brian to go home, but Norma kept coughing so Brian wouldn’t hear us. We went down Crosshill Road with Brian still in front of us. There was this coloured boy and Norma tried to start a fight with him. She said, ‘Darkie, whitewash, it’s time you got washed.’ The big brother came out and hit her. She shouted, ‘Howay, put your dukes up.’ The lad walked away and looked at her as though she was daft. We went beside Dixon’s shop and climbed over the railings, I mean, through a hole and over the railway. Then I said, ‘Norma, where are you going?’ and Norma said, ‘Do you know that little pool where the tadpoles are?’ When we got there, there was a big, long tank with a big, round hole with little holes round it. Norma says to Brian, ‘Are you coming in here because there’s a lady coming on the Number 82 and she’s got boxes of sweets and that.’ We all got inside, then Brian started to cry and Norma asked him if he had a sore throat. She started to squeeze his throat and he started to cry. She said, ‘This isn’t where the lady comes, it’s over there, by them big blocks.’ We went over to the blocks and she says, ‘Ar--you’ll have to lie down’ and he lay down beside the blocks where he was found. Norma says, ‘Put your neck up’ and he did. Then she got hold of his neck and said ‘Put it down.’ She started to feel up and down his neck. She squeezed it hard, you could tell it was hard because her finger tips were going white. Brian was struggling, and I was pulling her shoulders but she went mad. I was pulling her chin up but she screamed at me. By this time she had banged Brian’s head on some wood or corner of wood and Brian was lying senseless. His face was all white and bluey, and his eyes were open. His lips were purplish and had all like slaver on, it turned into something like fluff. Norma covered him up and I said, ‘Norma, I’ve got nothing to do with this, I should tell on you, but I’ll not.’ Little Lassie was there and it was crying and she said, ‘Don’t you start or I’ll do the same to you.’ It still cried and she went to get hold of its throat but it growled at her. She said, ‘Now now, don’t be hasty.’ Norma was acting kind of funny and making twitchy faces and spreading her fingers out. She said, ‘This is the first but it’ll not be the last.’ I was frightened then. Norma went into the house and she got a pair of scissors and she put them down her pants. She says, ‘Go and get a pen.’ I said ‘No, what for.’ She says, ‘To write a note on his stomach,’ and I wouldn’t get the pen. She had a Gillette razor blade. It had Gillette on. We went back to the blocks and Norma cut his hair. She tried to cut his leg and his ear with the blade. She tried to show me it was sharp, she took the top of her dress where it was raggie and cut it, it made a slit. A man came down the railway bank with a little girl with long blonde hair, he had a red checked shirt on and blue denim jeans. I walked away. She hid the razor blade under a big, square concrete block. She left the scissors beside him. She got out before me over the grass on to Scotswood Road. I couldn’t run on the grass cos I just had my black slippers on. When we got along a bit she says, ‘May, you shouldn’t have done cos you’ll get into trouble’ and I hadn’t done nothing I haven’t got the guts. I couldn’t kill a bird by the neck or throat or anything, it’s horrible that. We went up the steps and went home, I was nearly crying. I said, if Pat finds out she’ll kill you, never mind killing Brian cos Pat’s more like a tomboy. She’s always climbing in the old buildings and that. Later on I was helping to look for Brian and I was trying to let on to Pat that I knew where he was on the blocks, but Norma said, ‘He’ll not be over there, he never goes there,’ and she convinced Pat he wasn’t there. I got shouted in about half past seven and I stayed in. I got woke up about half past eleven and we stood at the door as Brian had been found: The other day Norma wanted to get put in a home. She says will you run away with us and I said no. She says if you get put in a home and you feed the little ones and murder them then run away again. Mary’s statement had some partial truths but for the most part was a transparent attempt to blame Norma. Dobson formally charged Mary Bell with the murder of Brian Howe. "That’s all right with me," she replied. He then arrested Norma Bell, who in anger to the charge, declared, "I never. I’ll pay you back for this." ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The girls were incarcerated at the Newcastle West End police station. Their upcoming trial would attract the attention of a fascinated, yet horrified nation. Investigators now looked at the mysterious death of Martin Brown as a homicide. In fact, Mary Bell’s behavior after Martin’s death was so flagrant, it was a wonder she hadn’t been apprehended sooner. Perhaps Brian Howe’s life would have been spared. But, as one local boy said, everyone knew Mary was a "show-off," and her screams "I am a murderer!" had simply been laughed at. Even before Martin’s death, other children were being hurt by Mary. On May 11, 1968, a three-year-old boy was found behind some empty sheds near a pub, bleeding from the head. He was found by Norma Bell and Mary Bell. The boy was a cousin of Mary’s. He had "fallen" off a ledge, landing several feet below. Mary would later admit to having pushed him over the edge. The following day, three girls who were playing by the Nursery were attacked by Mary, with Norma nearby. One of the girls said that Mary "put her hands around my neck and squeezed hard. . . . The girl [Mary] took her hands off my neck and she did the same to Susan." The police were soon called. Norma stated that "Mary went to the other girl and said, ‘What happens if you choke someone, do they die?’ Then Mary put both hands round the girl’s throat and squeezed. The girl started to go purple. . . . I then ran off and left Mary. I’m not friends with her now." According to the official report on May 15, "The girls Bell have been warned as to their future conduct." Ten days later Martin Brown was killed. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Martin was last seen at approximately 3:15 pm, and was discovered at 3:30, lying on the floor of a boarded-up house. Three boys foraging for some scrap wood had found the child on his back next to a window, with blood and saliva trickling down the side of his cheek and chin. Panicked, they called out to the construction workers outside, who remembered giving little Martin some biscuits earlier that day. They raced up the stairs and tried to revive him, but Martin was already dead. One of the boys noticed Mary Bell and a friend coming toward the house, and stopped directly below the window. "Shall we go up?" said Mary. They squeezed through boards to get inside. Mary had brought Norma to show her that she had killed Martin. But they were told to go away. The girls then went to find Martin’s aunt to tell her that there had been an accident, that they thought it was Martin, and that there was "blood all over." "I’ll show you where it is," said Mary to the distraught woman. Strangely, the police could not find any signs of violence. A bottle of aspirin was nearby -- perhaps he ate them all. There were no visible strangulation marks or any other marks on the child, and therefore the authorities believed his death was accidental. The Criminal Investigation Department was not called in. The official report on Martin Brown declared the "cause of death open." But the Scotswood community couldn’t simply let go of the tragic death, so they marched and protested against the dangerous conditions of the condemned buildings in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the true menace of Scotswood, Mary and Norma, were giving Martin’s aunt the creeps with their prying questions. "They kept asking me, ‘Do you miss Martin?’ and ‘Do you cry for him?’ and ‘Does June miss him?’ and they were always grinning. In the end I could stand it no more and told them to get out and not to come back." "I wanted to see him in his coffin" Martin’s mother June Brown was also bothered by the girls. After hearing a knock, June opened the front door to find Mary standing there. "Mary smiled and asked to see Martin. I said, ‘No, pet, Martin is dead.’ She turned round and said, ‘Oh, I know he’s dead. I wanted to see him in his coffin,’ and she was still grinning. I was just speechless that such a young child should want to see a dead baby and I just slammed the door on her." Mary’s ominous behavior was by no means exclusive to Martin’s grieving family. On Sunday, the day following Martin’s death, Mary celebrated her eleventh birthday by trying to throttle Norma Bell’s younger sister. Fortunately, Norma’s father saw Mary’s stranglehold on the girl. "I chopped Mary’s hands away," he said, "and gave her a clip on the shoulder." But the day wasn’t over yet. The next morning the staff at the Day Nursery at Woodlands Crescent would make a chilling discovery On Monday morning, May 27 the teachers at the Day Nursery, on Woodlands Crescent at the end of Whitehouse Road, arrived to find the school ransacked. School supplies were strewn about recklessly, and cleaning materials had been splattered on the floor. But the most disturbing discovery was the four scribbled notes left behind: Note, police evidence "I murder so THAT I may come back" "fuch of we murder watch out Fanny and Faggot" "we did murder Martain brown Fuckof 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 Srcews" Police took the notes back to the station and filed them away as a sick joke. Mary would later admit they wrote the notes "for a giggle." Because this wasn’t the first break-in at the Nursery, the school installed an alarm system. On Friday of the same week, the newly-installed alarm sounded off at Nursery. Mary Bell and Norma Bell were caught red-handed, but denied breaking in before. Released to the custody of their parents, a date was set for them to appear at Juvenile Court. A week later, Mary attacked Norma near the Nursery sandpit. A boy saw Mary scratch her friend and kick her in the eye, but only laughed when he heard Mary scream, "I am a murderer!" She pointed in direction of house where Martin Brown was found. "That house over there, that’s where I killed . . ." Since Mary was well known as a show-off, he didn’t take her ominous bragging seriously. Toward the end of July, before Brian Howe’s murder, Mary visited the Howe household, and declared "I know something about Norma that will get her put away straight away." She told them her secret: "Norma put her hands on a boy’s throat. It was Martin Brown -- she pressed and he just dropped." To make her point, she grabbed her own throat in a choking gesture, then left. It would be a few days later that Mary would strangle the Howe’s own child. This insatiable need to "show and tell" her deadly crimes would be acted out upon another innocent babe. