We all made some bad decisions as teenagers — we over-invested in superficial romantic relationships, we indulged in pointless friend drama, we got tattoos that read “I LOVE HOOBASTANK 4 AND NEVER TAKE IT BACK” . ” But some high school students get into more serious trouble—like committing serial murders as teenagers. While our general image of serial killers may be of middle age, or at least those in their twenties, a handful of killers start early; in fact, many teenage killers are also caught in their teens , which makes us wonder what horrors they would encounter if they were freed as adults.
Given their ages, one question about teenage serial killers always seems to come up: How does a child become a killer? As you'll see in the five stories below, this question needs to be answered on a case-by-case basis; just as there is no single reason for anyone to commit a crime, teenagers are forced to do so before they are old enough to buy a drink Unthinkable behavior, especially for which there is no single, clear reason. But they all have one thing in common - all of them, even those that occurred more than a century ago, remain absolutely shocking.
1. Jesse Pomeroy
The so-called "Boston Boy Devil" was the youngest person in Massachusetts history to be convicted of first-degree murder at age 14. Pomeroy was born in 1859 to a loving mother and an abusive father; Pomeroy's mother later believed her son's criminal behavior was the result of physical bullying at school by his father and peers. In his late teens and early teens, Pomeroy was notorious in his community for his habit of luring smaller children to remote areas with candy and gifts and then brutally attacking them. The Pomeroy family moved away, but Jesse began attacking the new neighbor's children and was arrested and sentenced to reform school. Although Pomeroy was supposed to stay in school until he was 18, he was released at 14.
Was he released because Pomeroy was reinvented? Not completely. In fact, after Pomeroy was released from reform school, he escalated from assault to murder, killing 10-year-old Katie Curran and 4-year-old Horace Millen. Mirren's mutilated body was found on a Boston-area beach, while Curran's body was found in a basement. Pomeroy's mother's clothing store (which he threw into a pile of ashes). In December 1874, Pomeroy was arrested and tried; he was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment; he spent the first 41 years of his sentence in solitary confinement. Later in life, he was transferred to Bridgewater Criminal Psychiatric Hospital, where he died of natural causes in 1932.
2. Charles Starkweather
Are there any movie fans in the family? Do you know the critically acclaimed 1973 Terence Malick film Into the Badlands ? How about the critically acclaimed 1994 film Natural Born Killers ? Or how about Bruce Springsteen’s song “Badlands”? Well, they're all about this guy. For two months in the winter of 1957 and 1958, 19-year-old Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate lived in Nebra A killing spree took place in California and Wyoming. hostage, but many suspected him of being his willing accomplice.
On December 1, 1957, Starkweather killed a gas station attendant; more than a month later, on January 21, 1958, he killed Fugate's mother, stepfather and brother. Over the next week and a half, Starkweather killed seven more people before being captured along with Fugate on January 28 in Douglas, Wyoming. They were sent back to their home state of Nebraska to face trial.
Starkweather first claimed that he had indeed kidnapped Fugate and that she was innocent of the murder, but during the trial he began to paint Fugate as a full-fledged participant and allegedly called her his "The happiest man" ever known. Both Starkweather and Fugate were found guilty; in 1959, Starkweather was sentenced to death and died in the electric chair, while Fugate was sentenced to life in prison. She was released in 1976, changed her name, married in 2007 and generally refused to speak publicly about the killings.
3. Graham Young
Young is one of Britain's most notorious serial killers; he was known as the "Teacup Poisoner" and is believed to be responsible for three poisoning deaths, although he poisoned more than 70 people during his lifetime. Young's family was aware of his fascination with poisons and chemicals, and he began his murderous career as a teenager, poisoning several members of his family and eventually killing his stepmother in 1962 when he was just 15. . Broadmoor Hospital is an institution for the treatment of mentally ill offenders.
He was discharged after eight years in the hospital, at which point he...immediately went back to poisoning others. Young found work in a chemical manufacturing laboratory, where he began poisoning his coworkers, often contaminating the workplace tea with dangerous chemicals. Young was sentenced to life in prison and died of a heart attack at the age of 43. His life story was adapted into the 1995 film "The Young Poisoner's Handbook."
4. William Helens
William Heirens, the "Lipstick Killer," was young in many ways advanced for his years: He was accepted into a program at the University of Chicago when he was only 16, and was convicted of carrying a gun at the age of 16. Arrested 13. In fact, despite his talents, Helens devoted his life to crime as a teenager and was arrested several times for burglary before turning to murder around the age of 16.
Helens is believed to have committed at least three brutal murders between the ages of 16 and 17. At the scene of one of the murders, Helens allegedly wrote a message on the wall using the victim's lipstick, earning him his nickname: "For God's sake, catch me before I kill more people." Me. I can't control myself."
Although both of Helens' victims were adult women, his most horrific crime was the murder of six-year-old Suzanne Degan; after allegedly abducting the girl from her bedroom, Helens sent a message to her parents. ransom note, and her kidnapping (and, after her body was discovered, her gruesome murder) became the focus of a 1946 Chicago police manhunt. The police had previously arrested several male suspects. Helens was found, having been caught committing a robbery in Degan's neighborhood. Police claimed his fingerprints matched those left on Degen's ransom note.
Helens confessed to the murder while in police custody but later tried to recant, claiming he was beaten, forced to take sodium amyl alcohol (aka "truth serum") and signed a confession under duress. He also pleaded guilty but later claimed he only did so to avoid the death penalty. Helens repeatedly pleaded for leniency during his sentence, with defenders claiming sloppy detective work and police abuse led the Chicago Police Department to lock up the wrong man.
Heirens served 65 years in prison and died of natural causes in 2012 at the age of 83.
5. Robert Coombs
Okay, okay, Robert Combs was not a serial killer per se, as he only killed one person. But the story of that killing and what happened after is so surprising that I thought you'd want to hear it (and if you're a serial killer purist and are shocked that I'd even mention it, please Feel free to end this post and kick off a classic episode of Forensic - may I recommend the Ice Truck Killer with Hands ).
In 1895, Emily Combs was found dead in her home. However, there was no search for her killer. Her 13-year-old son Robert admitted that he and his 12-year-old brother Nathaniel decided to murder her after she beat him for "stealing food" from the family's kitchen; however, it was Robert who actually stabbed her to death Their mother's people. During the 10 days between their mother's death and Robert's arrest, the two boys lived in the house where their mother's body lay, entertaining themselves by watching cricket matches and plays. Her death was discovered when the smell alerted neighbors.
Although the media has attempted to blame the murders on Robert's consumption of popular pulp novels, or simply a fearsome personality, some modern observers believe that Robert and Nathaniel may have been severely physically abused by their mother. This doesn't excuse Robert's behavior; but it does provide context for what happened next. Robert was found "guilty but insane" and sentenced to Broadmoor, Britain's notorious high-security psychiatric hospital (the same hospital that tried, unsuccessfully, to rehabilitate Graham Young). But at Broadmoor Robert thrived, playing in the cricket team and the hospital brass band. After serving 17 years in prison, Coombs, 30, was discharged from hospital and subsequently moved to Australia, joined the armed forces and served as a stretcher-bearer in World War I, receiving the Medal of Honor for his work. He also adopted a little boy who was beaten by his own parents.
This is not to say that Robert Coombs’ crimes were justified, or that any criminal behavior is justified. But Coombs' story may make people wonder how many young killers and their actions are shaped more by their environment than by any kind of innate evil.
