Girl Strangling Case Continues

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 13

Girl Strangling Case Continues

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEWCASTLE (England), December 13. Mary Bell, aged 11, the younger of two schoolgirls charged with strangling two small boys “for a giggle,” told a courtroom today that she learned about strangling by watching television, United Press International reported.

“Do you know what happens when you hold someone by the throat and squeeze?” the prosecuting counsel asked her. “Yes sir, they would die,” answered Mary.

“And how do you know that?" she was asked. “Because I watch the Saint on TV,” she said. Then Mary broke down in tears. “They have all put their heads together to get Norma off,” she screamed from her seat on a cushion in the witness box. Norma Bell, her 13-year-o!d co-accused and next-door neighbour in the decaying Newcastle slum called “Rat Alley,” is bigger and two years older than Mary. “They’ve been saying things to make everything go against me,” Mary cried, sobbing in the arms of a policewoman.

Experts have testified that traces of both girls’ clothing were found on the body of the victim, Martin Brown. Child psychiatrists have testified that Mary is the more dominant and wily of the two, and intelligence tests have shown Norma to be on the borderline of sub-normal. Each of the girls has accused the other of killing the two boys, Martin Brown, aged 4, and Brian Howe, aged 3.

Reaction to Cabinet.—A South Vietnamese Englishlanguage newspaper said today that President-elect Richard Nixon’s Cabinet had “a good opportunity to repair whatever damage had been done by irrational men in the! past”—Saigon, Dec. 13. |