On today’s episode of Pushing Up Lilies, I delve into a chilling chapter of true crime history: the disturbing case of Mary Bell from 1968. At the tender age of 10, Mary shocked Newcastle, England, when she committed unthinkable acts of violence against two innocent children.
Join me on a haunting journey into the twisted mind of Mary Bell as I unravel the horrifying details of her crimes. The first victim, four-year-old Martin Brown, met a tragic end at the hands of a child whose innocence had already been shattered. Leaving haunting confession notes for the grieving family, Mary’s actions sent shockwaves through the community.
Just two months later, the darkness within Mary manifested once again when she killed and mutilated three-year-old Brian Howe. This episode peels back the layers of this deeply unsettling case, exploring the psychological intricacies that led a young girl down such a sinister path.
* Listener discretion is advised.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I’m your host, Julie Mattson.
0:10 Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly True crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:30 I know we all wonder how Children can kill and I know that we have had some cases here locally but most of the time when they do kill parents or siblings, they’re older, they are in their twenties or even they’re teenagers that may kill their parents or siblings.
0:55 I ran across a case of Mary Bell.
0:58 Her middle name is Flora.
0:59 Mary Flora Bell.
1:00 She was born May 26th of 1957.
1:05 This girl killed two preschool boys in Scots Wood, which is a suburb of Newcastle in England.
1:14 The interesting thing about Mary Bell is that she was only 10 years old and it’s hard to imagine a 10-year-old has that much anger and has the ability to actually kill somebody and the knowledge of how to do it.
1:29 And that’s kind of scary.
1:31 She was only 10 when she killed her first victim, she told her victims that they had a sore throat and then she would massage them before strangling them, which is a little odd.
1:45 But in December of 1968 she was convicted of manslaughter, and she was only 11 at the time, it was reduced from murder to manslaughter because of mental incapacity, obviously, because of her age and different things.
2:05 But we’ll go into that a little bit later.
2:08 Her accomplice in one of the killings was only 13, Norma Joyce Bell.
2:15 She was acquitted later, but she was three years older than Mary.
2:22 Mary was diagnosed with a psychopathic personality prior to the trial.
2:27 And that’s a mental health disorder that exhibits impaired empathy, impaired remorse, and egotistical traits.
2:37 Her actions were very self-centered.
2:40 She didn’t feel sorry for anybody.
2:43 She didn’t feel bad for anything that she did.
2:47 Bell was released from custody in 1980.
2:51 And at that time, she was 23 years old, she was granted a covet that gave her anonymity, which means that she didn’t know what she was doing and didn’t realize what she was doing.
3:08 They allowed her to change her name.
3:12 That ability has been extended to protect her daughter and her granddaughter.
3:18 She has been living since her release in 1980 under a pseudonym or an alias.
3:25 She was given another name or permission to use another name after she got out of jail just to protect her whether that’s necessary.
3:36 I don’t know.
3:37 But this happened in England.
3:39 That just may have been the way that they did things there.
3:42 She’s been able to live under an alias.
3:46 Also, keep in mind that her release was 43 years ago.
3:51 She was only 23.
3:52 She’d only be 66 now, which there’s a very good possibility that she’s still alive.
3:58 But we don’t know because we don’t know what her name is.
4:03 Which is kind of interesting.
4:05 Mary’s mother, Betty, she went by Betty.
4:09 Her name was Elizabeth Bell.
4:11 She was a well-known prostitute.
4:14 She frequently traveled to Glasgow to work leaving Mary and her sibling with their dad.
4:23 Now, Mary was Betty’s second child at the age of 17 and her biological father is unknown, of course, remember her mom was a prostitute.
4:34 We don’t know who her biological father is, but she took mom’s last name when she was born.
4:41 Mary believed her dad to be William or Billy Bell who was a criminal and an alcoholic and had been arrested for armed robbery.
4:53 That’s who Mary thought her dad was.
4:56 But again, I don’t know if they ever did any testing to determine if he was or not, but that’s who she believed was her dad.
5:06 Mary was pretty much from birth, neglected and unwanted after Betty delivered her at the hospital, she got mad at the hospital staff for putting Mary in her arms.
