Fiendish Killers

by Anne Williams

  Willie Bosket grew up in a tough area of New York City, rife with poverty and a constant background of street violence. He had no role model to turn to as his father was a convict who had been put away for murder. Bosket never really got to know his father but the similarities between the two are quite alarming. Each had a third-grade education, they were both sentenced to the same reform school when they were nine and they both went on to commit double murders. Although they both displayed a superior intelligence, this is where the two differ, as Bosket’s father studied hard while he was in jail and became the first inmate to be inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honour society. When Bosket Snr was released in 1983, he found work as a teaching assistant in a university, but his rehabilitation was short-lived. In 1985, he was re-arrested for molesting a six-year-old child and following a shoot-out with police, he shot his girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself.

  Without the presence of a father figure, Bosket relied on his mother to guide him in his early years. However, she was a drug addict who had an addiction for violent men and was often prone to fly into a paranoid rage. She once accused Bosket of stealing money from her purse, but despite his pleading innocence, she grabbed a knife and attempted to stab him in the mouth. Too scared to live with his mother any longer, Bosket ran away to his grandmother’s house. His grandmother immediately called child protection and took custody of the boy to try and protect him from any further violence.

  However, life at his grandmother’s house was little better and he had to fight for attention against the dominating characters of his aunt and uncle. Despite having an above-average IQ, Bosket dropped out of school and, before the age of eight, had mugged an old lady, terrorised his classmates and intimidated his teachers. He started playing on the streets and found solace with other children of neglect and abuse.

  His behaviour was such that his grandmother was forced to have him placed in a juvenile correctional facility when he was just nine years of age. Being institutionalised seemed to bring out the worst in the young boy, and Bosket turned to arson, stealing a van and assaulting both inmates and staff with fists, teeth, chairs and a nail-spiked wooden club, in fact anything he could get his hands on. He also attempted to strangle a nurse with a telephone cord and eventually he left the facility a very angry twelve-year-old boy.

  Shortly after his release, Bosket was arrested for playing with a loaded gun with some other street kids, leaning over an overpass and pointing it at cars, shouting ‘Pow! Pow!’ The police were alerted to the boys’ behaviour and Bosket was sent away to another institute for several months. When he was released he was returned to the care of his grandmother, who died a little later that year. His aunt and uncle moved out of the house which meant that Bosket had to fend for himself. He took to stealing to survive and fought back against the sexual and physical abuse he had received not only from his family but from the detention facilities as well.

  A STEP TOO FAR

  Having been in and out of court on various charges since he was nine years of age, Bosket had little, if any, respect for the juvenile courts. Had he been able to control his lust for violence, Bosket would have been adopted by a couple who actually cared about what happened to him. However, the process of adoption was slow, and Bosket was left roaming the streets to fend for himself. On Sunday, March 19, 1978, Bosket decided to try his luck at robbery on the subways of New York City. He managed to steal $380 dollars out of the pocket of a sleeping commuter. He used the money to buy himself a gun from a man who was one of his mother’s ‘friends’. He told the fifteen-year-old boy that the gun would earn him respect on the streets, and Bosket strapped it to his leg and wore it with pride.

  Later that same day, Bosket returned to the subway and found himself alone with a middle-aged man who was asleep in the corner of the carriage. He kicked the man in the leg, but failed to get any response so tried to extricate the gold watch from his wrist without waking him. Bosket noticed the man was wearing a ridiculous pair of pink sunglasses which made him feel angry, and when the man suddenly opened his eyes, Bosket shot him through the right side of his head, penetrating his brain. Bosket panicked, fearing that the man might still be alive, and shot him again. This time the man slumped to the floor with blood gushing from his head. Bosket removed the man’s watch, found fifteen dollars in his back pocket and then slipped a gold ring off his finger. He stopped at a pawn shop on the way home and managed to get twenty dollars for the ring and he walked home elated. He had always wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone and now he could boast to all his friends that he was ‘truly bad’.

  His victim had been forty-four-year-old Noel Perez, who worked in a hospital and lived on his own. Bosket read about the killing the next day in the newspaper and he felt an overwhelming feeling of power and bragged to his sister ‘I did that!’

  the urge to kill

  Just four days after killing Perez, Bosket had a renewed strength and he went out on the streets with his cousin, Herman Spates, feeling invincible. They headed towards the subway at Lexington Avenue and spotted a train engineer in a yard who was carrying a CB radio. They knew that they could easily convert the radio into cash and decided to follow the man. The engineer was a man named Anthony Lamorte, who was about to finish his shift when he noticed the two boys.

  Lamorte shouted at the boys to ‘Get the hell out’, but this was a big mistake because Bosket did not like being told what to do. Bosket challenged the engineer to make them leave and, thinking the boys were too young to cause any real trouble, Lamorte started walking towards them. When he was within thirty feet, Bosket pulled out his gun and demanded that the engineer hand over the radio and any money he had in his pockets.

  Lamorte realised that he had misjudged the boys and turned to run back towards the subway car. He could hear the boys running after him and then felt a pain in his back and right shoulder. He could hear the two boys running away and he managed to get to his manager’s office and tell them that he thought he had been shot.

