Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell

'I believe Mary Bell's childhood experiences...to be the key to the tragedy'
By sally tarbox on 6 April 2016
Format: Hardcover
A gripping and thought-provoking read, as the author considers the murders in 1968 of two little boys by 11 year old Mary Bell. Sereny had attended court at the time and wrote an earlier book on the case. Here she catches up with Mary Bell - now released and living under a new name with her partner and child - and in lengthy interviews with her tries to understand her thinking and motivations at the time.

I found the construction of the book worked well; rather than just working through Mary's life chronologically, Sereny begins at the time of the offence, then interposes discussions with Mary with memories of her show more time at a remand centre and later an adult prison. Not until the end does Sereny give us any great detail about Mary's early childhood, which helps explain her later crimes. Throughout Mary's life, like an evil genius, is the corrosive presence of her mother.

My feelings on Mary remained ambivalent; an unlikeable child, yet undoubtedly traumatized for life by her experiences. But could an intelligent 11 year old REALLY not understand the finality of death? Sereny's criticisms of the legal system as regards child offenders are persuasive however. show less

Nonfiction.

In 1968: an eleven year old girl named Mary Bell killed two boys (ages 3 and 4). The courts tried her, found her guilty, put her in jail until she was in her 20's. This book revisits her case years after she was released from jail and tries to figure out why she did it, what her life was like before she committed this crime, and whether she really understood the gravity of what she did at the time. I don't want to give any of it away, but I was so engrossed that I wanted to read the whole thing in one sitting... I couldn't only because it was so overwhelming: at times so depressing, at other times funny and even joyful. I had to take breathers because it was so intense.

I really felt for Mary Bell and totally rooted for her show more the whole time. The author does a good job of bringing out the various threads of the story. She's compassionate and understanding, but also she makes it clear that none of this is an excuse for the crime itself. She makes the case that when a child commits a horrible crime like this, the court's job is not only to say whether she was guilty of the crime or not, but also to ask why a child would do this? And to help the child psychologically with their problems. A child does not commit a crime like this because they are evil. It is usually a sign of some disturbing realities at home. To ignore this is to make the problem worse.

I found that Mary Bell was (predictably) messed up, but what surprised me was how strong she was as well, and how positively she looked at life despite everything that happened to her. This was a wonderful read. show less

I'm disappointed because I thought this book would be something it wasn't. I thought we'd get into the psyche of sociopathic, murderous children. I thought we'd get statistics or at least qualitative data. Instead, this is essentially a biography of a single child with no information about the generalizability of her story. If that interests you, you'll like this true crime biography. But if you want more, you'll be disappointed. The question of why children kill -- the book's subtitle -- is never answered.

This book focuses on the issue of the judging of children in an adult court and the importance of relevant rehabilitation. It in no way sensationalises nor defends Mary Bell’s crimes but shows how the legal system needs to be adapted when dealing with children. It certainly made me think about it differently.

Gitta Sereny wrote two books about Mary Bell, a child killer. This is the second, written long after the events that culminated in Mary Bell's convictions for manslaughter - murder reduced to the lesser offence on the ground of diminished responsibility. Mary Bell was 10 when she killed for the first time. She was 11 when she killed her second victim. Cries Unheard is based on extensive interviews with Mary Bell, her family and the families of her victims. Gitta Sereny writes with extraordinary penetration, insight and understanding of the nature of personal responsibIlity for murder. (She has also written, with equal penetration, studies of Fritz Stangl and Albert Speer.) The central point of Sereny's studies, I believe, is the show more necessity, before condemnation or compassion, to understand, so far as we can, the nature of human evil and guilt for wrongdoing. One central issue in the Mary Bell studies - it is a philosophical issue - which has continuing resonance for me as a criminal lawyer is what it means for a person to intend to kill another person; a particularly difficult question when the person who kills is a child. Intention requires an understanding of what it is that one intends. Understanding the meaning of death in the particular circumstances of doing something that will cause death is widely variable across the human population. Depending on age and many other factors, children are particularly likely to lack any rational understanding of what it means for another person to die. show less

If you are at all interested in true crime, you must read this book. Mary Bell was an 11 year old murderer labeled a monster by everyone. After reading this book, it doesn't by any means excuse what she did, but it sure makes it a hell of a lot easier to understand why. Insightful and tragic story.

An account of the poignant case of Mary Bell and the two toddlers she killed at the age of 11, in a poor area of industrial England in 1968. Her own life with an uncaring mother who worked as a prostitute and a drunken father is described. Since her release, Mary Bell has lived incognito.

This book goes some way towards helping us to understand the life and parenting experiences that may lead a child to sadistic and unfeeling acts, perhaps as a replay of trauma making another person take the role of victim.

There are other people, of course, who acted out the same pathology but with far larger consequences, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to mention just three individuals. And Gita Sereny has also involved herself, as an Austrian who lived show more through the war years, with understanding how a whole country, and the individuals within it, were brought under the sway of the intelligent but profoundly damaged man that Hitler was. show less