5:20 After she was born, she said take it away like she did not want to hold the baby.
5:27 That tells you right there.
5:28 She just didn’t have that motherly instinct.
5:31 I can’t imagine that she was ever one of those supportive moms or a mom that you could go to if you had problems.
5:39 It doesn’t sound like it anyway.
5:40 I mean, a mom who doesn’t even want to hold her baby after it’s born sounds kind of crazy to me.
5:47 But Mary frequently had injuries when she was a toddler.
5:54 She always had these bruises and bumps and, and you know, kids do, they run into things, but hers were more than that.
6:02 It was believed that mom was negligent, and mom was trying to harm her or kill her because of these injuries that were found on her.
6:12 Now mom dropped her from a first-floor window once at another time, she actually gave her sleeping pills.
6:23 I don’t know how all of this was confirmed or found out if mom maybe admitted it later or if she was ever arrested for it or if anything ever came of it.
6:33 But these are things that happened to Mary when she was younger again, not a warm fuzzy mom who’s going to coddle you and take care of you and spoil you and do all the things that you hope a mother would do.
6:47 She was also said to have sold her to a mentally unstable woman at one time who couldn’t have Children when that happened.
6:56 Murray’s older sister had to go get her and bring her back home.
7:01 How traumatizing for that her sister couldn’t have been that much older because again, Mary was her second child when she was only 17, I’m going to guess, maybe two years older.
7:14 Her sister had to go get her after finding out that her mom sold her to somebody.
7:20 I mean, how crazy is that then when other family members tried to get custody of her, but he wouldn’t hand over custody of her.
7:30 She, I don’t know.
7:33 I mean, she just sounds kind of crazy again.
7:36 She was a prostitute and sounds very mentally unstable.
7:39 So it’s hard to be normal when you come from that kind of raising.
7:45 Betty, the mom was a dominatrix who allowed or encouraged her clients to sexually abuse Mary as well.
7:54 Mary would commonly wet the bed and have mood swings and exhibit disturbed behaviors on several occasions.
8:06 She attempted to suffocate her playmates.
8:09 I mean, could you imagine playing with somebody at the age of 10 and they come up and try to suffocate or strangle you?
8:16 I don’t think so.
8:18 She also attempted to block the trachea of a young girl with sand to like put sand in her mouth to try to keep her from being able to breathe.
8:27 Obviously, nobody really wanted to socialize with Mary.
8:32 I mean, who would want a friend that you were always afraid was going to strangle you who would want to spend the night with a friend who would try to strangle you in your sleep.
8:41 No, thanks.
8:42 I mean, obviously she didn’t have a lot of friends and so she spent time with Norma Joyce Bell, the girl who was 13 and the accomplice in one of her murders.
8:52 Bill was the daughter of a neighbor.
8:56 She was violent and would frequently attack friends.
8:59 These two girls probably got along really, really well.
9:02 It sounds like they were a lot, a lot alike.
9:06 On May 11th of 1968 I was like literally two months old.
9:14 A three-year-old boy was discovered wandering around, dazed and bleeding at Saint Margaret’s school, which was a school in the area.
9:24 Now, he said that he was playing with Norma and Mary on top of an old air raid shelter, and he was pushed 7 ft from the roof.
9:34 Now, he had a pretty good size laceration on his head, but he wasn’t sure when he talked to the police who pushed him.
9:46 He didn’t know if it was Norma or Mary, but they were both there.
9:51 His parents obviously could not have been happy about that.
9:55 I don’t know what happened with him.
9:57 I don’t think that he had an injury that required anything other than just stitches.
10:03 But other parents reported that the girls that Mary and Norma had tried to strangle their Children.
10:09 They’re kids would come home from school and say these two bullies trying to strangle my son or strangle my daughter.
10:17 Norma had said that Mary put her hands around a girl’s neck and squeezed so hard that she turned purple and then she said that she did it to more than one person.
10:28 Both of these girls, obviously little meanies and little bullies were given warnings.
10:34 A lot of people didn’t believe the stories that the other kids were telling because of these girls’ ages.