  Over the course of the next few days, the two boys carried out three more violent robberies and shot another man in the leg when he resisted them. Bosket was feeling more powerful with each robbery, convinced that he would never get caught.

  On Monday, March 27, Bosket and his cousin jumped over the turnstile and boarded the last carriage of a train heading uptown. There was only one passenger in the carriage and Bosket told his cousin to stand guard so that the man couldn’t get off at the next station. He pulled out his gun and demanded money, but when the man told Bosket that he ‘ain’t got any’, he pulled the trigger and the man slid off his seat and onto the floor of the train.

  Bosket rifled through his pockets which only contained two dollars, and he flung the empty wallet in a rubbish bin as they walked back home. He was so excited now that he had killed again that he couldn’t wait to read the newspapers the following day. When it made the front pages the next morning, he proudly showed the article to his sister. Ironically, that same day, the permission came through for him to be adopted as a foster child by a couple whom Bosket had hoped to be able to live with, but his life was not about to change for the better.

  a matter of deduction

  Fearing that there was a serial killer on the loose, the police started an intense search of the area. Having found the discarded wallet, they thought the killer was probably from the local neighbourhood and a computer search brought forward the names of Willie Bosket and Herman Spates. As they had both been arrested on numerous occasions, the police felt it was well worth pulling them in for questioning. The detective in charge of the investigation knew he had to tread carefully as Bosket, at fifteen, was still a juvenile. They managed to track down his cousin, Herman, who was with his probation officer, and lied that Bosket had already turned evidence against him. Herman immediately insisted that it was his cousin who had fired the shot and then gave them details of the previous murder and the whereabouts of the gun. They soon had enough evidence to take
the foul-mouthed, unrestrained juvenile to court.

  the trial

  The trial of Willie Bosket was held in the Family Court building on Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan and he was charged on two counts of murder and one attempted murder. The presiding judge had come across Bosket before, but this time she was shocked to see his complete lack of sensitivity. During the period he was confined waiting for his trial, Bosket had stabbed another boy with a fork, hit one of his counsellors in the face and attempted to strangle his psychiatrist. He bragged about the amount of crimes he had committed and flippantly told his lawyer to enter a plea of guilty. Due to the laws regarding the sentencing of juveniles, Bosket could only be put away for a maximum of five years, which meant that by the time he was twenty-one, this dangerous young man would be free to unleash his anger once again. However, little did the authorities realise that the system would do little to rehabilitate Bosket and he just became more and more violent as, in his own words, ‘Violence earns me respect’.

  life in prison

  Willie Bosket seemed unprepared to change and even the restraints of prison did nothing to calm his rage against the system that he said had abused him all his life. Because he spent his time attacking guards, hurling faeces and food at them, Bosket has been placed in a special dungeon which has been lined with Plexiglas. There are video cameras that track his every move and because he causes so much trouble every time he receives a visitor, he has to be chained backwards to the inside of his cell door. Even these chains couldn’t totally restrain the monster he had become, because he managed to break free on one occasion and attacked a guard leaving a six-inch wound. With each new attack Bosket’s chances of ever being free become more remote and he now faces the rest of his life incarcerated, constantly fighting the prison system.

  Jesse Pomeroy

  Jesse Harding Pomeroy became a fiendish killer at the tender age of fourteen. He was a cruel boy who took pleasure in inflicting pain and terror on those weaker than himself, gaining excitement as they writhed in agony. As in many other cases, his crimes started with beating and torture, but before long this was not enough and his acts soon took a far more sinister turn.

  Pomeroy’s appearance could be described as strange, if not a little inhuman, being larger than the majority of boys of his age. His head was oversized, with large ears that stuck out and a mouth that seemed too wide for his face. He was always sensitive about his appearance which was exacerbated by an almost pure white right eye, which gave him a somewhat eerie persona. He also suffered from epileptic-like shaking fits, leaving him a lone figure who was a prime target for the other kids in his neighbourhood.

  Born in 1859, Pomeroy was raised in the suburbs of Boston, but his family life was far from happy. His father, Charles, loved to drink which gave him a terrible temper. He took out this temper on his children, making them strip naked before they took a severe beating, often leaving them covered in bloody weals. It is possible that these beatings influenced Pomeroy to inflict pain on others, something which reared its ugly head when he was still a young boy. He seemed to have a strange passion for torturing animals, which came to his mother’s notice when he killed the family’s pet birds and a neighbour’s kitten, sadistically twisting their heads off their bodies.

  Pomeroy started to tire of his animal victims and decided to start looking for human targets. Possibly acting out his father’s behaviour, he looked for victims who were weaker and smaller than himself.

  unthinkable behaviour

  Pomeroy’s first victim was a four-year-old boy named William Paine in December 1871. He had been lured to a small cabin in an area called Powder Horn Hill. Inside the cabin, Pomeroy hung the small child by the wrists from the central beam and then gave his semi-naked body a severe beating. His back was covered in welts, standing out open and bleeding against the paleness of his skin. William was too traumatised to give a description of his assailant and the police hoped and prayed that it was just an isolated incident. Unfortunately, just two months later, Pomeroy struck again.

