True Crime All The Time - Jesse Pomeroy

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

Jesse Pomeroy may very well be one of the most sadistic kids that has ever lived. It's hard to imagine how a boy as young as 12 years old can make the conscious decision to torture and murder other children. But this is exactly what Jesse Pomeroy did. He started to torture other children by the age of 12 and within a few years started to commit murders.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the crimes of Jesse Pomeroy, who became known as "The Boy Fiend". This is a case that will shake you to your core as you grapple with how someone so young can commit such horrible crimes. What was it in Jesse's childhood that may have led him to have the thoughts that he did? And what would happen to a kid charged with first degree capital murder at such a young age?You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise informationPlease help support our sponsor Hunt A Killer. Go to huntakiller.com/tcatt and use the promo code tcatt to get 15% off.Credits:Writing/Research - Maggie DobschuetzSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 73 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Give me, how are you today? Hey man, how you doing? I'm doing great. Me too. Happy to be in studio. Always good to be in the studio. Happy to be recording. Yeah. Had the last couple of days off. So that was nice. Must be nice. Actually rode down on the motorcycle today. You did. To your place of work. We went out to lunch. Yeah. We haven't done that in...

You didn't buy my lunch? No, I didn't buy your lunch. We went Dutch. Just want to clarify it. When you say Dutch, it sounds like we went on a date. Well, it was a lunch date. I took care of my own lunch. That's all you need to say.

I paid for mine. Isn't that what Dutch is? I paid for mine. It doesn't sound right. Anyway, you showed up with your Harley. And I have to say, you had all your Harley biking gear on. I did, man. It's all about safety, though.

Yeah. You had those. It was black Timberlands or whatever you call them. I'm sure there's an official name. They're Wolverines. The Wolverines? Not Timberlands. I don't know.

Hey. Those are all for looks. All right. I'm going for function. Yeah. So you had your black Wolverines on your biker jeans, your biker leather. I was wearing Levi's. Whatever.

We're talking about biker jeans. Like I had a dangling wallet chain. I didn't have all that. You had your black leather Harley jacket. I did have a black jacket on. Your fancy little Harley helmet with the... It's not a Harley helmet. Well, you know what I'm talking about.

Biker helmet. It's a motorcycle helmet. It's a fancy one. The half one. It does have Bluetooth in it. It has Bluetooth in it. So I can listen to podcasts while I wrap it. Yeah.

Actually, when you walked up, your podcast was playing. It was. Yeah. So, yeah. And you had your... You had a cool Harley sunglasses, too. They were not Harley's. They're Oakley's.

That's even worse. Why is that worse? It's Oakley. You're saying everything. thing I was wearing was Harley. Designer. Designer. Yeah, Oaklear designer sunglasses.

Like I'm wearing Gucci. Dolce and Cabana. I don't even know what those are. I don't know. It seems like you do, though. I've seen it somewhere. I've seen it somewhere. It was like you're down with that.

It was good having lunch with you. It was. It was nice. We hadn't done that in a long time. Right, Gibbs. We've got some new Patreon supporters. All right. So we had Terry Flatland.

Thank you. Michelle Thompson. Harry Jones. Lindsey Madden John's daughter Might be Maybe Adrian Rasky D'Raskey

Wendy Callaway heir to the Callaway Golf Fortune Yeah, that'd be nice Casey wrote Just wrote it out there It's not spelled that way But that's what I'm going with

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It's Sam. Well, Sam or Stam, he might, you know, whichever way you like to. Stefan Nissen. That's the last name? Yeah, no, that's part of their first name. I don't know. It's a very long first name. Stephanie Sien.

That's what I'm going with. All right. Thank you. That's one where I could say it four or five different ways, but. I don't think four or five different ways, maybe two, but okay. You want me? I will go four or five different ways. No, we don't want to board the people.

All right. Jason K, who's been a Patreon supporter, but up to our highest level. J.K. So, uh, JK. K gets a special shout out. We had Ashley. Thanks, Ashley. No last name.

