Real Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Book III

The Murder of James Bulger

James Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990 – 12 February 1993) was a 2-year-old boy from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, who was abducted, tortured, and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, on Friday, 12 February 1993. Thompson and Venables led Bulger away from the New Strand Shopping Center in Bootle as his mother had taken her eyes off him momentarily. His mutilated body was found on a railway line 2.5 miles (4 km) away in Walton, Liverpool, two days after his abduction.

Thompson and Venables were charged on 20 February 1993 with abduction and murder. They were found guilty on 24 November, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history. They were sentenced to detention at Her Majesty's pleasure until a Parole Board decision in June 2001 recommended their release on a lifelong license aged 18. In 2010, Venables was sent to prison for breaching the terms of his license, and was released on parole again in 2013. In November 2017, Venables was again sent to prison for possessing child abuse images on his computer.

The Bulger case has prompted widespread debate about how to handle young offenders when they are sentenced or released from custody.

Murder

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) evidence from the New Strand Shopping Center in Bootle taken on Friday, 12 February 1993, showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, apparently selecting a target. The boys were playing truant from school, which they did regularly. Throughout the day, Thompson and Venables were seen stealing various items including sweets, a troll doll, some batteries and a can of blue paint, some of which were later found at the murder scene. One of the boys later revealed that they were planning to find a child to abduct, lead him to the busy road alongside the shopping center, and push him into the path of oncoming traffic.

That same afternoon, Bulger, from nearby Kirkby, went with his mother, Denise, to the New Strand Shopping Center. Whilst inside the A. R. Tym's butcher's shop on the lower floor of the center at around 15:40, Denise, who had let go of James' hand whilst paying for her shopping, realized that her son had left the shop. Thompson and Venables approached James Bulger, took him by the hand and led him out of the shopping center. The moment was caught on CCTV at 15:42.

Thompson and Venables took Bulger to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, around a quarter of a mile from the New Strand Shopping Center, where they dropped him on his head and he suffered injuries to his face. The boys joked about pushing Bulger into the canal. An eyewitness during the trial said that when he saw Bulger at the canal, he was "crying his eyes out". During a 2.5-mile (4 km) walk across Liverpool, the boys were seen by 38 people, but most bystanders did nothing to intervene. Two people challenged Thompson and Venables, but they claimed Bulger was their brother or that he was lost and they were taking him to a police station. At one point, the boys took Bulger into a pet shop, from which they were ejected.

Eventually, the boys arrived in the village of Walton, and with Walton Lane police station across the road facing them, they hesitated and led Bulger up a steep bank to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield railway station, close to Anfield Cemetery, where they began torturing him.

One of the boys threw blue Humbrol modeling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger's left eye. They kicked him, stamped on him and threw bricks and stones at him. They placed batteries in Bulger's mouth and, according to police, may have inserted some into his anus, although none were found there. Finally, the boys dropped a 10-kilogram (22 lb) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, on Bulger. He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head. Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries – 42 in total – that none could be isolated as the fatal blow. Thompson and Venables laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in the hope that a train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident. After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train. Bulger's severed body was discovered by some schoolboys two days later on 14 February. A forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was struck by the train.