Niklas' blog

As I’m remembering Gitta Sereny’s “Unheard Cries” – a book on what happened slightly before, during and mostly a lot after Mary Bell killed two little boys at age 11 – it’s interesting to see how people treated her as an 11-year-old child. Even though the court freed the other girl who was involved with killing the two boys, that probably happened because she was nicer in court than Mary was. The other girl cried a lot and even though she blatantly lied – or at the very least was unable to keep her thoughts in order enough to make any sense at all – she was set free, seemingly because Mary was quiet and not visually upset the same way. This launched an avalanche of upset emotions and Mary was deemed a freak of nature, a monster and somebody who should really be killed in the same way that she killed her victims, but worse, so that others won’t do what she did!

A ranting paragraph, just skip it if you don’t need to read my gripes right now: this matter makes me think of what Bill Hicks said about people who tend to believe Gawd created everything: “You ever notice that everyone who believes in creationism looks really unevolved?¹” People who believe that the death penalty is a good thing, have probably not spent a lot of time pondering the issue and the fact that people are surprisingly often falsely sentenced to death.

Speaking of Mary Bell, I found the below book, “Children Who Kill“, by Paul Cavadino, available through Google Books. Quite interesting. Gitta Sereny’s written a chapter, and includes words on James Bulger and even Frederick and Rosemary West.

1. As on his album “Arizona Bay“.[back]