  This time, Pomeroy lured seven-year-old Tracy Hayden to Powder Horn Hill. Again he mimicked the actions of his father by stripping the boy naked then beating him with a switch. The boy’s front teeth were knocked out, his eyes were blackened and his nose was broken as Pomeroy unleashed his fury. The only description the police could get from the young boy was that his assailant had been a teenage boy with brown hair, which didn’t give them very much to go on. All they could do was wait, sure that their attacker would find another victim.

  It was early spring when Pomeroy struck again. This time, using the circus as a lure, he convinced eight-year-old Robert Maier to follow him to his favourite lair. Pomeroy forced the young lad to remove all of his clothes and told him to repeat swear words as he beat him. Maier was freed but was threatened with death if he told anyone what had happened.

  Anguished parents kept their children close by and warned them not to talk to anyone they didn’t know. The police began a massive manhunt and questioned every teenage boy with brown hair in the area.

  The attacks continued into July and eventually a reward of $500 was posted for information leading to the arrest of what the papers described as the ‘fiendish boy’. In July, Ruth Pomeroy decided to move her family to Chelsea Creek in South Boston. If his mother had been suspicious that her son was involved in the attacks, it must have confirmed her doubts when the attacks also moved to South Boston.

  Pomeroy’s next assault was on seven-year-old George Pratt, but this time his attack took on a new aspect. After the usual stripping and beating, Pomeroy bit a large chunk of flesh from the boy’s cheek and tore at his flesh with his fingernails. After this he took a long sewing needle and started repeatedly stabbing George’s ravaged body.

  The police were joined by vigilantes as they started rounding up youths from all over the city. However, none of the young victims could pick their attacker from the line up and the police were no closer to making an arrest.

  With each attack, Pomeroy became more frenzied and, when he abducted a six-year-old boy by the name of Harry Austin, he not only stripped him and beat him, but stabbed him under each arm and between the shoulder blades with a pocket knife. Pomeroy then attempted to cut off the boy’s penis, but was disturbed by a noise nearby and fled before he could finish the job.

  The attacks became more frequent and more violent and eventually a five-year-old boy found tied to a post near a railway line was able to give the police their first real lead. He told them that his assailant had been a large boy with one eye that looked like a ‘white marble’.

  OUT OF HARM’S WAY

  The Boston police conducted a search of all the schools in the area, convinced that this would turn up the boy with the marble eye. Eventually their perseverence paid off and they arrested Pomeroy and leaned heavily on him to try and force a confession. At first he adamantly stuck to his claim of innocence, but after a threat of a 100-year jail sentence, he caved in and confessed to his crimes.

  At the hearing, Pomeroy hung his head in shame and told the magistrate that ‘I couldn’t help myself.’ He was ordered to be placed in the House of Reformation in Westborough until he was eighteen years of age, out of harm’s way.

  Westborough House was a cruel place where the strong preyed on the weak, and it was somewhere that a character like Jesse Pomeroy could thrive. The discipline was harsh and the work was hard, but Pomeroy still felt he had a power over those smaller and weaker than himself. He learned quickly that if he were to be released before his eighteenth birthday he would need to show he was a reformed character, and indeed his records show that he was a model inmate.

  The only incident that showed he still had a more perverse side to his nature was when one of the teachers asked his help to kill a snake. Eager to help her, Pomeroy followed the teacher down the garden, grabbing a stick on the way. After she showed him exactly where the snake was, Pomeroy seemed to work himself up into a kind of frenzy as he started to
pulverise the writhing creature.

  early release

  Ruth Pomeroy, who had always stood by her son and proclaimed his innocence, was staging a campaign for his early release. When his case came up for review, Ruth managed to convince the authorities that she could provide a caring environment for her son and that she could offer him work in the family’s shop. Promising to keep a far more custodial eye on her son, Ruth managed to convince the courts and consequently, less than one and a half years after his arrest, Pomeroy was released from Westborough.

  Just six weeks after being paroled from Westborough, Pomeroy was back to his old tricks, having been attracted by ten-year-old Katie Curran who came into the shop asking for a notebook. Pomeroy asked the other boy who worked in the shop to run to the butcher’s to get some scraps to feed the cats, which left him alone with Katie. He told her that although he had no notebooks in the shop, they had a storeroom downstairs and that there might be some down there. He convinced the innocent young girl to follow him down into the cellar where he cruelly attacked her, severed her head and dumped her body behind the toilet.

  After he had satisfied his lust, Pomeroy washed his hands and then ran upstairs, resuming his work as if nothing untoward had taken place.

  When Katie’s mother learned that Jesse Pomeroy had been released and was working close by, she almost fainted from shock. However, when she went to the police with her suspicions, she was told that the boy was no threat as he had been completely rehabilitated in the reform school. When Mrs Curran persisted, the police agreed to search the shop and were met by a very hostile Ruth Pomeroy who was well aware that there were rumours going round again about her son. The police search revealed nothing and eventually, following statements from witnesses saying that they had seen Katie lured into a car, the case was closed, concluding that she had been the victim of an unfortunate kidnap.