One of the first known cases of psychopathic children has been the story of Jesse Pomeroy, a 15-year-old boy who committed a series of murders until that age.
About the victims
The first of his victims was a 7-year-old boy, William Paine, who was found on December 1, 1871 by two men walking down a lonely street. They heard a muffled cry, and as they approached a small hut, it was then when they entered the place, they saw the boy tied by his hands and hanging from the roof of the place. He was barely conscious and was crying, with large wounds and bruises on his back. He could not report who did it.
In mid-April 1872, he promised to take the young Robert Maier to the circus. When they got to a secluded place, she undressed him, hit him, and masturbated in front of him, making him suffer with all this. Also while beating him with a stick he forced him to curse. When he finished, he released him and vowed to kill him if he said anything to the police. Then he fled the scene. The police began to question all the young men in the place with brown hair.
Ruth, Jesse Pomeroy's mother, decided to move to South Boston.
George Pratt was another of his victims, who when he was walking down the street was approached by Pomeroy who said to reward him with money if he brought him what he asked for. When he took him to a secluded place and began to do the same to him as other victims. She undressed him, hit him hard all over the body with a belt. He bit him on the cheek and scratched him all over his body. He even stuck a long needle in various parts of her body. She wanted to stick it in the eye but Pratt got into the fetal position and couldn't. Before leaving, he bit her buttock.
Another was Joseph Kennedy, who part of beating him made a strong cut on his face and then took him to the sea shore and threw salt water on him for further suffering. Then the last one was Gould, a 5-year-old boy, who grabbed him by the neck at the point of a knife threatening him on the railroad tracks, but who had to flee soon when he saw railroad workers approaching.
Gould gave police further clues, saying one of the eyes was completely white. At the end of 1872 they went to various schools but Gould could not find the suspect, they even went to the Pomeroy school but could not identify him.After this, Pomeroy approached the police station who were with Kennedy, and it was this who identified him and the police were able to catch him.
Since he left the reformatory, 2 months have passed and a girl who wanted a notebook came to her mother's store where she worked, she was the same age and her name was Katie Curran. Jesse managed to get the other employees out there. He took her inside and cut his throat with his razor. Her mother looked for her but couldn't find her.
Later, Horace Millen, a four-year-old boy, was also killed by him. First he bought her a cupcake and took it to a remote area while he ate it. He had promised to show her a steamboat. When they reached a swamp he made him sit down and there he drove a knife that he carried in his pocket with great force. Yet Millen did not die and was fighting to save his life. When they found him, he had 18 stab wounds and another in one eye. He also had attempts to castrate him but failed to do so.
About the young psychopath ...
Jesse Pomeroy was born on November 29, 1859 in the town of Charleston, Massachusetts, the second child of the marriage of Thomas and Ruthan Pomeroy. They lived in the middle of the economy. The father was an alcoholic and abusive. For anything that would enrage, he would take the children to a hut where he would strip them naked and brutally beat them until they calmed down. From this behavior Jesse did not get the concept that you had to behave well, but on the contrary, he took the perverse and bad part.
His appearance inspired fear, his body was very large for his age, as well as his head, ears and unflattering facial features. His right eye lacked iris and pupil, giving an appearance that was scary, even his father could not look him in the eyes without giving him a terrible chill when he looked at him.
He was sentenced to be in reformatory for 15 to 15 months later, in Westborough Juvenile Hall. He was well-behaved, while his mother fought for his release. Finally, at 15 months, he is liberalized and his mother puts him to work in a stationery store she owned
Two months passed and he started doing it again but this time with murders. Finally, after all the victims we said earlier they found him. At first he had been sentenced to death, but as much as he had killed so many people, it was very sad that a child as young as 15 years old died by hanging. They then chose that he have a life sentence for his entire life. In addition, he had to fulfill it alone. Even so, in 1917 his sentence was lowered and he was able to meet with other colleagues so as not to be alone. He died in 1931, after two years of illness.