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

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"Cries Unheard" is the most castigated book to be published in Britain in 1998. Why? It is the story of Mary Bell who at the age of 10 years murdered two little boys and was found guilty of the crime in an adult court of law. The book has been reviled in the British press because, 30 years after the killings, Gitta Sereny has interviewed Mary Bell herself to try to understand why these terrible events happened. The crux was that Gitta Sereny paid Mary Bell for her time and this has opened up a moral can of worms: should criminals be seen to benefit financially from their crimes?

Controversy over this issue has blinded many in Britain to the merits of this book although Sereny explains in her work why she felt it appropriate to pay Ms Bell. I tend to agree with Sereny since there can be little point in investigating these sorts of crimes unless we can hear directly from the perpetrator as to why they acted the way they did. In order to prevent children killing children, surely we need to understand what it is that has driven these kids to kill? In nearly all cases, Sereny argues, the behaviour of these children can be traced to a trauma in childhood. Mary Bell herself had a damaged childhood and the killings of these boys were her cry for help. These cries were unheard since Mary was sent to an adult prison where she became institutionalised. It is only now that Mary has understood what she has done and her remorse would appear to be genuine. The book carefully records her life in excruiting detail and I would defy anyone not to be horrified by the various ordeals that she has suffered.

The story of Mary Bell carries many lessons, particularly for those who deal with child criminals and children who are in care. But it also carries a wider message; in order to prevent these tragedies happening again, we need to be alert to the "cries".

I should emphasise that in no way does the book attempt to justify what Mary Bell did. Both the author and Mary herself fully accept that she was guilty as charged and that there can be no reparations to the families who lost their children.

I was profoundly taken with Ms Sereny's book. I was sad for the child victims and I was moved by Mary herself. If you are of an open mind, and you really want to understand why little children do such terrible things, you will want to read this book. I would particularly recommend it to anyone who is interested in child psychology or even in why people do what they do. Don't take the moral high ground: the lessons to be learned from the story of Mary Bell are far, far too important to be ignored.

Cries Unheard is not an easy book to review. Like Sereny's other books on Albert Speer (Hitler's Chief of Armaments) and Franz Stangl. (the Commander of the Treblinka Death Camp) one picks up the book with the hope that one will find answers to the question of why people commit evil acts. Sereny did not give the reader an easy, pat answer when dealing with Stangl and Speer, and neither did she make such an attempt in dealing with Mary Bell.

However unlike Stangl and Speer, who were adults and unquestionably knew what they were doing was wrong if not "evil," the same can not be said for Mary Bell. When Mary committed the murders she was a young child who did not understand the true consequences of her actions. Sereny explores Mary's psyche as well as the environment in which she lived in order to answer the question of why she committed theses unspeakable acts. As always, Sereny does not pull any punches when dealing with Mary, although she is clearly more forgiving than she was with Stangl or Speer. Importantly, Sereny in no way seeks to excuse the murders or minimize the horror that the victims families were forced to endure. She also makes clear that Mary knew that her conduct was wrong even if she did not understand the finality of death.

What comes out of the book is that there were multiple causative factors that led to the murders. Among them was the abusive home in which she lived as well as the total lack of a support network. However, Sereny does not rest with the easy answer that abuse equals murder. After all Norma Bell (no relation), who committed the second murder with Mary, did not come from an abusive home. At the end of the book there is no real answer as to why the murders were committed.

The book is written against the backdrop of increasing penalties for juvenile offenders. While Sereny's political agenda unquestionably effected the writing, Mary's story is compelling for the murders as well as her incarceration and her rehabilitation. Given all that happened to Mary, the murders, the imprisonment, and an abusive mother Mary seems to be living a productive life and ably raising her child. Perhaps Mary's present life, and the way in which she got there, is a more important story than the murders.

The true-life story about the english girl Mary Bell - a little girl who killed two other little boys was very disturbing and chilling. Yet it is THE book to read to try to understand how young children mentally operate, why they could do such a horrific thing, and what could lead them to even think about death/murder.

It is written by Gitta Sereny from a very journalistic point of view. Sereny was a journalist appointed to Mary Bell's case from the very start of that case and she has followed Mary's story throughout the years. This book is written based on interviews with Mary as an adult - after she came out of jail, but Sereny is very fact-based. It is not just opinions and "excuses" of Mary that we read in this book. In fact, many a times, Sereny states that she does not believe some things Mary says, so Sereny goes and interviews everyone related to particular statements Mary makes about certain periods of her life to get to the TRUTH -- Mary's jail housemates, relatives, jail security persons, etc etc. So we don't just get Mary's story....

You read about Mary from the start of her lie to her life at present. A fascinating "can't put the book down" reading which teaches you that kids develop their mental abilities at a very young age.

Every social worker and parent should read this.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

-Alina Uzilov / 2003

The author makes an extremely compelling case for reform in the juvenile justice system in relating Mary Bell's tale. My impression is that the book's being hyped as an explanation of "why children kill" is more of a sales hook than a reflection of what Sereny was actually trying to accomplish.

