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These chilling true accounts of kids who have killed
other kids span throughout time and across nations.
D E A D LY G A M E S
A detailed look at some of the
most sinister and dangerous
children who have ever lived
MATT LAMINATION w/ SPOT GLOSS UV
D E A D LY G A M E S
Inspired by the horrifying murder of 2-year-old James
Bulger by two 10-year-olds, the authors examine cases
from Australia and around the world, including the
shockingly frequent US school shootings, showing that
this taboo topic is by no means a modern phenomenon.
GABRIELLE O’REILLY
AND LIZ FR AME
Visit our website
www.echopublishing.com.au
GABRIELLE O’REILLY AND LIZ FR AME
TRUE CRIME
Gabrielle O’Reilly was born in Melbourne and raised in
Brisbane where she attended Griffith University and completed
a PhD in biochemistry. Gabrielle’s current research interests are
historical unsolved true crimes and family genealogy. She lives in
Toowoomba with her four children.
Liz Frame was born and raised in Sydney and studied English and
History at the University of New England in Armidale. She has a
passion for true crime, motorbikes and playing sport, particularly
soccer and cricket. Liz teaches history and English in Toowoomba.
D E A D LY
GAME S
kids who kill kids
GABRIELLE O’REILLY AND LIZ FRAME
Echo Publishing
A division of Bonnier Publishing Australia
12 Northumberland Street, South Melbourne
Victoria 3205 Australia
www.echopublishing.com.au
Copyright © Gabrielle O’Reilly and Liz Frame, 2016
All rights reserved. Echo Publishing thank you for buying an
authorised edition of this book. In doing so, you are supporting
writers and enabling Echo Publishing to publish more books
and foster new talent. Thank you for complying with copyright
laws by not using any part of this book without our prior written
permission, including reproducing, storing in a retrieval system,
transmitting in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, scanning or distributing.
First published 2016
Edited by Kyla Petrilli
Cover design by Luke Causby, Blue Cork
Front cover image: © Stephen Mulcahey / Trevillion Images
Internal images pp 31, 45, 57, 180, 191: www.murderpedia.com
p37: www.unknownmisandry.blogspot.com
Part opening image © Shutterstock
Page design by Shaun Jury
Typeset in Minion and Din Condensed
Printed in Australia at Griffin Press.
Only wood grown from sustainable regrowth forests is used in the
manufacture of paper found in this book.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: O’Reilly, Gabrielle F., author.
Title: Deadly games : kids who kill kids / Gabrielle O’Reilly and
Liz Frame.
ISBN: 9781760401443 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781760401450 (epub)
ISBN: 9781760401467 (mobi)
Subjects: Murderers.
Juvenile delinquents.
Victims of juvenile crime.
Murder–Anecdotes.
Other Creators/Contributors:
Frame, Liz, author.
Dewey Number: 364.1523
Twitter/Instagram: @echo_publishing
Facebook: facebook.com/echopublishingAU
To Sylvia: for taking the time to support us in this
endeavour and providing us valuable feedback.
To the memory of all children who have been the victims
of murderous crime throughout the ages.
