Inside The Story Of Mary Bell, The 11-Year-Old Serial Killer

This article contains mentions of violence and child sex abuse. 

Statistically speaking, it’s incredibly rare for children to commit homicide. As Psychology Today noted in a 2017 article on the subject, kids under the age of 14 in the U.S. make up less than 1% of perpetrators convicted of murder overall, and on average, only 74 children per year become killers. Out of that pool, a whopping 90% are identified as male, and as a 2017 study published by the National Library of Medicine noted, the majority of homicides perpetrated by children were committed by boys who used guns. While the study also noted that the U.S. had a comparatively higher rate of child murderers than other countries, it doesn’t mean that they don’t happen anywhere else. It also brings up an age-old question: What exactly makes a murderer? 

According to some criminologists — like Dr. Adrian Raine, who published a book on the subject titled “The Anatomy of Violence” in 2013 — what compels a child, or anyone, to commit murder can’t be chalked up to any one thing. According to Raine, “genetics and environment work together to encourage violent behavior” — meaning rather than nature or nurture, it’s a mix of both (via Psychiatry Advisor). Nevertheless, it’s especially shocking when a child is a culprit, and that was exactly the case when two crimes shocked the unassuming suburbs of Newcastle, England, in 1968. Even more shocking was the person who became the prime suspect: a local 11-year-old girl named Mary Bell.