10:40 I mean, they were like 10 and 13, hard to believe that they would have that much anger and would go around trying to strangle other kids and push them off of things.
10:52 But they were just given warnings.
10:54 It was just kind of like, oh, ok, they’re mean girls, they’ll grow out of it or whatever.
10:59 Nothing was really done.
11:01 Martin Brown was the first victim on May 25th of 68.
11:09 Bell strangled him.
11:11 He was only four.
11:13 His body was discovered by three Children at around 330 in the afternoon in an old house and he had specks of blood on his face and then foam around his mouth.
11:27 A man working in the area performed CPR, of course to no avail.
11:35 And then while he was performing CPR Mary and Norma appeared at the door like they were watching him… Weird.
11:43 Ok.
11:44 But there were no signs of violence.
11:46 No signs of a struggle.
11:48 They did an autopsy on him.
11:51 They were unable to determine the cause of death, which I mean, we find that commonly, you know, in Children, this kid was four.
11:59 I don’t know, the death was found to be what they called in England, an open verdict which confirms that it was suspicious, but it wasn’t called a homicide, and it wasn’t called an accident.
12:16 They kind of ruled it open verdict.
12:20 They did know that there was suspicion but because there were no signs of violence and no injuries found on him per se.
12:30 As far as cuts, scratches, and bruises, then this open verdict is what the cause was ruled.
12:38 I’m guessing that at the time they were just acting like they just happened to be there when this guy was doing CPR.
12:47 But on Mary’s 11th birthday, she and Norma went into a nursery and vandalized it completely.
12:57 They felt the need to tear up books, they overturned desks, they smeared ink and paint all over the place before escaping.
13:07 They left notes there claiming that they killed Martin the police again because of their age kind of dismissed it.
13:16 They said, oh, it was a prank.
13:17 You know, they just left the notes there to be silly and whatnot.
13:23 It’s just weird because they just kept getting away with things.
13:27 It was because everyone just assumed that kids that age weren’t capable.
13:32 Now, Brian Howe was the second victim.
13:36 She didn’t wait very long to kill him.
13:39 Because on July 31st of 1968 Brian who was playing in the street with his siblings and his dog and Mary Norma did not return home.
13:52 A search party found him.
13:55 His body tucked between two large concrete blocks.
14:00 Now, the body was discovered, it was also kind of among grass and weeds and he did have bruises and scratches on his neck.
14:10 And then there was a pair of broken scissors found nearby him.
14:14 Now, Brian, when he was found, he had been dead for about 7.5 hours, and he died of strangulation.
14:24 Mary squeezed his nostrils with one hand and then gripped his throat with the other.
14:31 There were puncture wounds on his legs.
14:35 Sections of his hair had been cut.
14:38 This is the crazy part.
14:40 His genitals had been mutilated and there was an M carved into his stomach.
14:47 Ok.
14:48 She’s certifiably crazy.
14:51 It was found that the murder had been actually done by a child because when they did the autopsy, there was such a small amount of force used and I don’t know how they determined that, but they did determine that there was such a small amount of force used that it couldn’t have been an adult, an adult would have had more strength maybe in their hands or anyway, that’s how they determined because of the force use that the murderer was actually a child.
15:22 There were fibers found on his clothing that didn’t match any of the fibers in his household.
15:29 They couldn’t find anything at his house that would indicate that these fibers would come from, I guess Norma came clean with her mom because she didn’t really want to be involved in all of this and didn’t really feel like she was responsible.
15:48 On, August 4th, Norma talked to her parents and her parents called the police wanting to confess and I guess share what part Norma had played in these deaths.
16:03 Norma told police that Mary confessed that she enjoyed strangling people.
16:10 Norma is basically ratting her out to try to keep from being in trouble.
16:16 She used a razor blade to carve the m into his abdomen.
16:23 Norma helped police find the hidden razor blade so that kind of was proof to them.
16:30 Ok?
16:30 She was there, she knows what happened.
16:34 We need to listen to her.
16:36 She also was able to show the police a drawing of the M that Mary had put on his abdomen.
16:44 Could you imagine?
16:46 Poor little Brian?
16:47 I mean, three years old, strangled by a 10-year-old.