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Murder isn’t that bad, we all die sometime anyway." -- Mary Bell ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The first night in their small jails cells in Newcastle West End police station, the girls were restless. "They kept shouting to each other through the doors," said one of the police women who watched the children. The police station was not accustomed to housing child offenders, and they had to make provisions as best as they could. "We finally told them to shut up. At one moment I heard Mary shout out angrily about her mother." Mary, who had been a chronic bedwetter, was terrified of going to sleep, for fear that she might mess her bed. "I usually do," she confided. At home, Mary’s mother severely humiliated her whenever she wet the bed, rubbing her daughter’s face in the pool of urine, said Mary, years later. She then hung the mattress outside for the entire neighborhood to see. During the course of her incarceration, the women guards got to know Mary better, describing her as confident, intelligent and "cheeky." Some of Mary’s casual comments would shock the police women, but others saw her as a scared little girl who had no comprehension of the enormity of her actions. In the middle of the night Mary would "bolt upright." Mary’s hostility had an almost naive quality: while tightly grabbing a stray cat by the neck, a guard told her not to hurt the cat. Mary allegedly replied, "Oh, she doesn’t feel that, and anyway, I like hurting little things that can’t fight back." In another incident, a police woman said that Mary said she’d like to be a nurse, "because then I can stick needles into people. I like hurting people." ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If her parents were somehow responsible for young Mary’s behavior, she would not talk about it. She had been taught to keep quiet, especially around authority figures. Her father, Billy Bell, had lived with the family, but the children (Mary and her younger brother and sister) were instructed to always call him "uncle," so that their mother could collect government assistance. Billy Bell was a thief, and the mother, Betty Bell, was a prostitute who was often away in Glasgow on "business." Because of the family’s shady vocations, Newcastle Welfare authorities knew very little about Mary’s family. If she had broken her silence and told them of her abusive home life, would she earned a more sympathetic analysis? "I’ve seen a lot of psychopathic children," said Dr. Orton, the first to see her during her incarceration. "But I’ve never met one like Mary: as intelligent, as manipulative, or as dangerous." During the murder trial, Mary’s behavior would do little to harvest sympathy. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mary Bell and Norma Bell were brought to trial for the murder of Martin Brown and Brian Howe at the Newcastle Assizes Moothall on December 5th 1968. The trial would last nine days. The media attention, although mild by today’s sensationalist standards, was generating increasing interest as the trial progressed -- by the final day the press was everywhere. Despite attempts to make the court proceedings less threatening to the children, both Norma and Mary were bewildered. Mary appeared to be attentive, but later admitted the whole thing was a "blur." On the sixth day Mary was called to the stand. Mary was composed and brimming with rationale. Why did Mary ask to see Martin Brown in his coffin? "We were daring each other and one of us did not want to be a chicken or something. . . ." she explained. On drawing in her school notebook Martin’s body with an incriminating knowledge of the crime scene: "Rumours," she said. Both denied any responsibility for Martin Brown, but both acknowledged they had been together with Brian on the day he died. According to Mary, a maniacal Norma strangled Brian. When asked if she was afraid that Norma might kill her, Mary boldly replied, "She would not dare -- Because I would turn around and punch her one." Norma’s grim version of the events, however, were closer to the truth: "May [Mary’s nickname] told Brian to lie down," and then "started to hurt him." Norma demonstrated how Mary pinched Brian’s nose. He started turning purple and tried to push Mary’s hand away. "When she was really hurting him she said, ‘Norma, take over, my hands are getting thick.’" But Norma left, she tearfully claimed, while Brian was still alive. She then went to her friend’s house, where they made pom-poms (an odd activity after witnessing murder.) If Norma was truly disturbed by Mary’s behavior, why did she return with Mary to make marks on Brian’s body? Mary brought scissors with her because she wanted "to make him baldy." She also had a razor blade to cut into Brian’s belly. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The conviction was obvious -- Mary would get either Murder or Manslaughter. Although there was more sympathy for Norma, it was still unclear how severe her punishment, if any, would be. The defense needed to show that Mary was disturbed, and couldn’t help herself, nor understand the enormity of her actions. After the children’s testimony, the defense called the psychiatrists who had examined Mary. Dr. Robert Orton testified that "I think that this girl must be regarded as suffering from psychopathic personality," demonstrated by "a lack of feeling quality to other humans," and "a liability to act on impulse and without forethought." Legally, this was an question of "Diminished Responsibility." Judge Cusack explained the concept to the jury: "In 1957 there was an Act of Parliament and it said that . . . ‘where a person kills, or is a party to the killing of another, he shall not be convicted of Murder if he was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind, or any inherent causes, or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts." The jury, took under four hours to return a verdict. Norma was thrilled when she was found "not guilty" of Manslaughter on both counts. Mary Bell was found "guilty of Manslaughter because of Diminished Responsibility" in both Martin’s and Brian’s death. Justice Cusack pronounced a sentence of "Detention for Life" while Mary cried, uncomforted by her family. Her detention would be for an indeterminate amount of time. