We don’t normally consider children to be capable of murder, but history shows that they have indeed been the perpetrators of some incredibly heinous crimes. Here are 10 that you may or may not have heard about. All of them teach us that within every person lies the potential for what novelist Joseph Conrad called a Heart of Darkness.
Carl Mahan
Mahan was only six when he killed his eight-year-old?friend, Cecil Van Hoose, over a piece of scrap metal. The two penniless boys were searching for scrap aluminum in Kentucky to sell to a junkyard. The boys found a scrap of iron, which was as valuable as a gold nugget to them. They fought over the iron until Cecil hit Carl in the head with it. Carl proceeded to run home, get his father’s shotgun, and kill Van Hoose. For his crime, Mahan received 15 years in a reformatory.
Mary Bell
Bell was convicted in 1968 of killing two boys, ages 3 and 4. She strangled the 4-year-old?and left his body in an abandoned residence in Newcastle, England. Two weeks later, Bell and a friend strangled the 3-year-old and dumped his tiny body in a wasteland. Bell was sentenced to life in prison, but 12 years into her sentence she?was released and given lifelong anonymity.
Jordan Brown
Jordan Brown was only eleven when he walked into the bedroom of his father’s fiance, Kenzie Houk, raised his youth model hunting rifle, and shot Houk as she slept. Because Houk was pregnant at the time, Brown was charged with double homicide. The legal maneuvers in this case continue to this day. Brown can be held as a juvenile until 2018, but the prosecutor says he may well seek to have Houk incarcerated for life when he reaches adulthood.
Lionel Tate
At the age of 14, Lionel Tate was charged with killing a six-year-old girl his mother was supposed to be babysitting. Medical examiners said?Tiffany Eunick, the victim, ?had?a crushed skull, broken ribs, and a shredded liver that had been pushed through the rib cage. Tate had apparently beaten the little girl to death. He became the youngest person to ever be sentenced to life without parole. ?In 2004, Tate’s conviction was overturned on the basis that his mental competency had never been evaluated prior to his trial. He was released and placed on 10 years probation, which he promptly violated by committing armed robbery. He is serving 30 years in a Florida prison.
Eric Smith
One of the most chilling cases in recent memory, Eric Smith?was just thirteen when he sexually assaulted and murdered a four year old living relatively near him in a Steuben County, New York neighborhood. Smith confessed and was sentenced to nine years. He has been denied parole on seven occasions since 2002 and comes up for review again in 2016.
Andrew Wurst
Wurst went into an eighth grade graduation dance with a gun, intent on committing suicide. But when he saw one of his teachers,?John Gillette, he fatally shot him and wounded three others. Taking a plea bargain, Wurst?plea guilty to third degree murder and attempted murder. He was sentenced to 30 years incarceration.
Thomas ?T.J? Lane
In 2012, Lane walked into his school and killed three of his fellow male students with a .22 caliber handgun. Others were also injured and one was left permanently paralyzed. Lane, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, was charged as an adult and sentenced to three life terms. Most bizarrely, however, was how Lane acted in court.?He constantly grinned in the courtroom, mocked his victim’s families by giving them the middle finger, and wore a white t-shirt with the word ?Killer? written in black magic marker during his trial.
Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden
Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, planned the ambush at their school for months before carrying it out. The boys were able to sneak guns and ammunition out of the house of Golden’s grandfather. They then calmly pulled the fire alarm at?Westside Middle School and calmly mowed down their classmates as they filed out of the school.?They were found guilty on five counts of murder and sentenced to be held in detention until reaching adulthood. Both were released from custody on their 21st birthdays.
Graham Young
A virtual genius in the field of chemistry, Young used his skills to poison?his father, mother, sister, and grandmother when he was only 14. He was?institutionalized in 1962, but poisoned staff and fellow inmates at the maximum security hospital at which he was being housed. Released, Young again began to poison his friends. He?was returned to prison with a life sentence and died at the age of 42 of a heart attack.
George Stinney Jr.
Stinney holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever executed in the United States. At the age of 14, Stinney was charged in South Carolina with killing?two preteen girls, eight and eleven, by beating them in the heads with a blunt object. But the case against Stinney was questionable, to say the least. His conviction rested solely on the testimony of??three white police officers that said he confessed.?On June 16th, 1944, Stinney’s controversial death was carried out by electrocution. A Bible was made into a booster seat, since previous criminals were all much taller than Stinney. Stinney was finally exonerated for the crime in 2014, 70 years after his wrongful execution.
h/t and all Images Via Top 10 Archive