May they rest in peace.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION1
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
MINORS ON A MISSION
Jon Venables & Robert Thompson, England, 1993
7
LITTLE GEORGE
James Bradley & Peter Barratt, England, 1861
11
HUSH LITTLE BABY
Marie-Françoise Bougaran, France, 1865
Agnes Norman, England, 1871
Ida Schnell, Germany, 1906
17
STRANGE, STRANGER, STRANGEST
Jesse Pomeroy, America, 1871
23
PRETTY CORPSES
Ella Holdridge, America, 1892
35
MAYBE . . . MAYBE NOT
Francis Kluxen, America, 1921
George Stinney, America, 1944
39
A CURSED CLAN
Francis Medaille, America, 1958
Michael Skakel, America, 1974
47
SUGAR AND SPICE
Mary Flora Bell, England, 1968
55
AGE OF INNOCENCE
Alfred Jessop, Australia, 1969
61
NEIGHBOURHOOD NIGHTMARE
Helen Patricia Moore, Australia, 1978
65
POLITE PREDATOR
Jason Gamache, Canada, 1992
71
WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
Eric Smith, America, 1993
79
FORGIVE AND FORGET
Little Silje’s Killers, Norway, 1994
87
DOOR-TO-DOOR DEATH
Sam Manzie, America, 1997
93
MACABRE99
Sakakibara Seito, Japan, 1997
THREE STRIKES
Josh Phillips, America, 1998
103
THE ATTENTION-SEEKER
Lionel Tate, America, 1999
107
CHILDISH INTENT
Courtney Morley-Clarke’s Killer, Australia, 2001
113
COPYCAT119
Luke Mitchell, Scotland, 2003
ENIGMA123
Michael Hernandez, America, 2004
SHAMELESS AND NAMELESS
The Collie Killers, Australia, 2006
127
SORDID SECRETS Amarjeet Sada, India, 2007
Shoaib, Pakistan, 2014
131
TOXIC137
Alyssa Bustamante, America, 2009
BLOODY GENES? Matthew Meuleman, Australia, 2010
145
DELIBERATE DETACHMENT
Aiwa Matsuo, Japan, 2014
149
HIT THE TARGET
CAIN AND ABEL
Pitoomee Family, America, 1735
Unnamed Boy, England, 2000
Kevin Madden, Canada, 2003
155
POOR REVENGE
William York, England, 1748
163
TOUGH TIMES AND TOUGHER KIDS
John Amy Bird Bell, England, 1831
167
LIVERPOOL LADS
Alfred Fitz & John Breen, England, 1855
Robert Shearon & Samuel Crawford, England, 1891
173
THE SIX SHOOTERS
Carl Newton Mahan, America, 1929
Dedrick Owens, America, 2000
179
COOL KILLER
Richard Kuklinski, America, 1948
183
BURNT OFFERINGS
Melinda Loveless, America, 1990
193
FRIENDS WITH NO BENEFITS Kelly Ellard, Canada, 1997
199
CHILD’S PLAY
Corey Davis’s Killer, Australia, 1998
205
EVIL INCARNATE
Justina Morley, America, 2003
209
DEADLY WAGER
Josh Davies, Wales, 2010
213
PRETTY JEALOUS
Qin, China, 2014
217
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE
Quinn de Campe’s Killers, Australia, 2014
219
CLASSMATE TARGETS
BANG BANG
1880–1910
1950–1970
225
NAZIPHILE231
Roger Needham, America, 1978
SNAP – PAYBACK Nathan Faris, America, 1987
Barry Loukaitis, America, 1996
237
SMALL SNIPERS
Mitchell Johnson & Andrew Golden, America, 1998
243
MARGINALISED MADNESS OR SCHEMED SLAUGHTER?
Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold, America, 1999
247
DRIVE-BY255
William Morton, America, 2008
MAGNETIC ATTRACTION
Teah Wimberly, America, 2008
259
THE LAST WORD 265
BIBLIOGRAPHY267
INTRODUCTION
BEFORE YOU start to read this book it is probably best to tell you that
it is not for the fainthearted. Some of these stories are sad and
shocking; sad because the innocent victims in all these stories are
children, and shocking because the people who committed the
murders are also children, and often quite young. It may test your
faith in, or at least cause you to question, the inherent innocence of
children. Perhaps you may even conclude that some kids are born
evil and are capable of bad things. At least, that is how it was for
us as we researched each of these particular stories, some known,
most unknown.
True crime has always been a great interest of ours and we
wanted to explore an area that has often gone untouched because
people are either unaware of it or it is simply something too painful
that we just do not talk about. The catalyst for our research was the
murder of toddler James Bulger in 1993 by two 10-year-old boys:
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson.
This abhorrent crime of young children deliberately killing
a toddler struck a chord with society. We were shocked, almost
numbed, that in a modern and civilised society on the cusp of
the twenty-first century, we had progressed to the stage where a
young child could be ruthlessly killed by other young children.