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Norma Bell was later given three years probation for breaking and entering the Woodlands Crescent Nursery, and placed under psychiatric supervision. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The question of where Mary should be placed sent everyone scrambling. Prison was out of the question for an eleven-year-old. Mental hospitals weren’t equipped to take her. She was too dangerous for institutions that housed troubled children. Eventually, the precocious murderess ended up in "all boys" facility. There would be problems down the road when puberty hit. Mary’s incarceration is fascinating because at some point she apparently "reformed." When she was released at age 23, she went on with her life and had a daughter of her own. She claims to be a completely different person than the "psychopathic" child killer she once was. Mary Bell was housed at the Red Bank Special Unit from February 1969 until November 1973. Red Bank was a reform school, a portion of which was high security. By most accounts the institution was a well-designed and reasonably comfortable facility, with a supportive staff, headed by James Dixon, a former Navy man who was known for his strong moral influence. Mr. Dixon provided structure and discipline for Mary, and she came to respect and love him. If Mary had been in the stranglehold of an evil, immoral mother, Mr. Dixon filled the role of the benevolent, strong father figure which was lacking in her life. She loved Billy Bell (who was not her biological father, but was in her life from the beginning) but as a thief, he was not an ideal role model. When he was convicted of armed robbery in 1969, his visits to Mary ended. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mary Bell, Age 16, while incarcerated In 1970, Mary reported to a counselor she had been sexually assaulted by a housemaster, but her account was considered unreliable (although changes in staff were made soon hereafter.) Later, in 1972, she began "provoking the boys" and snuck into the boys’ dormitory at night. She wounded herself with self-inflicted cuts. At sixteen she was moved to a prison, which was a traumatic experience not only for the confused and angry teenager, but for the staff as well. After being transferred to a less secure facility in 1977, Mary escaped. She, was picked up, along with a fellow escapee, by two young men. In her brief time out, Mary lost her virginity. The guy she slept with later sold his story to the tabloids, and claimed she escaped from jail so she could get pregnant. Mary was moved to a hostel a few months before her parole in 1980. Mary Bell was released May 14, 1980, and stayed in Suffolk. Her first job was in the local children’s nursery, but the probation officers deemed this inappropriate work for her. She took waitress jobs, and attended a university, but was too discouraged to stick with it. After moving back in with mother, she met a young man and became pregnant. There was great concern over whether the woman who had murdered two children should be able to become a mother herself, yet she fought for the right to keep her child, which was born in 1984. Mary claims to have a new awareness of her crimes from the birth of her child. She was allowed to keep the child, who was technically a ward of the court until 1992. "If there was something wrong with me when I was a child, there wasn’t now. I felt that if they could X-ray me inside, they could see that anything broken had been fixed," she insisted. Somehow, Mary Bell had made a transition, without appropriate psychiatric treatment, from a child killer to loving mother. Her years in reform school and prison yielded sexual abuse and drug addiction, yet she claims to have a new moral consciousness and deep sorrow for her crimes. She eventually met a man and fell in love, then settled in a small town. But the probation officer had to inform the local authorities of her presence, and soon the villagers were marching through the street with "Murderer Out!" signs. She lived in constant fear of being exposed. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mary witnessed her five years old friends getting killed by a bus at the age of six ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Perhaps the greatest tragedy, if true, are Betty’s use of Mary during her prostitution. What is calls "one of the worst cases of child sexual abuse I have ever encountered," Sereny recounts the horrors that Mary had to endure as her mother’s sexual prop. No other relatives, including Mary’s younger brother, were aware of this abuse, or would confirm it. Yet this would certainly help to explain Mary’s erratic behavior. If she had been violated herself, the need to violate others might incite her to the abuse of her own little victims. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ As a child, Mary was described as very manipulative and intelligent. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________