What happened to James Bulger?

Search: james bulger

Why: In "Ten of the most controversial films of all time":

Child's Play 3
The 1991 movie was originally released with little fuss. However, it became notorious two years later, after it was linked to the devastating death of two-year-old James Bulger. His two ten-year-old killers were initially believed to have imitated a scene from the film, most notably splashing their victim with blue paint.

I don't remember this.

Answer: Oh, it's just gross. Don't read this.

On Feb. 12, 1993, 10 year olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables skipped school and went to the mall. They spent the morning knocking things over, poking old people, climbing on furniture, and stealing candy. Somehow, they got the idea to steal a baby. They walked off with one, but his mother saw and called him back. Then they saw James Bulger playing in the storefront of a butcher shop. It was a month before his 3rd birthday.

The two boys led James by the hand out of the mall. Tons and tons of people saw, and security cameras caught them as they walked out.

They took him down the street, to a canal and under a bridge, and then they pushed him in the water. One of them then picked him up and dropped him on his head. They ran away for a bit, but when they saw someone coming, they went back to get James, who had a cut on his forehead.

They led him across a busy intersection, where even more people saw the boys all together. Someone saw Robert kick James in the chest. A woman saw the boys in the park, and James was laughing. Another woman in the park saw Jon punch James, grab him, and violently shake him. (The press called these witnesses "The Liverpool 38," shaming them for not intervening.) An elderly woman saw James crying and noticed that he was hurt. Jon and Robert told her that they found him at the bottom of a hill, and she told them to take him to the police station nearby. She pointed them in the right direction, but they walked the other way. She shouted at them, but they didn't turn back.

The boys went in and out of shops and interacted with several people. They ran into some boys they knew, but one told them to take James home.

Around 6 PM, they wandered into a railway station. One of the boys threw blue paint onto James's face and into his left eye. As he screamed, they threw stones at him, kicked him in the face and groin, and beat him with bricks. They removed his shoes and pants, sexually assaulting him. The may have inserted batteries into his rectum. They hit him with an iron bar. When they thought he was dead, they laid his body on the railroad track and covered his head with bricks.

Afterward, the boys went back into town to a video store. Jon's mother Susan burst through the door, furious. She dragged the two boys out of the store, screaming and beating them both. She had heard about a kidnapping at the mall and was worried that some maniac could have taken Jon. Robert went home in tears and told his mother about the beating. She took him to the police station to report the beating, noting a scratch under his eye.

Two days later, James's body was found on the railroad tracks. In the morning, an engineer saw a bundle, but he thought it was a cat. In the afternoon, 4 boys found James's upper body wrapped in a coat, but his naked lower half was further down the tracks. He had suffered 42 injuries, most to his face and head. He had still been alive when Robert and Jon left him, but had died before the train hit him.

In the witchhunt that followed the release of the security camera footage and details about the crime, an anonymous woman called in to report that Jon Venables had skipped school that Friday and that he had blue paint on the sleeve of his coat. On February 18th, police picked up both Jon and Robert, noting blood on Robert's shoes. During questioning, each lied, avoided the truth, and blamed the other as often as possible. In November, the boys - now both 11 years old - became the youngest convicted killers of the 20th century.

Source: TruTV

The More You Know: In case you are wondering what James's mother Denise is up to, in 2004, she was busy having 3 kids and watching those killers. They served 8 years but were already out and living under new identities (so people wouldn't find and kill them).

She told the paper she had been sent a letter by an anonymous 'well-wisher' in which Thompson's daytime movements were outlined.

The 37-year-old mother of three then went to the area described in the letter on numerous occasions and waited until she found him in September.

She said she recognised him "in an instant. It was such a shock to see him in front of me. I was staring at him and he was none the wiser. Part of me wanted to jump out of the car and punch him but I was paralysed with the hatred I feel for him. In the end I just stared after him as he wandered down the street, turned a corner - and was gone."

Mrs Fergus said it was now her aim to find Venables and track him down in the same way.

But in March 2010, Venables was put back in prison for violating his release agreement by being a pedophile.

On 21 June 2010, Venables was charged with possession and distribution of indecent images of children. It was alleged that he downloaded 57 indecent images of children over a twelve month period to February 2010, and allowed other people to access the files through a peer-to-peer network.

At the court hearing, it emerged that Venables had posed in online chat rooms as 35-year-old Dawn "Dawnie" Smith, a married woman from Liverpool who boasted about abusing her eight-year-old daughter, in the hope of obtaining further child pornography. Venables had contacted his probation officer in February 2010, fearing that his new official identity had been compromised. When the officer arrived at his home, Venables was attempting to remove the hard drive of his computer with a knife and a tin opener. The officer's suspicions were aroused, and the computer was taken away for examination, leading to the discovery of the child pornography, which included children as young as two being raped by adults.