You don't need a last name if you're going to say Ashley. Jenny story. Yay, thanks, Jenny. Joanna Fryberg. Fryberg. Just leave it at that. And then Morgan Murphy. Hey, Morgan.

And Morgan is, uh, been a big supporter for a long time. Yeah, she has. She even supports us on criminology. Yeah, she's big on social media. Yep. Big, big supporter of everything we do. So we appreciate that. And then if we go back into the vault.

Let's go back. This week we selected Heidi Vaudrin. There's Heidi. Heidi has been one of our biggest supporters since the launch of the show. She's the eyelash queen. Yep, she is. Yeah. And has been on the T-Cat bandwagon supporting us on social media.

financially. It's amazing. Yeah, for for a long time. We appreciate that so much. Thanks, Heidi. And then we had some PayPal support as well. We had Gloria McCarrio. Macario? Mm-hmm. Or Macarioo. Where's that from? It's from me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Kelly Holliday. All right. Thank you. And Jerry O'Bannon. O'Bannon? It's like that guy from Seinfeld. But was the other comedian that Jerry didn't like? They kept saying it's gold, Jerry? Yeah. was his name O'Bannon? I don't know.

Close to it. You're just making stuff up. No, it was close to that. I know the other comic you're talking about. Yeah, I can't remember if it was O'Banyan or, I think it was. Banyan, maybe. Banyan, something like that. Anyway.

Yeah, not. Just roll with it. I always roll with it. That's the problem. I just have to roll with whatever you say. But we appreciate everyone's support. You know, there is no way we could keep putting out these podcasts without the support we get of our of our listeners yeah appreciate y'all and right now make sure you check out after this episode

true crime all time unsolved there's an episode out on the lewis clark valley serial killer yes good stuff and we're out in idaho yeah the river runs through it i don't know if we've ever been in idaho do some fly fishing but it is one of these very fascinating cases it is so we'll go through details. We'll talk about people they've looked at. And there's some good stuff in there. Absolutely. Big shout out to Maggie for writing and research. Thanks, Maggie. Much appreciated. Always appreciated. Maggie does a good job. And then don't forget about CrimeCon. It is sneaking up on us very fast. I know, man. It's going to be here soon. So if you're signing up through the CrimeCon website, make sure you use the promo code T-Cat. Get a little something off your

standard badge price. I kind of feel bad that I canceled your room. You should feel bad because that means I'm bunking with you. Oh, no. And we're definitely going Dutch. Oh, no. The whole thing is Dutch. Good thing I was just joking. All right.

Gibbs, you're ready to get into this episode. Yeah, let's do it. We're talking about Jesse Pomeroy and he was given the nickname the Boy Fiend. And this is going to be the oldest episode that we've ever done. We're going back to the 1800s. But we're talking about a kid. a teenager that may be one of the most sadistic teenage killers ever. And this is why you can go back this far because of how heinous the crimes were that this

kid committed. I mean, he started technically before he was even a teenager. And I don't know about you, but you know, you think about some of these child killers that have committed their crimes in the last. I don't know what, 30 years, we'll say or so. Sure. It's kind of, it seems like that's when that kind of started. But we know it didn't.

It's been going on for a long time and this is proof. Oh, this is definitely proof. Oh, it's a lot of proof. Maybe more proof than some people are ready for. But Jesse Harding Pomeroy was born on November 29th, 1859. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts to Thomas and Ruth Ann Pomeroy. And he had an older brother named Charles. Now, Charlestown is in South Boston, which gives we know this is a place that you have a lot of roots.

Sure. I think your mom was a Southie. She was a Southie. And back during this period, it was said that Charlestown was one of the worst slums in South Boston. So in this 1800 time frame, late late late late 18. hundreds, this was a very rough place to grow up. So that's like that movie with Ben Affleck. Oh, you mean that one movie?

Because Ben Affleck has only been in like 8,000 movies. Not the Batman movie and not the one where, how you like these apples. Okay, so he was in 7,998 more movies besides that. The one where he plays the bank robber. He's with the Jeremy dude from the Avengers. The Jeremy dude. From Avengers. The guy that shoots the era?

