Mary Bell

Mary Bell
Mary Bell at the time of her arrest in 1968
Born	(1957-05-26) 26 May 1957 (age 59) Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Status	Released
Other names	The Tyneside Strangler
Criminal penalty	12 years imprisonment
Children	1
Parent(s)	Betty McCrickett
Conviction(s)	Manslaughter
Killings
Date	1968
Killed	2

Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, in 1968, aged 10–11, strangled to death two younger boys in Scotswood, an inner-city suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne. She was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of Martin Brown (aged 4) and Brian Howe (aged 3).

Since her release from prison in 1980, she has lived under a series of pseudonyms. Her identity has been protected by a court order, which has also been extended to protect the identity of her daughter. In 1998, Bell collaborated with Gitta Sereny on an account of her life, in which she details the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her mother, a prostitute, and her mother's clients.

Bell's mother Betty (née McCrickett) was a prostitute, who was often absent from the family home, travelling to Glasgow to work. Mary (nicknamed May) was her first child, born when Betty was 17 years old. It is not known who Mary's biological father was. For most of her life she believed it to be Billy Bell, a habitual criminal who was later arrested for armed robbery. Bell married her mother when Mary was a baby, but evidence gathered by Gitta Sereny suggests he met her after Mary was born.

Independent accounts from family members strongly suggest that Betty had more than once attempted to kill Mary and make her death look accidental during the first few years of her life. Her family was suspicious when Mary 'fell' from a window, and when she "accidentally" consumed sleeping pills. On one such occasion, an independent witness saw Betty giving the pills to her daughter as sweets. Mary herself says she was subjected to repeated sexual abuse, her mother forcing her from the age of four to engage in sexual acts with men.

On 25 May 1968, the day before her 11th birthday, Mary Bell strangled 4-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 (1955–89; 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 two girls took part in the death, again by strangulation, of 3-year-old Brian Howe, in a wasteland in the same Scotswood area. Police reports concluded that Mary Bell had later returned to his body to carve an "M" into the boy's stomach. Mary Bell also used a pair of scissors to cut off some of Howe's hair, scratch his legs, and mutilate his penis.

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.