16:52 And for what I mean, that’s so sad, but Norma obviously was there and knew what had happened because she was able to show the police what the M looked like and lead them to this razor blade that Mary hid.
17:08 The gray fibers on his shoes matched Norma’s skirt and some of those same fibers were on Martin the first victim, police were starting to, you know, raise their ears a little bit.
17:25 Ok.
17:25 This little girl kind of knows what she’s talking about.
17:28 Mary stood outside of Brian Howe’s home at his funeral and laughed.
17:36 I mean, talk about mean girls, both girls were charged with Brian Howe’s murder.
17:43 Mary admitted to being present when Brian was murdered, but now she blamed it on Norma.
17:50 Norma’s already come clean and said, hey, Mary did all this.
17:53 I was just with her; I’ll give you whatever information you want because I don’t want to be in trouble.
17:59 But Norma did confess to taking part in the nursery break in not really so much the murders, you know, that’s how it happened.
18:10 Mary turned around blamed it on Norma.
18:11 Norma blamed it on Mary.
18:13 Now, psych evaluations were done on both of these girls, which is great.
18:19 Norma was developmentally delayed but Mary was found to be very bright and prone to mood swings.
18:27 Psychiatrists said Mary was a psychopath and had she not been caught; she would have continued to kill.
18:36 And it’s just sad that her victims were young as well.
18:40 Both girls pled not guilty.
18:43 Now, Norma testified in her own defense, she said that she didn’t kill anybody that she never touched the victims and that she just happened to be there.
18:55 Mary testified in her own defense and claimed that Norma was the one who killed these boys by strangling them.
19:04 Now, Norma’s mom said that months before the first killing, months before Brian Howe’s killing Mary tried to strangle Norma’s younger sister, Susan and stopped after her dad punched Mary in the shoulder.
19:21 I mean, this had happened multiple times.
19:24 I mean, if I was Norma, I’d be scared of her.
19:27 I mean, I’m sure Norma.
19:28 Norma sounds like she was mean too, but I wouldn’t want to sleep over at a friend’s house.
19:33 That was like that I’d be scared of what she’d do to me in my sleep.
19:36 Anyway, Norma’s mental age was only eight years and 10 months.
19:42 They kind of said when she had her psych evaluation that she had limited ability to know right from wrong.
19:49 They kind of were like, she’s a little bit immature, unable to really realize the magnitude of what had happened when this all went to court on December 13th.
20:01 They had closing arguments and Mary’s background, you know, all came to light.
20:07 They talked about her mom and how she was raised and the things that had happened to her when she was younger, and they talked a lot about her personality disorder.
20:18 Her lawyer said that the letters were just written because she had this fantasy as a child of killing, which that wouldn’t really help her, I wouldn’t think.
20:28 But Mary was obviously of the two, her and Norma had a very dominating personality.
20:35 She was cleverer and she also, she lacked remorse.
20:41 I mean, I would have loved to have seen that trial.
20:44 You know, have you ever been, like, you hear of trials going on?
20:46 You’re just like I just want to go and sit and watch because, I mean, the way people act is very interesting, it was a nine-day trial.
20:56 The jury deliberated for three hours and 25 minutes.
21:00 And then at that time is when Mary was convicted of manslaughter and Norma was acquitted.
21:08 Mary was Britain’s youngest female killer.
21:13 She went to a young offender’s institution that was only female.
21:19 And then while she was there, she claimed to have been sexually assaulted by staff and several inmates.
21:24 She was transferred at the age of 16 to a open prison in 1976.
21:35 While she was there, she left with another inmate and spent the day with a man in a hotel using the alias of Mary Robinson.
21:45 And then she was rearrested.
21:47 She had dyed her hair.
21:49 This kid is obviously a psychopath, right?
21:52 She had dyed her hair in an attempt to keep from being recognized.
21:58 And she was sent back to custody in June of 79.
22:03 Bell was sent to HM prison, and she worked as a secretary and then a waitress to kind of prepare for her release.
22:12 Why was she released?
22:15 Is kind of what I’m wondering like, obviously she’s a psychopath.
22:21 She’s 11 when she went to jail.