Because of our innate belief that children are born good, we needed
to somehow rationalise this crime and therefore we sought answers
to explain such an appalling tragedy. We questioned if society,
with its changing values and family dynamics, was in some way to
1
DEADLY GAMES
blame. We questioned if the violence so frequently seen in movies
and console games was somehow responsible for turning two
little boys into two monsters. When it comes to children who kill,
we assumed that it must have everything to do with the parents
and the child’s upbringing as we sought answers to explain such
atrocious behaviours. Professionals analysed everything about killer
children in a desperate attempt to find the cause of their criminal
behaviour. If we were still a God-fearing society we would have
probably blamed the devil – anything except believe that maybe
not all children are born good and perhaps some children are just
born lacking any moral consciousness. What if there are no specific
causes, no definite answers as to why kids kill kids? What if some
children are simply born predisposed to kill? The awful truth is that
the wilful torture and murder of little James Bulger by two young
boys, a case that made society seek answers to what was deemed
an extraordinary crime, is not a modern-day phenomenon. In fact,
it is nothing new.
Children, whether we like to admit it or not, are capable of
many things. Some of these things are those that we dread to
think about. Just like adults throughout history, children have
committed unspeakable acts for no apparent reason. Children or
young teenagers have been killing other children for centuries and
will likely continue to do so in the future. These killers can be boys
or girls, victims of abuse or from loving homes, children of today or
children of yesteryear. Cases of children killing other children span
across centuries and continents with no clear pattern or cause. The
truth may well be that in some instances, children are born innately
bad and they do shocking and disturbing things. In other instances,
children also do shocking things because they are children, and
their sense of right and wrong and understanding about controlling
impulses has not yet matured.
What is interesting is how some of these murders of the past
bear striking similarities in their motives and events to those
2
INTRODUCTION
committed more recently. Regardless of the time or place, the crimes
are the same, and it is the punishment or sentences handed down
that differ.
This book aims to present cases, dating back as early as 1735,
that reveal that over the course of history, children have wilfully
killed other children.
The book is split into three sections. The first section, by far the
largest, involves young children who desired to experience the fun
of the kill and the game of not getting caught. These opportunistic
predators did not care who their victims were, enjoying not only
the hands-on kill, but the torture beforehand and sometimes the
mutilation afterwards. Their victims were random, or at the very
least, unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In contrast, the second section involves children who have killed
particular targets for specific reasons, albeit in some instances fairly
trifling ones. They have killed out of annoyance, anger, hurt or
jealousy. In some cases theft has been the motive.
The final section also presents cases where children have killed
specific targets out of anger, hurt or wounded pride. The main
difference here is that all of these cases involve shootings at schools
in America – a country with no gun laws in place. Historical cases
in this section dispel the misconception that school tragedies are a
disease of modern-day society. However, these examples do reveal
that by the 1990s it was at a whole new and terrible level.
What this book does not aim to do is to explore the reasons
behind the killings, be they psychological or societal. We have tried
to focus on the crimes of the children and the punishment that
was meted out. As far as we can ascertain through extensive hours
of research, all the facts are accurate. Of course, we have taken
some liberties in attempting to bring these crimes to life in order
to understand them better. It has not been our intention to judge
or cast dispersions on the families of these murderous children. We
have recalled the facts as they have been presented throughout our
3
DEADLY GAMES
research and we have categorised these cases based on the motives,
or lack of motives, of the killers.
Writing these stories was not easy, but it has been fascinating
to see what it revealed about murderous children, and how the
country and era chose to deal with them. The consequences for the
perpetrators have varied from execution to merely changing schools.
In many instances the children were placed in a reformatory school
and given an education and counselling to assist them in re-entering
society as functioning citizens. Alternatively, they were sentenced
to a substantial term in jail. There are incidents that suggest that in
some children, their murderous ways are innate. The hard, cold fact
is that children have always killed other children and will probably
continue to do so.
