Meet Mary Bell: The 11-Year-Old Serial Killer

In December 1968, an 11-year old British girl was convicted of the murder of two boys called Martin & Brian. This making one of Britain's most famous killers. Mary Bell would strangle her victims, found in a house on St. Margeret's Road.

The girl was convicted of the murders in 1968 when she was judged her accomplice that participated in at least one of the murders was set free of all the charges.

Her Early Life

Mary Bell was born on the 26th of May 1957 in Corbridge, Northumberland, and was the daughter of Elizabeth Bell, who was a well-known prostitute in the neighborhood. Often she was away from home, and the children were left in the care of their father, who was not often present at home.

Mary was the second child of Elizabeth, and she was only 17 years old when Mary was born. The biological father of Mary remains unknown, and for the biggest part of her life, Mary has known her father as William Bell, who was violent, drunk all the time, and a criminal.

Although Elizabeth Bell had gotten multiple children, Mary Bell was unwanted, and according to the hospital personnel, she would have screamed: "Take that thing away from me." the moment she was born.

As a young kid, Mary Bell had many injuries because of household accidents while her mother was at home. This caused people to think that she would neglect her daughter or hurt her on purpose.

With an attempt in 1960 to kill her, she dropped Mary from a window on the first floor, or she would have forced her to swallow a lot of sleeping pills.

One remarkable story is that Elizabeth once sold her daughter Mary to a mentally unstable woman who wanted to have kids but couldn't have them. Eventually, she was given back to her mother.

Once Mary was eligible to go to school, she was very unpredictable and often would show off disturbing behavior like mood swings, and she would fight other children. One of the most disturbing facts that I read was that she would try to suffocate her classmates multiple times.

Because of its behavior, nobody would become friends with Mary. The only friend that she had was the 13-year old neighbor girl.

Extremely Violent Behaviour

On a Saturday in May, a three-year-old boy was walking while bleeding in the streets of Scotswood. Later on, there was discovered, he had been playing with Mary and Norma bell. One of the girls would have pushed him from an air-raid shelter that was seven feet from the ground.

This resulted in severe wounds on his head, and that same evening, parents of three girls had been contacting the police about the fact that Mary and Norma both had been trying to strangle their kids in the sandpit.

When these two girls were interrogated, they both denied anything to do with the air-raid shelter case.

They also asked both of the girls about the strangling incident in the sandpit. Mary denied it again, but Norma explained that Mary wanted to know if people die when you strangle them. She put her arms around the young girl's neck as she started to get purple. She did the same thing with another girl.

As the police noticed her violent behavior, she was only given a warning, but the action was taken.

The Murder of the Young Boys

Mary Bell, in total, murdered two boys who were both four and three years old. She murdered the four-year-old Martin Brown the day before her 11th birthday in a bedroom at St. Margaret's Road.

She committed this murder alone, and Brown's body was found by three children around 3.30 when he laid on his back. Besides all the blood around his mouth, there was no real sign of violence. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation didn't prevail in any detail.

As CPR was performed, Mary and Norma Bell arrived at the room and ran out of the house to knock on the door of the Aunt of Martin to tell her that they 'thought' Martin had an accident.

Brian Howe, a three-year-old boy, was missing. His parents hadn't seen him since the afternoon of the 31st of July 1968. He was playing with Mary and Norma and the family dog when he didn't return that evening, everybody was concerned, and at 11.10, his body was found between two concrete blocks.

The police officer that arrived found the situation suspicious, and he noticed that it looked like someone wanted to get rid of the body. It was concluded that he was strangled to death and dead for about 7 hours before they found him.

There was also noticed that there was a cruel attempt to carve the letter 'M' into the body of Brian.

Investigation & Confessions

When Brian's body was found, around one hundred detectives were assigned to this case, and there were interviewed over 1000 children in the neighborhood. The detectives also questioned Mary and Norma Bell.

People noticed that the two were the last ones to play with Brian before he disappeared. As they were questioned, Norma seemed tensed, but Mary was more observant and quiet.

They both denied any involvement with his death.

On the 4th of August, the father and mother of Norma Bell did contact the police because Norma wanted to confess about the death of Brian.

Norma told them that Mary showed her the body of Brian at 'Tin Lizzie'. Mary showed her how she strangled the boy to death, and the police were shown where Norma murdered Brian.

After that, Mary Bell was confronted at home, and she acted defensive and later on, forensic research showed that there were fibers found on Brian's body that would match Mary's clothes.

Both of the girls were then charged with the murder of Brian but Mary told them that she was the one who did it. Norma then told her in tears that she'd pay her back for this.

The trial of the girls lasted for nine whole days and on the 17th of December Mary Bell was cleared of murder but she was convicted of manslaughter. Norma was acquitted of both of the crimes.

Mary was first imprisoned in a remand home but she was later transferred to Red Bank Secure Unit where she claimed to have been sexually abused by staff and other prisoners. She was then transferred to Moor Court. She escaped one year later and made headlines with that escape. A couple of days later she was arrested again.

In May 1980, she was released from prison at age of 23. Four years after that she gave birth to her daughter. In 1998 her daughter got to know about her mother's past.

Sources & References

• https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5459400M/The_case_of_Mary_Bell
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell
• https://murderpedia.org/female.B/b/bell-mary-flora.htm