He was quickly dubbed "The Boston Boy Fiend." His rampage had begun three years earlier with the sexual torture of seven other boys. For those crimes Pomeroy was sentenced to reform school, but then he was released early. Not long afterward he mutilated and killed a 10-year-old girl who came into his mother's store. A month later, he snatched four-year-old Horace Mullen. He took Horace to a swamp outside town and slashed him so savagely with a knife that he nearly decapitated the child. Because of his strange appearance—he had a milky white eye---and his previous behavior, suspicion turned to him. When he was shown the body and asked if he'd done it, he responded with a nonchalant, "I suppose I did." Then the girl was found buried in his mother's cellar and he confessed to that murder, too. He was convicted and sentenced to death, although a public outcry against condemning a child to hang commuted the sentence to four decades of solitary confinement.
Child Murderers in the Sixties
In 1964, when Edmund Kemper was 15, he shot his grandparents, killing them both. He'd been imagining this act for some time and had no regrets. The California Youth Authority detained him in Juvenile Hall so that they could put him through a battery of tests administered by a psychiatrist. Since the results indicated that he was paranoid and psychotic, he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital for treatment. There he learned what people thought about his crime and worked hard to convince his doctors that he had recovered. Although he was labeled a sociopath, he actually worked in the psychology lab to help administer the tests to others. In the process, he learned a lot about other deviant offenders. Kemper was released five years later, although he remained under the supervision of the Youth Authority.
Child Murderers in the Nineties
In 1998, 14-year-old Joshua Phillips bludgeoned his 8-year-old neighbor, and then hid her body beneath his waterbed. Seven days later his mother noticed something leaking from beneath the bed. Joshua claimed that's he'd accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with a baseball. She screamed and he panicked. He then dragged her to his home where he hit her with a bat and then stabbed her eleven times. His story failed to convince a Florida jury, who convicted him of first-degree murder.
Why Do Children Kill?
Kids kill fall into different categories, according to their traits, situations, and motivations. Some kills are accidental, such as those involving kids who find their parents' guns, but many occur within a specific type of context and have motives. Children who grow up in violent environments and who may have violent role models, such that their typical mode of response, whether for self-defense or just to get what they want, is violence. Children who kill members of their family for reasons other than an accident, feel pressured by demands, abuse, hatred, desire for gain, and even by the need of other family members.
Sources
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/kids2/killers_2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_County_Child_Killer
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