4
FOR THE
THRILL OF IT
MINORS ON A MISSION
Jon Venables & Robert Thompson,
England, 1993
WHEN PEOPLE think of shocking murders of innocent people, some
of the killers that remain etched in memories for years to come
because of their unspeakable cruelty and motives include Martin
Bryant, who randomly executed dozens touring the Port Arthur
Historic site; Jeffrey Dahmer, the homosexual capable of necrophilia
and cannibalism; the Moors Murderers, torturers of small children;
Fred and Rosemary West, sadistic sexual predators of their own
children; and Ivan Milat, a man so cruel his victims were used for
target practice. On a larger scale, people remain saddened, disgusted
and outraged by events such as the flying of two planes into the
Twin Towers, the mass genocide of the Kurds or the terrorist attack
in the plane over Lockerbie.
While acknowledging all of these atrocities, one crime that truly
cut deeply into the psyche of society was the murder of two-yearold James Bulger in 1993, because now the world was witnessing
young children killing other young children for no apparent reason
other than for the fun of it. The names of two 10-year-old boys,
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who so unashamedly and
callously tortured, assaulted and murdered an innocent toddler,
will be immortalised.
On 12 February 1993, James Patrick Bulger disappeared from
the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Merseyside, England,
just six kilometres from the heart of Liverpool. The little boy
was shopping with his mother, Denise, who had ducked into the
7
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
butchers to pick up some chops for dinner. Denise was momentarily
distracted by a mix-up with her order, which was just at the time
that James wandered to the open doorway of the shop. Jon and
Robert went over to the little boy, spoke to him quite openly and
then wilfully took him by the hand and led him out of the centre.
The shopping centre was somewhat quiet that day, but it was
still busy enough for two 10-year-old boys who had truanted school
to wander openly around, shoplifting, and later searching for a
small child to lure away, unnoticed. The boys didn’t necessarily
set out that day to abduct a child, as their morning focus had been
on shoplifting trivial items from several local stores. One item of
particular note was a tin of blue modelling paint. It was sometime
during these thefts that the child delinquents made the wicked
decision to kidnap a toddler.
The child was reported missing by his frantic mother as soon as
she realised he was gone. CCTV cameras were able to determine
through grainy footage that her son had been led out of the
shopping centre by two unidentified boys. Police studied the video
for hours but were unable to determine clear profiles of the boys. In
desperation, these grainy images were released to the public in the
hope that someone could provide a clue to the whereabouts of the
small boy. It was this coverage that eventually led to the conviction
of the kidnappers.
Two days after James was abducted, his severed body was found
beside a disused railway line near the Walton and Anfield station.
His shoes, trousers and underpants had been removed, batteries
had been forced into his mouth and he had blue modelling paint
on parts of his body, a telling clue as to who the culprits were. His
fragile body had been repeatedly kicked and stomped on. His skull
had been fractured in several places by a large iron bar and bricks
that the boys had smashed repeatedly on his body in a vicious
frenzy. When the barrage of assaults was over, they had thrown
their makeshift weapons near his broken body. Finally, his body
8
MINORS ON A MISSION
had been laid across a working railway line, his head deliberately
weighted with rubble, in the hope that it would look like he had
been accidently hit by a train. Perhaps it is some small consolation
that pathologists were able to determine that James was dead before
his body was cut in half by a train. The injuries were so bad – 42
altogether – that pathologists were unable to determine which one
had led to James’s death.
When an anonymous member of the public came forward via
a phone call, the police had their breakthrough. The person had
recognised Jon Venables from a slightly enhanced image. She was
a friend of Jon’s mother and she knew that Jon had truanted school
with Robert Thompson on the day in question, and also that he had
returned home that same afternoon with blue paint on his clothing.
Police went to both houses to talk to each of the boys. Both boys
set about blaming each other after they were arrested. Interestingly,
Robert Thompson remained calm and cool, all the while accusing
Jon Venables of the assault upon James. Thompson maintained that
he was trying to save the toddler. Young Robert had become a very
skilled liar through his years of stealing and truancy and it seemed
that he was going to stay true to his character. In comparison, Jon
was crying and hysterical and asserted that Robert was the bad one.
Finally, after being told by his parents that they would love him
no matter what, Jon confessed to killing James Bulger. Although
Robert never made a confession, police had enough evidence to
charge both boys with murder.
