Famous Cases of Crime

Ever wondered what a ten year old girl is capable of? Did it ever cross ur mind that a ten year old girl could say, " I just like to hurt people" and they really did it? But what this girl did, was far worse than just hitting another, she killed two innocent lives at the age of ten and not only did she kill them, she carved an initial on one of the victim's body and shaved the three year old kid bald just because she thinks its fun. That was what Mary Bell, who was ten in 1968 did to Brian Howe and Martin Brown.



The story goes like this:



Brian Howe's sister, Pat was looking for him as it was already late and Brian had not yet arrived home. Mary had an accomplice, so she claimed, called Norma who was her best friend, both of them volunteered to help Pat locate her missing brother when they know exactly where Brian's body was laying. When Pat wanted to look near a pile of concrete blocks, she was told by Norma that Brian never goes there to play so why bother searching. At 11.10 at night, the Newcastle Police found Brian's body covered with grass and purple weeds, he had been strangled. A pair of broken scissors was also found in the pile of grass, there were punture marks in Brian's thighs, clumps of his hair were cut away and his genitals were partly skinned.



An investigation was carried out to identify the culprit for kids between the age of three and fifteen and among these investigated children, the two that stood out the most suspiciously were Mary and Norma, her best friend. When interrogated, Mary suddenly 'remembered' that she saw an eight year old boy with Brian before Brian went missing. But the funny thing here is this, she described the scissors at the crime of the scene, which was supposed to be confidential, almost perfectly. The scissors had one blade that was a bit bent. When Brian Howe was buried on the seventh of August, Inspector Dobson saw what frightened him the most and what made him sure that he should take Mary into custody, Mary was laughing when she was looking at Brian Howe's coffin. He had to take immediate action before she took another life.



When both of them were questioned, they were blaming each other for the murder. Norma gave her statement that Mary was the one who was responsible for it and actually enjoyed doing so as she ran her fingers on Brian's lips when it turned purple after she strangled him whereas, Mary did not want to give a statement because Inspector Dobson had got on to something when he was questioning Mary and Mary gave contradicting answers.

Mary later then decided to give her statement. She said that Norma was the one who was responsible for Brian Howe's death. Stating that she couldnt even kill a bird by the neck or anything, how could she kill a person. Mary claimed that Norma had asked Brian to follow them to the pile of concrete blocks and had asked him to lie down and later put her hands to his neck and strangled him to death, go home and take a pair of scissor and a shaver to shave Brian's head bald. All of this had some partial truths but Inspector Dobson knew that Mary was attempting to blame Norma for the murder, he then charged both of them for the murder of Brian Howe. Norma was outraged whereas Mary was composed.

Now, investigators look to Martin Brown's mysterious death as a homicide. On May 11, 1968, a three year old boy was found near some empty sheds near a pub, the poor boy's body was found by both Mary and Norma. He was Mary's cousin and it was claimed that Martin had 'fallen' off a ledge but Mary would later admit to having him pushed off the edge. Mary has also been known as a ' show off ' and will always say, " I am a murderer!" and she would be laughed at, no one realised that her actions were actually warning signs to her murder.

Martin's death was further rubbed in to the family when Mary and Norma would go to Martin's aunt house and ask questions like, " do you miss him? Do you cry for him? Does June (Martin's mother) miss him? " and all the while they were grinning when they asked these questions. there was one day when Mary came and asked June, " can i see Martin? " she was told that Martin was dead and Mary replied, " I know Martin's dead, I wanna see him in his coffin. " June shut the door in Mary's face. Mary also clebrated her eleventh birthday by strangling Norma's younger sister but was stopped by Norma's father.

Murderous messages were found in a Day Nursery which was also vandalised by Mary and Norma because to them it was fun. In Mary's notebook, there was a page that illustrated perfectly how Martin's body was found, there was a bottle with pills coming out and it was illustrated in the notebook, but that evidence was never revealed to public. This aroused suspicion.

Story cut short, they were caught and put in jail before their trial. During the trial, they blamed each other for the murders but in the end Mary was found to be guilty and since she had a psychological illness she was not sentenced to death but to life imprisonment while Norma was put on probation only because she broked into the Nursery to vandalise it. During the trial, Mary's mother, who was a prostitute, was being dramatic about it all while Mary's father, a thief, kept a calm look. Mary was sent to an all boy's prison, when she was transferred to an all girl's prison, she became a lesbian. she managed to escape and got pregnant. She was released at the age of twenty three and being a more reponsible person because of her daughter.

Well this is the story of Mary Bell. We wrote on this story because it is not always that you hear a story of a ten year old girl being responsible for the death of two babies.

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