Mary Flora Bell lived two streets away from my mother (who was twelve years older than her at the time of the crime) in Scotswood, a slum area of Newcastle upon tyne, England.
It is strange to think of a little girl strangling someone let alone two people, but that precisely what Mary Bell did within a three-month span when she was 10 going on 11. This is after her many attempts to strangle children of a similar age. The first murder Mary committed took place on May 25,1968 the day before her 11th birthday: she strangled four-year-old Martin Brown in an abandoned home. It's not clear why she committed the murder, only that she did it all on her own. She even broke into and vandalised an orphanage and left a note admitting to the murder, but police only thought it was a prank.

The second murder took place on July 31, 1968. This time, Mary enlisted a friend, Norma Joyce Bell (no relation) to help kill another boy, three-year-old Brian Howe.
Norma was acquitted of all charges.
What could drive a little girl to kill like this? Well, Mary Bells mother, Betty, was an extremely abusive prostitute and dominatrix. She regularly forced her daughter to perform sex acts on her clients starting at age four. There are family accounts of Betty trying to poison and kill Mary several times too. She planned to make the murder look like an accident but never succeeded in killing her daughter. For instance, Mary accidentally fell from a window but survived and she accidentally took too many sleeping pills when others saw her give the pills to her daughter, claiming they were sweets.

Despite her tragic childhood, Mary Bell was convicted of the two murders (her friend Norma was acquitted) on December 17, 1968. The judge, Justice Cusack, believed Mary exhibited the classic signs of a psychopath. He also felt she was a very grave danger to other children.

In 1980 Mary was released from Ashkam Grange prison after serving 12 years. She was granted a new name and anonymity so she could start a new life. Four years later she had a daughter. She kept her grisly past a secret from her daughter until 1998 when reporters learned of her whereabouts. Mary and her daughter had to leave their home with bed sheets over their heads to hide from the press. Even though her daughter was only legally granted anonymity until age 18, Mary fought the high courts of England to maintain her daughters privacy for life. She won the case.

In 2009, it was reported that Mary Bell became a grandmother. Apparently, she has been a great mother and grandmother, despite her past.

If you want to learn more about Mary Bell, her tragic childhood and the horrific murders she committed, there are two great books about her: The Case of Mary Bell and the biography, which includes interviews with Mary, Cries Unheard: the Story of Mary Bell, both by Gitta Sereny.

My belief is that Mary wanted to somehow kill or destroy the four year old inside herself, but also had great anger to little boys, especially those from happy families.
A poem, supposedly written from Mary to her mother, Betty, which Betty sold to a newspaper, makes for even more confusing reading:
"Please Mam, put my tiny mind at ease,
tell judge and jury on your knees.
They will listen to your cry of please
The guilty one is you, not me.
I am sorry it has to be this way.
We'll both cry and you will go away.
Tell them you are guilty, please.
So then Mam, I'll be free.
Your daughter, Mary."
Mary Bell, in a letter to her mother after the court finds her guilty of manslaughter.

The Telegraph has learned that Bell has disclosed how, after being freed, she shoplifted, apparently hoping that she would be caught and sent back to the security of prison. She has told those protecting her that on her release she found that what she expected to be "a magical day" was in fact a terrifying experience, that she was only at home inside a prison and that she had "grown up in a corrupt world".
She was plagued with doubts about her ability to form normal relationships with "straight" people and she has admitted that it took years to rid herself of routine prison habits.She went to live in a hostel on the prison site where she was told that she would start work assembling electrical equipment at the Remploy centre in Leeds, which was intended for people who had been ill or out of work for some time.
She was given home leave to see her mother for the first time in 12 years, an emotional experience which left her utterly confused. In the morning, she told friends afterwards, she had got up and stacked the sheets on her bed, as she had done in prison.
Her journey to work was another minefield. No one thought about how exposed she was on the mile-long walk to the bus stop and the subsequent two bus journeys she had to take every day. She constantly feared recognition and within two weeks her fears were realised: the press had discovered her movements and published details, with photographs of her. The prison governor broke the news to Bell.
An official said: "Mary was deeply upset. She kept asking, 'Why can't they leave me alone?' I think, though, she knew it was going to happen sooner or later." In spite of the newspaper stories Bell still went off alone the next morning, only to be picked up and given a lift to work by a waiting reporter. She later told friends: "I couldn't run away and hide forever."
The reporter asked her if she was frightened, now that her identity was known. "They wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for you lot," she retorted and got out with the reporter calling "Good luck!" after her.
When she began to go shopping in Leeds she was unsupervised and vulnerable, and quickly started dabbling in drugs and heavy drinking. She was led astray by new friends and at the time, welfare officials and friends were angry at the confusion and lack of thought that went into how she should be dealt with. Bell even became pregnant, though she had an abortion.
As her full release date neared, she became frightened over her future. One friend said: "Even on the night before her release, Mary longed for the security of a prison cell where she would feel safe, know what time the light would be put out and when she would be woken in the morning.
"Mary said that she had an incredible feeling of sadness and betrayal. She was floundering without an identity, saying that she was 'torn to shreds inside'." On the night before her release, Bell said that she had cried for "the past, my friends, the waste, the loss, my life. I cried and grieved for what I had done".Bell has told friends that while she has been happy at times since her release, there is always a part of her that is never content. "I am imprisoned by guilt and remorse," she once said.

'Mam' is a North East phrase for Mother.
'Bairn' is a Scottish and North East England term for baby or infant.
'Bonny' is commonly used to mean 'pretty' in Northern England and Scotland.

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