(Reproduction/dissemination/)
Who – Jesse Pomeroy
Diagnosis – Not made or not disclosed
Age – 14 years
Where – USA
1. This is one of the first known cases of child murderers. In 1872, at the age of 12, Jesse attacked four boys aged between 7 and 12 years with sadistic refinements in Charlestown, Massachusetts (USA). Pomeroy whipped, gagged, beat and cut his victims with a knife. Arrested, he was sentenced to six years in a reformatory in Massachusetts.
two. Pomeroy was behind bars for just one year and five months due to good behavior. After being released at the age of 14, he brutally tortured and murdered two girls, aged 10 and 4. This time he was sentenced to death. The governor of Massachusetts, however, did not want to sign the sentence due to the boy’s age, transforming the sentence into life imprisonment.
3. The boy occupied himself in the prison library, where he learned six languages and studied the US judicial system – still trying to appeal to get out of there. According to a report published in The Globe newspaper, Pomeroy lost an eye after trying to destroy the side of his cell. He is believed to have tried to escape from prison between ten and 12 times.
4. After 38 years in prison, three psychiatrists assessed Pomeroy as being in a good state of conscience, but still unrepentant. According to the report, he was highly selfish and predisposed to order the local authorities. Pomeroy eventually died at the Bridgewater Hospital for the Mentally Impaired, where he was transferred in 1929, aged about 70, due to health complications.