During the long trial, it was established through a number
of eyewitness reports that the trio had passed at least 38 people
on their four-kilometre journey – a long death march for a twoyear-old. Several of the eyewitnesses had actually commented on
James’s crying, but the kidnappers simply used their own charm
and innocence to fool witnesses into thinking the little boy was
their brother who didn’t want to go home. One woman who was
walking her dog saw a distressed child with lumps on his head, and
9
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
ordered the boys to take him home. Another witness was alleged
to have pulled the curtains when she saw a small child crying after
an older child punched him in the ribs. It goes without saying that
these witnesses all blame themselves for not intervening; although
of course, none of them could have ever known what fate lay in
store for the frightened boy.
Although the sentencing procedure was difficult, ultimately, the
two boys were found guilty on 24 November 1993 and sentenced
to a minimum of eight years to be served separately in different
remand homes, one of which was the same as that of Mary Flora
Bell (see page 55).
Naturally, because of the ferocity and malice of the crime, there
was great outrage at this minimum sentence, and after an appeal, the
original sentence was overturned and the boys were to be detained
until they were 25 years of age. This too was overturned and the
original sentence was reinstated. This caused great anguish and
outrage for people in Britain and around the world. However, these
criminals were children and as such were tried and sentenced as
children, in the hope they could be rehabilitated. Both boys were
released after they turned 18, and given new identities and places
to live.
It would appear that rehabilitation in this case was perhaps not
fully successful, especially when we consider that Jon Venables was
returned to jail for breaching his terms of release by downloading
and distributing child pornography in 2010. After serving minimal
time he was released in 2013.
10
LITTLE GEORGE
James Bradley & Peter Barratt,
England, 1861
TO MANY, Thursday, 11 April 1861 was a significant date as it marked
the day the government of the Confederate states in America
demanded the evacuation of Fort Sumter, which triggered the
American Civil War. But on the other side of the world, such
news most probably would have gone almost unnoticed by the
community of Stockport in England, for they were dealing with
their own tragedy on that day – the brutal death of two-year-old
toddler George Burgess.
Little George was the eldest child of Ralph and Hannah Burgess
and already had two younger brothers, William aged one and baby
Ralph who was three months old. At the time of Ralph’s birth,
George had been moved from the family home at 179 Baguley
Street, Higher Hillgate, to stay in the full-time care of a nurse by
the name of Sarah Ann Warren, who lived one street away from
the Burgess home and across the road from the Starr Inn. It is not
known exactly why George was not in the family home but it is
fairly easy to imagine that his mother may not have been coping
well with three infants for a variety of reasons. We will also never
know if the arrangement with Sarah Ann Warren was intended to
be a temporary or permanent one. George’s father Ralph visited him
often and had even seen him that Thursday afternoon innocently
playing with a friend on wasteland near the Starr Inn.
While the two toddlers played, another pair of young lads in the
town had something else planned for their day and it was anything
11
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
but innocent. James Bradley and his friend Peter Barratt were both
eight years old. James was the second child of John and Eliza Bradley.
He had an elder brother Joseph and two younger siblings, Sarah and
Ellis. The family lived in Higher Barlow Row, an area known for
those employed in the hat industry. Not surprisingly, John Bradley
was a hat washer for Christys. The Barratt family lived a few blocks
away, where Peter Barratt senior ran a hairdressing business. He and
his wife Mary Ann had three children: Peter and his two younger
sisters, Emma and Mary. Young Peter and James rarely, if ever,
attended school and this was quite typical in the Victorian era. Once
a child was eight years of age, they were considered old enough to
help work and contribute to the family. These two did not even
attend Sunday school since they had seen fit to rip two bibles to
pieces and as such were no longer welcome. Clearly James and Peter
were no angels and were perfectly capable of making mischief, but
no one predicted that their mischief could be deadly.
It is unknown what James and Peter did on the morning of that
fateful Thursday in April. Perhaps they worked for their fathers and
only met after lunch. Perhaps they had spent the morning playing
games together like make-believe boats with lumps of wood or a
game of football using a blown-up pig’s bladder from the butcher’s
– all typical toys of the Victorian poor. Or maybe they spent the
morning talking, planning and plotting how to randomly kidnap
and murder a child for the fun of it. What is known is that sometime
after two o’clock, both boys were at the wasteland near the Starr Inn,
luring little George Burgess to his death.