Yeah, him. I don't think I've seen this movie. They're in a movie, and it's based in Charlestown, because they rob, like, this one bank, and they got to get across the bridge before the bridge just gets close so they can avoid capture. And then they got the end, they robbed, like, the... But don't give it away.

Oh. A, spoiler alert. Yeah. Is it called the town? Yeah, that's it. The town. I don't think I've seen it, but I... But it's based on Charlestown.

Okay. Yeah. It's based on or that's where it's filmed? I mean, that's where it's... Yeah, that's where it's set up at. Okay. Yeah. Right.

It seems like we could have got there a lot quicker than we did. Yeah, probably could. But now I'm going to have to check it out. Yeah, it's a good flick, man. I don't know why. I actually like Ben Affleck. I like when you see, like, the nuns mask when they drive by... See, I think it looks familiar or it sounds familiar.

Like, I've seen the poster or something. Yeah, it's a good little flick. It's got Blake lively in it. I do like Blake lively. How could you not like Blake lively? Now, Pomeroy, would eventually write an autobiography. And so a lot of information about him comes from this, which is also kind of strange.

And he would say that he didn't have a lot of memories growing up, couldn't really remember much about his childhood until about the age of seven or eight. Yeah. The only thing that he really remembered before that was around six years old, going to school with his brother and that he didn't really like school. That was his big, you know, all the way up to like seven or eight years old, not a whole lot of memories about his family. But I'm the same way. Now, I know. And you said that on multiple occasions. Yeah. Yeah. I have a hard time going back too far. Did you just block it out? Did something happen that you repressed? I mean, do we need to

get put me under hypnosis? Yeah. Now that'd be fun. You'd love that, wouldn't you? We could do a pay-per-view. And I'm telling you people would pay money to see that. But give me under hypnosis, yeah. But he knew he didn't like school. And he did talk about the fact that he would run away a lot from school. He just would ditch. And instead of going to school, he would go to see his dad who worked at the Navy Yard.

And I guess Jesse would stay at the Navy Yard sometimes during the day when he would ditch school. a lot of times on the weekend, if his dad was working, he'd just hang out there. Yeah. And he would whittle wood or play with other boys who were there. At this point in time, you know, he's being a kid. And it's funny to talk about whittling wood, right, at seven or eight years old. But what the hell else did you have to do back there? Yeah.

I mean, everybody had a knife, right? Yeah. Find you a little piece of wood and. Wittle it. Widdle. Yeah. Whittle away. You know, his family, when he was young, they lived near a river.

And so he would go out with his brother. He would go out with some of the other young boys in the area on a boat. They would just spend the day on the river doing whatever, right, being kids. But this was not something that his mom was okay with. So he had to sneak around him and his brother. They weren't allowed to do this alone. But they did it. They just had to sneak to do it.

But we talked about him writing. this autobiography. So you kind of have to take that. You have to take everything that came out from that with a grain of salt. Right? Because we are going back to the 1800s. There's no news clips that we're going to be playing of Jesse Pomeroy in this episode. Yeah, not going to happen.

You're just not going to have it. So you do have to take the things that he said, especially in his autobiography, with a grain of salt, knowing that some horrible stuff is about to happen. Now, one thing that's very important to talk about is that Jesse didn't look like the other kids that he was going to school with. And because of this, he was made fun of and probably bullied even, you know, back then. For one thing, he had his right eye was almost completely white. Really? Which really stood out.

Like albino? Yeah, I mean, like, uh, yeah, whatever you want to call it. So the... Not his skin, just his eye. Yeah. The color of his eye. Yeah, it was just all... It was almost completely white.

Yeah. And there was a story that even his own dad had a very tough time with this because apparently he found it creepy, his own son. He had a hard time looking him in the eye, in the white eye, because he thought it was very creepy looking. So that can't be good. That's not a good start. When your own dad's got a problem.

problem with it. But then you go to school, that's, you know, Gibbs. That's not something that kids are going to just ignore. Oh, no. They are cruel about stuff like that. Now, there's a couple of different stories as to what happened to Jesse's eye. His mom would say that it was some type of cataract that he developed in his eye because of a smallpox vaccine. Okay. So it's just really more cloudy, a cloudy cataract that covered up his natural. Made it look white. Yeah, like covered up the iris, I guess. But other people said that it was some type of viral infection that he caught when he was a baby.