22:25 She’s killed two people had a very messed up childhood.
22:30 It’s hard to really, I don’t know, I am still trying to figure out why she was released but released again in 1980.
22:38At the age of 23 she got a new name and that was to give her a chance at a normal life.
22:45 I’m not sure why she got a chance at a normal life.
22:49 Again, this is England.
22:50 I’m sure the laws are different.
22:51 The rules are different.
22:52 But nonetheless, four years later, she had a child and her daughter didn’t know her past and her and her daughter relocated to the UK, her daughter was granted anonymity until she turned 18.
23:09 The crazy thing about this story, I mean, there’s a lot of crazy things about this story.
23:15 It blows our mind that you can be young and get away with that and be diagnosed as a psychopath and then be released from jail at the age of 20.
23:26 And hey, guess what, you get to change your name.
23:28 Nobody’s even ever going to know who you are or what you did and it’s going to put them in danger.
23:33 I’m curious if she had ever committed any further crimes, I couldn’t find anything that said that she had or hadn’t but her whereabouts are protected.
23:44 She actually said, yeah, I did this.
23:47 She admitted I was not wrongly convicted, and she admits that her history of abuse does not excuse her crime so maybe her making those statements, made them think that she would be ok.
24:02 I don’t know, I would have a hard time agreeing to that anyway, her whereabouts are protected.
24:08 Now, we do know that at one time when she escaped, she used that alias Mary Robinson.
24:13 I seriously doubt since that was publicized that that was not the name that she used after she got out.
24:21 I’m super curious, like who is she?
24:26 Where is she?
24:28 Very interesting story.
24:30 We have seen kids murder their parents and those types of things in our area.
24:36 But again, they’re teenagers are in their twenties, they’re never 10 years old.
24:41 I mean, I hope I never have to work a scene like that.
24:44 It’s horrifying to think that a child is capable of such things.
24:48 There are a lot of child murderers and so we’re going to be covering some of those in our upcoming episodes.
24:55 I think that you’ll find that very interesting.
24:58 And I guess I should have said at the beginning that a little warning to who’s listening that we’re talking about Children who were murdered because her victims were only three and four.
25:09 How sad.
25:10 How did her child turn out?
25:12 I mean, she was abused and had killed Children, but then she had a child.
25:18 I don’t know.
25:19 I’m going to research that some more to see if I can find out maybe where she is or if anybody is familiar with this story or has any knowledge.
25:28 If you would let me know, that would be awesome.
25:31 I’d love to interview you.
25:33 You can email me at Julie @ PushingUpLilies.com
25:37 If you have any stories, if you know anyone who has murdered or been involved in a murder in any way or if you have a subject that you’d like to talk about on the podcast, reach out and let me know we are about to have the ability on our website for you to schedule those interviews remotely.
25:56 It’s cold here now y’all.
25:59 And I don’t mean to complain because I know it’s a lot colder in other places.
26:03 But as Texans are not used to it, now it’s not snowing or anything.
26:07 But I think yesterday it was in the forties I’d kind of love the cool crisp air.
26:13 And again, we’ll be traveling to North Dakota in a couple of weeks and it’s going to be a lot colder, but I’m looking forward to it.
26:20 I hope that y’all had an amazing Thanksgiving.
26:23 I hope that everyone stays safe.
26:27 I hope that you are getting your Christmas shopping done because I have put my tree up and have almost finished my shopping and I’m kind of like an online better.
26:37 I don’t know about y’all.
26:38 I don’t know if you get out on Black Friday.
26:40 I’m not super excited about fighting people in a crowd for items in the store.
26:46 I can remember when my kids were little.
26:48 I always did that.
26:49 You know, I want, this scooter was $10 at Walmart.
26:52 You know, and then you hear about people pushing each other and running into each other with baskets.
26:57 And I’m, I’m out on that.
26:59 I really do not feel like doing that.
27:02 I’m doing a lot of online shopping, but I have gotten out.
27:06 I have gotten some bargains again.
27:09 Not a fan of the big crowds and fighting people for stuff anymore.
27:13 I hope that y’all have an amazing week and I look forward to talking to y’all next week.
27:18 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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27:32 Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.