Monday, January 27, 2014

Convict Curry Three-In-One: A Murdering Child, a Benedict Cumberbatch Movie, & My Move to London

The next time someone asks me why I don't want children, I will lower my voice, lean in, and whisper these two words: Mary Bell. To those who maintain that children are angelic bundles of joy, Bell stands as the exception that proves there really is no such rule at all.

In 1968, just a day shy of her 11th birthday, Bell strangled a four year old boy in her home town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; just a few months later she (possibly with the assistance of a friend)  murdered a three-year-old boy, Martin, by the same method, afterwards inscribing the letter "M" on his stomach with scissors. These are horrible murders to be sure; but perhaps even more disturbing was Bell's apparent lack of remorse or concern, a psychopathic trait that should be familiar to regular readers of my Macabre Meals  and Serial Killer Supper series.