True Story
Unravelling the Mind of the Most Evil Child
Understanding the story of the Most Evil Child
Who was Jesse?
Jesse Pomeroy was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on November 29, 1859. He was the son of Thomas and Ruth, and had a younger brother, Charles Pomeroy. He was born with a defect in his right eye that made it appear almost completely white.
His parents were alcoholics and extremely violent and abusive. Jesse was ridiculed and tormented by other children, and even by his own family, who were repelled by his gaze.
Jesse’s childhood was not easy.
He was constantly bullied at school for having a deformity in his right eye, due to a white membrane covering his cornea. As a result, he became very shy and embarrassed. His social awkwardness was also no help to his personal development.
Growing up in a humble family, Jesse was the typical bad boy. At the age of 12, he lured younger boys to remote areas, attacking them with extreme brutality. The boys were stabbed, beaten, whipped and gagged with daggers, knives and belts, leaving them with permanent scars.
Pomeroy was an extremely disturbed child from a young age.
Today, he would probably be defined as a psychopath, and the FBI would consider him an organized lust killer. Someone who tortures and kills for erotic pleasure above all else.
If there is anyone who proves that psychopathy has no age, it is Jesse Pomeroy. From the age of 14, he carried out cold-blooded murders, being one of the youngest people sentenced to life in prison.
What crimes did he commit?
It all began in 1871 when Jesse began luring young boys to an undisclosed location, stripping them naked, tying them up, and cruelly beating them with rope or other objects. In addition to often cutting them with a knife.
In 1872, Jesse moved with his brother Thomas and mother Ruth to Boston. There, the attacks continued, leading to a six-year sentence in the Massachusetts Reformatory. But he was eventually released. In February 1874, at the age of 14, he returned to his family. At the time, her mother owned a sewing store and her brother sold newspapers.
He was eventually convicted of the murders of two young children, four-year-old Horace Millen and ten-year-old Katie Curran, who disappeared, and the last place she was seen was in one of Jesse’s family stores, where he worked as a frequency.
The disappearance was strange to the police, but they had no evidence implicating Jesse, who was just 14 at the time. About five weeks later, in April 1874, Horace Millen’s body was discovered by two children who were walking along the beach looking for shells and other fun things. He was almost decapitated, strangled, cut with a knife, almost completely castrated and set on fire.
A witness saw a boy running away from the scene but couldn’t figure out who it was. But that was enough for the police to immediately begin suspecting Pomeroy. Upon finding him, the police realized that his bootprints matched the footprints found at the crime scene. He was covered in blood and carried a bloody knife.
What happened to him?
The police were sure they had their man. They arrested Jesse Pomeroy and pressured him into confessing to young Horace’s murder. Jesse would be sentenced to death for the two murders he was accused of, but shortly before he turned 17, his sentence would be changed to life in prison, due to his young age. Jesse Pomeroy would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Although Pomeroy ended up confessing to 29 murders in total, it is likely not true.
At the age of 55, in 1914, he underwent a psychiatric examination.
The report stated that Pomeroy demonstrated “the greatest ingenuity and a persistence unprecedented in the history of the prison.” His persistence had to do with the fact that he made between 10 and 12 determined attempts to escape from prison.
In 1929, by this time an elderly man in frail health, Pomeroy was transferred to a hospital for the criminally insane, where he died on September 29, 1932.