There's really, it's kind of hard to know the truth. But as if this wasn't bad enough, right? This white eye he had to deal with, apparently he had a huge melon. He had a very large head. Big old head, huh? Much larger than what was considered normal or what his other kids his age looked like. It was like a Frankenstein head. It was big.

Yeah, big old noggin. And apparently this was not a good thing to have. Outside of the teasing and the bullying that he probably got for the eye, now he's probably getting it for the size of his head as well. But back then, people thought that. You know, things that you could measure, measurables, like the size of someone's head, could tell you things about them, you know, whether they were good, whether they were evil. You know, they have that whole, I guess you'd call it a science or a faux science called phrenology.

Yeah. I don't know if that is just the sizing. I thought that was like bumps. But along with all this, Jesse was bigger than most of the other kids. his age. Not only did he have a big head, he had larger facial features than the other kids as well. So it did make him stand out, you know, bigger nose. Everything about his his head and face was bigger than the other kids. Wide mouth, large ears. So you think about it from that standpoint, he would have been almost like a perfect target for kids to make fun of.

Oh, absolutely. You can see it coming. It's not just one thing. He's got all kinds of things about him physically that are different from other kids. And his autobiography, Pomeroy likes to talk about the fact that he had a great childhood. But almost every other thing you read about him flies directly in the face of that. You know, apparently his father was known to beat both him and his brother Charles with a horse whip. So his father was a drinker with a pretty bad temper. And it wasn't just the fact that he was whipping the kids.

It was the way that he was doing it. He would make them get naked and beat them without any clothes on. These kids would end up bloody. You know what a whip does. I don't have to tell you, Gibbs. I know. I mean, you've got a lot of experience with whips and chains, chips, chips, dips, all kinds of stuff.

And this is very important because Jesse started to think of these beatings in a sexual way. He started to almost derive some type of sexual pleasure from the beatings, even though I'm sure they hurt like nobody's business. He starts to equate pain, punishment, and these sexual feelings. And this is going to factor in big time when it comes to his victims. So they weren't allowed to have any pets in the home. Jesse was definitely a torture of animals. Early on, they had some pets in the household.

And they all ended up dying. And it would come out that it was because of Jesse. Apparently they had some birds at one point. And these birds ended up without any heads. Maybe it's kind of like the Ozzy thing, but with birds, not bats. I don't know how he beheaded these birds, but everybody in the family was pretty sure it was him. Yeah. To the point where, you know, the mother basically says, hey, we can't have any animals because of Jesse.

Do you remember those, gosh, I'm going back to like late 80s, early 90s, those video series of like, those terrible things to watch? Are you talking about faces of death? Yes. Oh my gosh. I used to watch faces of death when I was like 10 years old. Yeah. Something that no 10 year old should ever be watching. Yeah.

I swear I think we used to get them from like Blockbuster or I don't think you could get them from Blockbuster. You had to go to the other video store that had the curtain in the back. Oh, that other one that you go to now. Yeah. Yeah. Not now. You know back in the day there was Blockbuster.

Yeah, Family Video. And then there was all the other ones. Yeah. Blockbuster was one that wouldn't rent the adult. movies. Right. And then, but you could go to the other one and they had like a curtained off area in the back. This is, you know, these are the VHS days. Right. I don't know if Blockbuster had faces of death, but I remember renting faces of death somehow when I was a kid. Yeah. My parents maybe were not keeping very good track of me at some. It wasn't one of those episodes where they, uh, it was like a

China or somewhere where it was just the norm that they would eat like baby birds. I don't remember that. It ate some kind of bird as a, uh, uh, uh, it was a, uh, it was a, uh, uh, it was a, uh, uh, a, It was a like a delicacy or something? Yes. It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, in other countries, they have some strange eating habits. Yeah. But you think about, so you brought up an interesting point.