It was James Bradley who held the hand of a crying George as
the boys dragged him down Hempshaw Lane and up Love Lane to
a secluded brook. Here James and Peter stripped George and, using
a thorny branch from a nearby hedge as a makeshift weapon, began
to mercilessly whip him across his back and legs. They also brutally
beat him about the head with sticks. Peter pushed the toddler into
the brook whereupon James fetched him out, not to save the small
12
LITTLE GEORGE
boy, but rather to continue their game. George was again pushed
into the brook, where the older boys continued to beat him until
he was unconscious. A short time later, he was dead. Finished for
the day, James and Peter simply went home.
At lunchtime on Friday, farm labourer John Buckley found
George’s naked, battered body face down in the brook. It was
obvious from the beginning that the death of George had not merely
been an unfortunate accidental drowning. Because of his young
age, George was incapable of removing all of his clothing and since
the items were found very dry and several metres away from his
body, clearly others had been involved. It did not take police long
to make enquiries and discover that both James and Peter had been
seen with George that day.
On Saturday evening, a policeman visited the Barratt household
and interviewed Peter. He then took Peter to the Bradley house
where he spoke to both boys in the presence of James Bradley’s
father, John. The boys confessed to the crime, openly speaking of
how they undressed ‘it’ and then threw ‘it’ in the waterhole and hit
‘it’ with sticks until ‘it’ was dead. In fact, the investigating officer
also referred to little George as ‘it’. Using ‘it’ may be considered
derogatory by today’s standards, but perhaps the term ‘it’ was used
then just as today we use ‘deceased’ as a way of keeping the victim
nameless. Perhaps it is a way of distancing ourselves from the horror
of the crime so that we can deal with it. Following their confession,
both young boys were apprehended.
The jury of the coronial inquest found enough evidence for
the boys to stand trial for murder. It took months before their
actual court hearing at the Chester Assizes took place. No doubt
all present at the hearing would have been quite astonished when
the prisoners were brought in. At only eight years of age, both boys’
heads hardly appeared over the dock. Under instruction, both Peter
and James made a plea of ‘not guilty’ and the jury, in less than half
an hour, returned a verdict of manslaughter in the hope that the
13
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
judge would show leniency. The judge, more than happy to oblige,
sent them both to prison for one month and then to a reformatory
for five years.
James was sent to the Bradwall Reformatory, where records
describe him as 8½ years old and of a height of 3 feet 9½ inches
(1.16 metres). It was also noted that he could neither read nor write.
The Bradwall Reformatory was established by George Latham in
1855 with the financial assistance of neighbouring nobility. It was
considered a progressive institution and could accommodate 60
boys over the age of 11 years. James was to be the only exception
to this age rule.
The focus at Bradwall was to provide children a moral
environment that enabled the boys to gain skills through hard
physical work as well as a basic education. The boys were taught
the skills needed to carry out draining, hedging and ditching but
they were encouraged to learn any other skill that interested them.
If they worked well, they could even be paid for their labour. They
also learnt to cook and clean and were schooled for three hours a
day. Not only were the inmates taught basic literacy and numeracy,
they were offered more advanced subjects if they wanted them. Of
course, being of this era, religious instruction was a vital component
of their daily routine. The boys were clothed and fed, housed in
dormitories and allowed to receive visitors. In some instances they
were even allowed to leave Bradwall and visit home. If punishments
were deemed necessary, the boys would be confined to a room, as
corporal punishment was considered inappropriate.
It was in this environment that James Bradley spent the next
4½ years of his life before being discharged on 28 January 1866,
six months earlier than his sentence required. He was not quite 13
years of age.
It is not known what became of Peter Barratt but it is probable
that he was sent to a reformatory in Warwickshire that lacked the
progressive standards of Bradwall.
14
LITTLE GEORGE
It would appear from the sentencing that British law deemed
these two murderous minors capable of change. These lads were
fortunate that in 1861 reformatory schools even existed. In the first
half of the nineteenth century, perpetrators of lesser crimes such as
theft were transported to Australia, and those guilty of more serious
offenses were given a death sentence. British society questioned the
executing of children, and so around the middle of the nineteenth
century, reformatory schools were established as the alternative.