One of her primary theses is that our current system of justice insists upon treating children who commit crimes as miniature adults (with an adult level of understanding and cognitiion) and, as such, imposes upon them the same type of cookie-cutter responses that have so dismally failed adult offenders. Consequently, I think she would adovocate that we, as readers, try to understand not why children (as an undifferentiated group)murder, but why this particular child did. To the extent that we can draw lessons from mary Bell's experience that will allow us to look at each child's experience individually and try to fashion an appropriate rehabilitative response, I think she will have succeeded.

This is an appalling story, not simply because of what Mary Bell did but because of the confusion of attitudes surrounding the issue of what an appropriate response to those actions might be. Children do not become as angry and as cruel as Mary Bell was without cause, and given the fact that they ARE children, and very much the product of their environments, she should be understood to be a victim of those circumstances as well as a victimizer. Children under the age of puberty quite clearly do not have an adult perception of consequences or an adult grasp of morality, nor for that matter the capacity for adult self-control. To treat them as adults, therefore, is simply to entrench in them the rage that led to the initial crime. If we subscribe to the view that imprisonment should be a rehabilitative process, then we cannot do anything other than applaud Mary's emergence into a relatively normal adult life outside prison: in particular, the very positive experience she had at Red Bank under the care of Mr Dixon - obviously one of those rare, humane and loving individuals the prison service is probably too short of - points the way to those who wish to reform the treatment of children in protective custody. To cast aside the life of an 11-year-old by blaming her for the sins which were committed against her and which her actions mirror back to society is obviously in itself another crime, and Gitta Sereny's book slowly and persuasively builds up the case for this view. By the way, since we as yet know next to nothing of the backgrounds of the children who killed in the USA recently, it is too early to say they too were not victims of a careless and uncaring adult world: their anger cannot have been causeless. Read this book with an open mind and then work for reform of the juvenile justice system!

A very well-written, provocative apologia for Mary Bell, who at not quite 11 committed two inexplicable murders. I was at first very skeptical of both the author's and the killer's motives, but I came away feeling that Mary Bell was not the complete "bad seed" she was thought of. I do, however, take issue with the oft-sounded note that she really didn't understand that the little boys (or at least the first one) would actually die when she attacked them. She was not only old enough to know, she was also wise beyond her years, and she even said to her first victim before he died, "We're going to heaven." I am also not completely convinced that her childhood traumas (to the extent that they are true) were the sole cause of these murders, but the only other logical explanation is that Mary Bell was inherently "evil" -- which later events in her life apparently do not bear out. She was certainly a very angry little girl; but, as she herself points out, other children go through similar (or worse) traumas and don't kill people. Gitta Sereny does an excellent job arguing the case for juvenile justice reform, and her proposals at the end of the book make a great deal of sense. She makes clear that juvenile crime is not to be excused -- that these children must be punished -- but that the system must keep firmly in mind that they ARE children, and that they must be properly treated and prepared for their eventual release.

Cries Unheard, subtitled Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell, is one of the best books I have ever read. Don't expect that you will understand why children kill after reading this book. This is a compelling account of an eleven year old English girl in 1968 who murdered two boys. This is not in any way your usual "true crime" trash novel.I'm a true crime reader and find most of this genre to be a waste of time. This book is one to keep in your library with In Cold Blood and The Sea Will Tell.

This book documents the transformation of Mary Bell from what was obviously a sociopath to a "Morally Aware" adult. What is even more interesting, it seems that Mary Bell made this transistion despite the best efforts of the Home Office.

The seeds of the Mark Bell transformation seems to be the efforts of an gentleman *without* formal Corrections training. This gentleman was charged with her incarceration just after her conviction. Later Mary was transfered from his custody to an adult prison, where remarkably her "morality" suffered, but survived.

It makes one wonder about the wisdom of the "Try as an adult" laws that are becoming popular in the United States.

I would strongly recommend that the reader, read Ms. Serenys previous book on the Mary Bell Murders (if you can find it) *before* reading this book. Failing that, internet has several good sites on the Murder and Trial.

A stunning narrative about how severely damaged children can become when they are neglected and abused (in case there was any doubt). Why is it hard for society to understand that every individual child will respond to such trauma in her/his own way? Mary Bell was an extremely angry child, angry enough to kill. Do I think it's right that she is a free woman today? Not really, after all, the 2 little boys she killed are still dead, and their families were destroyed forever. But if her story helps just one adult save a child who may be crying out for help (as Mary did to no avail), she will have done at least that bit of good for society.

"Cries Unheard" was a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a profoundly dirturbed young girl. At times, I felt the book concentrated too heavily on listing and describing the events of Mary's past in chronological order. The most interesting parts of the book are the voices of Mary, her mother and her careworkers. This book is worth reading, but at times I found myself skimming through the "who, what, when, where" and seeking out the "why". This book is also clearly trying to avoid sensationalism, so there are no photographs of Mary other than the grainy one on the cover.

The book's greatest strenth is the fact that it opened my eyes to the harm that is done when a child criminal is sacrificed to satiate the public's desire for vengance and "justice". The author's message is clear; by treating child criminals as adults, we are ignoring the fact that they are qualitatively different creatures. Mary Bell committed a shocking crime, but that doesn't take away the fact that she was a little girl of eleven, still playing pretend and wetting her bed. To treat her as an adult did her a great disservice, and did not bring back her two victims, either.