ENGLISH JURYMEN RETIRE IN CHILD MURDER TRIAL: THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 17, 1968

On Monday, December 16, 1968, a judge in a red robe and a white wig turned to the jury at Newcastle Assizes and began his charge, and the United Press International report of that day kept its eyes on the dock. In it sat two girls charged with murdering two small boys. Mary Bell was 11, and Norma Bell, no relation, was 13. The report that ran in The Salt Lake Tribune the next morning opens on the contrast between them: "One little girl from 'Rat Alley' smirked and the other wept." Mary sat "ramrod straight," twisting her fingers, gazing at the ceiling, scowling at her mother, now and then smiling. Norma stared, licked her lips and at last broke down.

The charges were that they had choked Martin George Brown, 4, to death in an abandoned house on May 25, and on July 31 strangled Brian Edward Howe, 3, after luring him onto a rubble-strewn lot with the promise that a woman would come along with candy. Both denied it, and each gave a detailed account of the other killing Brian. At the back of the courtroom, Norma's mother traded confidences with her best friends, Martin's parents. Asked how she was bearing her son's death, Mrs. Brown said, "Well, how else can you take these things?" Brian's parents did not come to the trial.

Judge Ralph Cusack told the jurors to "be governed by your heads and not your hearts," and he drew the line between the two girls himself: Mary showed "utterly astonishing . . . maturity and sophistication," while doctors had put Norma's mental age at 8 years and 10 months. The verdict came on the day this issue appeared. On December 17, after less than four hours, the jury acquitted Norma of everything. It found Mary not guilty of murder and guilty of the manslaughter of both boys on the ground of diminished responsibility, and the judge ordered her detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.

This is a courtroom sketch wired to American papers on the day of the judge's summing-up, before any verdict, and it dwells on the children's faces more than on the evidence; "Rat Alley" and "Newcastle's grimiest slum" are the correspondent's own phrases. Where it says both girls "pleaded innocent," an English court would have recorded pleas of not guilty. The paper gives the charges, not the outcome. Mary Bell was never convicted of murder: the jury found her guilty of two counts of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Norma Bell was cleared of every charge. Mary was ten, a day short of her eleventh birthday, when Martin Brown died.

The Salt Lake Tribune printed this UPI story without a staff byline on page A9 of its December 17, 1968, issue. The scan comes from Utah Digital Newspapers at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library, which rates the issue "No Copyright - United States." No copyright notice appears on the story or the masthead; the "(Copyright)" line on the same page closes a separate New York Times Service story beside it. The citation and the library's rights statement follow the scan.

The story runs in an L: the first column goes the full depth of the page, while the second stops above an advertisement for wigs, so it is shown in two crops, and both are captured in the transcription, which reads down the first column and then the second. The scan is soft and lightly inked; broken letters in words such as "knee socks" and "innocent eyes" were read from their context, and nothing had to be marked illegible. The paper's "exchanged widespread confidences" is kept exactly as printed.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

English Jurymen Retire In Child Murder Trial

NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND (UPI) — One little girl from "Rat Alley" smirked and the other wept Monday as a red-robed white-wigged judge charged the jury trying them for allegedly murdering their playmates.

Mary (May) Bell, 11, sat ramrod straight in the prisoners' box, twisted her fingers one about the other, stuck her tongue in her cheek, gaped at the ceiling with innocent eyes, scowled at her mother and, from time to time, smiled as Judge Ralph Cusack addressed the jury.

Mouth Agape

Norma Bell, 13, no relation, lost her composure. She stared around her wide-eyed, mouth agape, licked her lips, grimaced, gazed at her mother's tear-stained face and finally dissolved in tears as the judge told the jury to "be governed by your heads and not your hearts."

In the rear of the courtroom Norma's mother exchanged widespread confidences with her best friends, the parents of Martin George Brown, 4, one of the two children Mary and Norma Bell were accused of murdering.

Promised Candy

Mary and Norma went on trial here Dec. 5 on charges that they choked little Martin to death in an abandoned house last May 25 and strangled another little boy, Brian Edward Howe, 3, on July 31 after luring him into a rubble-strewn vacant lot with promises that a woman would come along later and give him some candy.

Both pleaded innocent. Each gave a detailed description of how the other had allegedly killed Brian.

Mrs. Brown, a chubby fresh-faced young housewife in knee socks and a fawn-colored raincoat, seemed resigned to the fact that her moment of shock had already come and gone.

"Well, how else can you take these things?" she said when asked how she felt about her son's death.

Brian Howe's parents did not attend the trial.

The fathers of the two defendants, unemployed laborers who live on welfare payments in "Rat Alley," Newcastle's grimiest slum, alternately bowed their heads and looked at their little girls.

Cusack emphasized in his charge to the jury that Mary Bell was of "utterly astonishing . . . maturity and sophistication" while reminding the courtroom that doctors had found Norma had a mental age of only 8 years and 10 months.

Notes: The scan is soft and lightly inked. Broken letters were set as the intended words: "one about the other", "innocent eyes", "around", "knee socks", "colored raincoat", "Both". Several words are letter-spaced ("ments in "Rat Alley,"", "sophistication"). "exchanged widespread confidences" is as printed. The story is L-shaped: column 1 runs the full depth, and column 2 stops above a wig advertisement. So it is supplied as ARTICLE-CROP.jpg (the headline and the tops of both columns) and ARTICLE-CROP-PART-2.jpg (the rest of column 1). Read all of column 1, then column 2. Mary Bell was convicted of manslaughter two days later, and Norma Bell was acquitted. No words were illegible.