I mean, feathers, bones and all. Okay, that's a little strange. Yeah. But you bring up this point about faces of death. You know, back in the day, that was like as taboo as you can be. Yeah. And today, you get on Facebook in the morning, you're probably going to see something as bad, if not worse than what was on faces of death.

Yeah, probably. You're probably right. Just shows you how much our society has changed. Yeah, the sensitivity level has definitely changed to. So we get to the Christmas of 71, 1871. I was saying, that's a, normally, has a different 71. Yeah, 1871. Jesse Pomeroy is around 12 years old.

And two men were walking along Chelsea Creek in South Boston. they heard what they described as a small cry or some type of whimper. And they wanted to see what was going on. When they got closer to where this whimper was coming from, they realized that the sound was coming from a small child. And it was inside of a building. And when they walked inside of this building, they found a four-year-old boy.

He was hanging from his wrist by a rope. he had been tied to this big beam inside this building. And this poor boy, he was almost dead. He had no clothes on. And we're talking about Christmas in Boston. Cold, man. Very cold. His lips were blue.

He probably had frostbite because he had been naked for some period of time. It was said that his hands were swelled up. They were completely purple from. you know, being tied up to this beam. So these two guys, they rush into action. They cut this little boy down. And they can tell that he had been beaten severely. So the police get involved.

And I think they're thinking that this was some type of strange one off situation. Sure they are. Not not thinking that this is going to be an ongoing event, but they were wrong. The next person that Jesse Pomeroy set his sights on was a seven-year-old boy named Tracy Hayden. And Jesse Pomeroy would lure the seven-year-old boy Tracy Hayden saying that they were going to go play. They were going to do something fun. But once he got this kid alone, everything changed. His demeanor changed completely.

He went into his psychotic mode. Keep in mind. this is a 12-year-old we're talking about. Oh, I know. We are not talking about our normal 30-year-old serial killer. No. 12-year-old. Which is like seventh grade, sixth grade.

Yeah. Somewhere around there, sixth grade. Scary. It's hard to imagine a child that age doing some of this. Just having those thought processes. Or having the thoughts that I want to do this. Yeah. So he gets this seven-year-old boy.

boy alone. He binds him. He tortures him in much the same way that he did his first victim. He knocked out this boy's front teeth, broke his nose. Wow. He inflicted some serious punishment. That's some big time pain on this kid. He forced the kid to get naked. He beat him severely. And the boy lived and would later be able to tell authority, that Jesse Pomeroy threatened to cut off his penis. I believe it. But he didn't know Jesse's name. So the only thing that he could say was that this was another boy that had brown hair.

This seven-year-old boy was not able to give police much to go on. So because of that, I mean, what could they really do? They didn't have a whole lot of information to go on. But at this point, you know they have to be a little. little worried. They've had two incidents involving two young kids. Now they know that, at least in the second one, this was another kid that did this. And they're also pretty sure that he's going to strike again. And they're right because Jesse strikes again in the springtime of 72. And this time it's an eight-year-old boy named Robert Mayer.

And again, he's able to get this eight-year-old boy alone. He attacks him, strips all of his clothes off, beats him with the stick. And this time, Jesse Pomeroy started getting sexual satisfaction from the torture, from the attack, from the beating. But he doesn't kill this boy. He lets the boy go. but he threatens him that he will come back and kill him if he tells anyone about what happened. So the police now have this one on their hands.

And they've got a bunch of angry parents upset about three kids being attacked. They start to question all kinds of boys that have brown hair. They just, other than that, they don't have a lot to go on. Pretty limited. But it doesn't go anywhere, right? They're not able to find out who's doing this. So you have a lot of parents talking to their kids about needing to be careful. There's some type of pervert around that's beating young boys.

And at some point, it starts to get out that this person that is doing this is torturing kids around South Boston has red hair and a beard. Really? A beard. A beard. But we know Jesse's like 12, 13 years old. Yeah. Obviously, he's not grown a beard. No, there's no leprechauns running around either.