***
So here we have a murder that took place 132 years before that of
James Bulger and yet it is eerie how similar the events of the two
crimes are. In both cases, two young boys, no older than 10 years
of age, lured a two-year-old toddler off on a walk with the intention
of having fun at their victim’s expense. In both cases, the toddlers
were undressed, or at least partially, and both involved the battering
of the infant to death. The one major difference between these
events is how the criminals were dealt with. Robert Thompson
and Jon Venables were given twice the sentence time compared to
their Victorian counterparts but were at least given new identities
to save them from public reprisal upon their release.
15
HUSH LITTLE BABY
Marie-Françoise Bougaran,
France, 1865
IN 1865, Monsieur Robinaud, a professor at the College of Brest,
France, took into his employ a young servant girl named MarieFrançoise Bougaran. This 15-year-old girl was deemed most
suitable to care for his three young children. Marie-Françoise
must have been kept awfully busy tending to the needs of a sixmonth-old infant, a two-year-old toddler and a five-year-old child,
in addition to whatever household duties were assigned to her.
Such a load would keep even the most efficient of women, let alone
a teenager, without a moment to spare. Later that year, however,
Marie-Françoise found herself not only with time on her hands,
but also the need to find other lodgings and employment.
In November 1865, all three of the Robinaud children came
down with what only could be described as an extremely virulent
form of gastroenteritis. The extreme vomiting that each child
suffered brought up not only blood but also faecal matter. The
doctors could do little to help and it was not long before all three
children were dead. Marie-Françoise was no longer needed and it
was only a couple of days until she found herself in the employ of
another gentleman in need of her services.
Within a day or two of Marie-Françoise joining her new
household, one of their young children also came down with the
same symptoms as the Robinaud children and died. Such circum­
stances were too coincidental, and suspicion was aroused that all
four of these children had not died of virulent gastroenteritis,
17
FOR THE THRILL OF IT
but rather at the hands of the teen engaged to care for them. This
suspicion was taken to the authorities and Marie-Françoise was
arrested.
Upon being questioned, Marie-Françoise quickly confessed
and openly told of her driving urge and insatiable impulse to kill
the children. She even added that had she not been arrested she
would have continued her deadly game with the other children in
the new household. Marie-Françoise detailed her chosen heinous
method of killing, in which she force-fed the children excrement
and then, using a knife, cut the veins in their throats – from inside
their mouths. Post mortems carried out on the children confirmed
her chilling confession. It is unfathomable the terror the little ones
must have experienced as she forced a knife down the back of their
throats in order to slice their veins.
As for her sentence, Marie-Françoise was spared decapitation by
the guillotine because of her young age and was instead sentenced
to imprisonment for the maximum term allowable: 20 years.
Agnes Norman,
England, 1871
A MERE six years later and across the English Channel, rumour was
rife in London about Agnes Norman, a 16-year-old nursemaid
who had been in the employ of Mr and Mrs William Beer for only
three days. On Good Friday 1871, Mr and Mrs Beer dined out with
friends. They returned home to hear violent screams coming from
upstairs, and found their son lying naked on the bedroom floor
screaming as though he had fallen out of bed. Their 14-month-old
baby girl, Jesse, lay dead, wedged between the bedframe and the
wall. Amongst this chaos, Agnes remained apparently asleep in a
chair. William Beer and his wife were at an utter loss for what had
taken place, because they knew their baby girl had been in good
health when they left that evening. An inquiry into the death of the
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HUSH LITTLE BABY
infant was carried out and the surgeon found that she had indeed
been in good health and free of any sign of disease. He noted,
though, that her face was very red, with two compression marks
on her lips, suggesting she had been suffocated.
