Mary Bell

271
Mary Bell bigraphy, stories - Criminals

Mary Bell : biography

26 May 1957 –

Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is a British woman who was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of two boys, Martin Brown (aged four) and Brian Howe (aged three). Bell was 10 years old when she killed Brown and 11 when she killed Howe, making her one of Britain’s most notorious child killers.

The killings

On 25 May 1968, the day before her 11th birthday, Mary Bell strangled four-year-old Martin Brown in a derelict house. She was believed to have committed this crime alone. Between that time and a second killing, she and a friend, Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), aged 13, broke into and vandalised a nursery in Scotswood, leaving notes that claimed responsibility for the killing. The police dismissed this incident as a prank.

On 31 July 1968, the pair took part in the death, again by strangling, of three-year-old Brian Howe, on wasteland in the same Scotswood area. Police reports concluded that Mary Bell had later returned to his body to carve an "N" into his stomach with a razor; this was then changed using the same razor but with a different hand to an "M". Mary Bell also used a pair of scissors to cut off some of Howe’s hair, scratch his legs, and mutilate his penis. As the girls were so young and their testimonies contradicted each other, the precise details of what happened have never been entirely clear.

An open verdict had originally been recorded for Brown’s death as there was no evidence of foul play — although Bell had strangled him, her grip was not hard enough to leave any marks. Eventually, his death was linked with Howe’s killing and in August 1968 the two girls were charged with two counts of manslaughter.

In popular culture

Bell is the subject of two books by Gitta Sereny: The Case of Mary Bell (1972), an account of the killings and trial, and Cries Unheard: the Story of Mary Bell (1998), an in-depth biography based on interviews with Bell and relatives, friends and professionals who knew her during and after her imprisonment. This second book was the first to detail Bell’s account of sexual abuse by her mother, a prostitute who specialised as a dominatrix, and her mother’s clients.

The publication of Cries Unheard was controversial because Bell received payment for her participation. The payment was criticised by the tabloid press, and Tony Blair’s government attempted to find a legal means to prevent its publication on the grounds that a criminal should not profit from his or her crimes, but the attempt was unsuccessful.

Bell’s brief prison escape was the basis for a Screen Two teleplay on the BBC, Will You Love Me Tomorrow (1987), starring Joanne Whalley as the tough yet oddly innocent escapee who has come of age behind bars and goes looking for love in a seaside resort town.

Bell’s case (as well as the murder of James Bulger) was used as the basis for a 1999 episode of Law & Order entitled "Killerz". Hallee Hirsh played the Mary Bell analogue. The story was reprised in a 2010 episode of Law & Order: UK entitled "Broken" and a 2011 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit called "Lost Traveller".

Bell’s case was also used as the basis for an episode of the short-lived 2005 series The Inside entitled "Everything Nice". Jennette McCurdy played the Mary Bell analogue. The "Young Blood" episode of Deadly Women on the Investigation Discovery channel also depicted the Bell case.

Bell was also the basis for several songs written by extreme metal band Macabre on their 1993 album Sinister Slaughter. She is also the subject of the Perfume Genius song "Look Out, Look Out" and Stina Nordenstam’s "Mary Bell." The seminal industrial artist Monte Cazazza wrote a song entitled "Mary Bell" evoking the murderer and her crime.

Bell’s case was the basis for a short story titled "Blue Eyes" by Jay Caselberg that aired on Pseudopod on 2 September 2011.