This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

This episode contains explicit language. It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for our continued series, Killer Kids. This is chapter 2, Mary Bell.

Mary Flora Bell was born May 26, 1957. She lived in Northeast England in Newcastle, Pontine. Her neighborhood was called Scotswood.

The area where the bells lived had not changed a whole lot since the war. It was quite a blighted area with many abandoned and crumbling buildings.

Scotswood's children often played in the rubble unsupervised. This scenario is reminiscent of the type of environment young Jesse Pomeroy lived in way back in the late 1800s that I outlined in episode 5.

There was a high number of petty crimes and public drunkenness attributed to the local population in Scotswood. Darrelix lived in the abandoned buildings that dotted the neighborhood.

Mary, who was called May by her family, was 11 years old in the summer of 1968. Mary lived with her mother Betty and her stepfather Billy Bell, who married Betty when Mary was only a baby.

Mary's father was never in her life and there was even some dispute as to his name, either Jimmy or Johnny. Betty was only 17 years old when she gave birth to Mary.

Take this thing away from me, Betty was reported as saying when the newborn was placed into her arms for the first time. Mary's mother was often gone. She had a history of being flaky and unable to take care of her now to children.

Mary's brother was born before Mary was two years old. Mary and her brother were often left with either her stepfather Billy or her maternal grandmother.

Her aunt Kath and uncle Jack, her uncle's Issa, Audrey and Margaret and her uncle Philip. They all loved Mary and doded on the beautiful little girl with the dark pixie haircut and the striking blue eyes.

Well, Billy Bell was said to have been a decent man from a respectable family when he met Betty and that he was always turned out or sharply dressed in handsome by the time Mary was 11 years old.

He was well known to police as a drunkard and a petty criminal. Betty was now attending the Delevelle Road Junior School. She was often seen with her friend in next door neighbor, Norma Bell, who was no relation to her.

Norma at 13 years old was two years Mary senior, but often acted like the younger of the two. She was called simple by her family and teachers alike and probably was either mildly retarded or learning disabled in some way.

In the late 1990s, the BBC aired documentary on the Mary Bell case in it her now adult age schoolmates recounted that many of the children were afraid of Mary.

She was very aggressive and often acted out violently upon them when she was angry. She had choked children who had angered her and even stubbed out a cigarette on one child's cheek.

She admitted to this stating that the child had made her angry.

On Saturday, May 11, 1968, a three-year-old boy was seen with Mary and Norma. It is believed that they promised to take him to buy some sweets.

Later that afternoon, he was found wandered, dazed and bleeding. He was unable to tell anyone what had happened.

The next day, a mother complained to a police officer that Mary had choked her young daughter while they had been playing together in the sand pit.

The police officer took the complaint but nothing further was done. He probably assumed it was just children having a playground spat.

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