Although Mr Beer had no proof of what had actually occurred
that night, his suspicions fell strongly on his teenage nursemaid. He
took his concerns to the police and requested enquiries be made
about Agnes Norman. Detective Millard did some investigating
and found that a year earlier, when Agnes was only 15 years of age,
a family living at Grosvenor Villa had employed her. Two months
into her tenure, a number of animals there had been found dead:
three dogs, a cat, a parrot, several other exotic birds and a number
of goldfish. It was about this time that a lady and her healthy and
robust baby visited the home. Before the day was out, the infant was
found dead, lying on a bed. The family hesitated to accuse Agnes
of anything as grotesque as being responsible for the cause of all
these deaths, but decided to send her away.
The young teen then managed to find herself work in Park Road,
caring for a young infant. On one occasion she returned home
with the child unconscious, and claimed that she had dropped the
child. Three weeks later, she went out with the little one again, only
this time when she returned home, the child was dead. Detective
Millard also learned that after Park Road, she had been employed
in the Temple area, whereupon several domestic animals had died
suddenly. It was also revealed that Charles Parfitt, the 11-year-old
son of the house, was woken by a choking sensation, whereupon
he found Agnes bent over him with one hand over his mouth and
the other around his throat. She offered him money not to tell. In
his investigating, Millard also learned that Agnes had once lived
with two other families whose children had died in a very similar
manner to Jesse Beer. The Taylor family had lost one child and the
Milner family lost a toddler only two and half years old, as well as
their 10-month-old baby.
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FOR THE THRILL OF IT
Such information was enough for the police to arrest Agnes on
suspicion of having caused the death of Jesse Beer, as well as three
other children – those of the Taylor and Milner families. She was
also charged with the attempted murder of Charles Parfitt.
The case was heard and even though it was determined
without a doubt that wherever Agnes Norman went, the deaths of
children followed, the jury did not find her guilty. Although the
circumstantial evidence was overwhelming, the jury deemed it
insufficient to find her guilty of murder. She was sentenced to 10
years of penal servitude for the attempted murder of young Charles
Parfitt, who gave testimony to what she had done to him.
Agnes Norman was incredibly lucky, for had she been found
guilty, she most probably would have received the death penalty.
It is questionable as to whether today such strong circumstantial
evidence would have swayed even the most sceptical of juries to
come to the belief that this mild-mannered young girl spent her
time murdering innocent children. She had no motive to kill, no
revenge or greed, no frustration with the infants crying – just a
repulsive gratification of her own fiendish desires. Although it is
known that Agnes Norman was accused of carrying out murder
at the age of 15 years, one has to wonder at what tender age she
began the slaughter of animals before progressing on to children
in her care.
Ida Schnell,
Germany, 1906
IN 1906, 13-year-old Ida Schnell was caring for the newborn infant
of a peasant proprietor in a community just outside Munich.
Sadly, aged only 14 days old, the baby passed away suddenly and
mysteriously. At that time, it was customary in rural districts for
laymen to sign the death certificate, rather than a doctor, and so no
real cause of death was given. With the legal paperwork taken care
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HUSH LITTLE BABY
of, the baby was buried. One can only guess that people started to
talk and soon put two and two together, for someone eventually
questioned the circumstances surrounding the death of the baby.
The tiny corpse was exhumed for a doctor to examine and it was
discovered that some kind of sharp instrument had penetrated the
newborn baby’s soft skull and this had caused the child’s death.
Having determined that the baby had not died naturally, suspicion
immediately fell upon the person caring for her at the time of death.
Authorities arrested young Ida for questioning and put it to
her that she had been responsible for murdering the child in her
care. Ida, of course, denied this vehemently, claiming she could
never hurt a child let alone a baby. Upon further questioning she
broke down and confessed to not only killing the newborn child
but also five other children that she had been employed to care for.
Ida’s excuse to the authorities was that the crying of the children
repulsed her so much that she was overcome with an excitement
to do something to quiet them. Ida hushed these little babies
by plunging a hairpin into the lower part of the back of the head
until they cried no more. Such an excuse seems questionable
considering the frequency and eagerness with which she silenced
those in her care.
There is no record of what became of Ida Schnell. Was she ever
tried and brought to justice? Did she marry? Did she have children
of her own? One hopes that if she did, maturity taught her how to
play the role of mother and not of God.
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