It turns out that some of the worst people of all time were barely old enough for middle school, which is probably why these cases still feel so hard to talk about.
A bell at 12:35
March 24, 1998, was a day when life completely changed for students and teachers at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Arkansas. 11-year-old Andrew Golden pulled the fire alarm at the school, although it wasn’t a simple school-day prank.
Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson waited outside the school with guns, later murdering four students and one teacher as they ran out of the school for what they thought was a fire. Ten others were also injured.
Two small boys in Scotswood
The UK’s youngest female killer was a girl named Mary Bell, who committed her first murder at the age of 10 in Newcastle. She strangled 4-year-old Martin Brown in May 1968, and then, two months later, she strangled 3-year-old Brian Howe.
Bell was later questioned by police and charged with the boys’ murders. The case went to trial, where a jury found her guilty of manslaughter, and she was imprisoned for nearly eleven and a half years. Bell was released in 1980 and is currently a free woman.
The long walk out of Bootle
On February 12, 1993, two ten-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, abducted 2-year-old James Bulger from a shopping center in Bootle, England. Bulger had been shopping with his mother. The two boys led him away and made him walk over two miles.
They tortured Bulger before killing him and leaving his body on a railway line. Thompson and Venables were convicted of Bulger’s murder the same year at the age of 11, though they served only eight years in prison before being released.
A secret that did not stay hidden
Still in the UK and still in the ‘90s, we have the case of Sharon Carr. She was only twelve years old when she stabbed 18-year-old Katie Rackliff to death in Surrey, seemingly at random. It took two years for Carr to be caught, after she stabbed another student at school.
Carr was detained and wrote in her diary about Rackliff’s murder, so police connected her to the case. She was convicted in 1997, five years after Rackliff was murdered, and remains in prison to this day.
A short walk to summer camp
Derrick Robie was a 4-year-old boy who, in August 1993, was walking to a recreation program in Savona, New York. He never made it there. 13-year-old Eric Smith lured Robie into the woods and murdered him.
Later, Smith confessed to his family about his crime, and they informed the police, leading to Smith being arrested. He was tried as an adult for his crime and spent twenty-seven years in prison before being released in 2022.
A living room that became a crime scene
Another equally horrific case is that of Tiffany Eunick, a 6-year-old girl who was murdered by 12-year-old Lionel Tate in Broward County, Florida. The murder took place in July 1999. According to Tate’s defense, the pair had been practicing wrestling moves from the WWE.
It was clear, however, that Eunick’s injuries were far more extreme than that, with one report claiming it was more like she’d been hit by a speeding car. Tate was sentenced to life in prison, although the conviction was later overturned.
A neighbor no one expected
In October 2009, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten was living in St. Martins, Missouri, and she disappeared after leaving her home. What happened? Her neighbor, 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamente, strangled and stabbed Olten to death.
Bustamente pled guilty to Olten’s murder in 2012 and received life in prison with the possibility of parole. In her journal, Bustamente wrote about the murder, saying, ‘As soon as you get over the “ohmygawd, I can’t do this” feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable.’
A house across the street
On January 29, 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire on the people at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego. She killed the school’s principal, Burton Wragg, and the school custodian, Mike Suchar, while also injuring nine other people.
Spencer murdered them from the comfort of her home with a rifle, and the event became the first mass shooting at an American elementary school. She received a life sentence, and she is still in prison now.
Fifth period in Moses Lake
Math class had already begun at Frontier Middle School in Moses Lake, Washington, on February 2, 1996, when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis burst into the classroom. He had a hunting rifle and two handguns with him.
Loukaitis opened fire and killed two students, along with their teacher, and injured another student. Another teacher, Jon Lane, overpowered Loukaitis and subdued him until the police arrived. Loukaitis was given two life sentences and remains in prison.
Tea before the walk
In 1954, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were aged 16 and 15, living in Christchurch, New Zealand. They went out with Pauline’s mother, Honorah Parker, for afternoon tea before brutally murdering her with a brick.
Why? Because they thought Honorah was in the way of their friendship. The pair served five years each in prison and were released in 1959. Hulme died in 2023, while Parker is still alive and allegedly lives in Scotland.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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