No. So I don't know how that got out, but that couldn't have helped if little kids were told to be on the lookout for somebody with red hair and a beard. Of course, in South Boston, there was probably a lot of people with red hair and a day now. Easy. That's my mama you're talking about. I didn't say your mama had a beard. No comment. No.

I love my mom, man. She's beautiful. Pomeroy attacks another seven-year-old boy in July of, 1872. This is a boy named Johnny Bulch. And the ruse he uses this time is that he's going to give Johnny some money. So he's able to get this boy alone, strips him down, ties him up, beats him. And he would keep on torturing this seven-year-old boy until he orgasmed. Oh my gosh. This is a 12, 13-year-old kid. I mean, he's thinking like some of the big time adult killers that we've talked about.

That's why I'm saying. This is one of the most sadistic kids I've ever read about. And I think you hit it. He is, he's doing things that we normally associate with, you know, much older killers. But he doesn't kill this boy, Johnny either. He lets him go, but he threatens him. He says that he'll kill him if he tells anyone. So I just, we have to go back, Gibbs, to the naked beatings that were doled out by the father.

You can't tell me that didn't play a part in this. Oh, I had to. It's too much of a coincidence that as he's receiving those beatings as a younger boy, Jesse Pomeroy starts to have sexual thoughts. and now he's targeting kids about that age, you know, seven, eight, his first victim was only four, but around that age that he was when he was getting a lot of those beatings. And in this same month of July, right before Jesse attacks this seven-year-old boy,

his mom throws his dad out of the house. And it's after this last attack by Jesse that they offer up a reward, of $500 for anyone that can catch this perverted torture of these kids. $500 gives in 1872. Man. That's a lot of money. It's like $2,500 today, man. What?

Yeah. No, that conversion is way off. All right, what do you think? $5,700. $500. $19. Over 100, over a hundred year. A hundred and

Forty-five years. Okay. So you're saying if I invested $500. Well, it's different. You're saying invest it versus what that would be today. Yeah, well, you're right. You're right. I still think it's got to be way more than...

Let me say, $5,700. Oh, I think it's way more. No, no, you don't know. I don't have the skills that you do. I'm just going to say it's way more. Yeah. But anyway, $500 was a lot of money. It was a lot of money.

It's a lot of money today. So you have to imagine. imagine how many people are out in the streets looking for this person. They want to collect that $500. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about the new subscription box service called Hunt a Killer. A lot of people are into this and a lot of people are obsessed with it. Hunt a Killer sends a package to your home every month and this package is full of creepy

correspondence from what they call their killer curator. So we're talking about a Hannibal Lecter type, and he's got a mystery for you to solve. So each month in this package, you'll get new clues, and the clues come in a variety of forms, letters, objects, tools. All of this adds to the ongoing murder mystery. And it's up to you to solve it. But you don't have to do it alone. There are thousands of members of Hunt a Killer in their online communities all working towards the same goal.

This is the perfect thing for an armchair detective, looking to put their skills to the test. And Hunt a Killer is growing so fast that they have to limit new members to 500 a week. So you go to Hunticiller.com, apply for a membership. Once you're approved, you'll get a private link to subscribe. And then every month, a package arrives on your door, waiting to be open so you can get the clues, the tools,

all of that stuff to solve this mystery. And Gibbs, you and I love Hunt a Killer. We cannot recommend this membership enough. So to help support our show, Hunt a Killer has offered a 15% discount for our listeners. All you have to do is go to hunticiller.com slash T-Cat and use the code T-Cat to get that 15% off. That's huntaciller.com slash T-Cat promo code T-Cat for 15% off.

Now, I mentioned that his mom threw his dad out of the house and was after this that she moved the family to a cheaper place in South Boston. Now, it was most likely because of that, because she'd thrown the father out of the house, but there are some people that think she knew that it was Jesse that was committing these crimes and hurting these boys. And there's a thought that she wanted to protect him. And she thought that a good way to do that was to move the family. I don't know. Most likely she did it because she couldn't afford wherever they were living. That's probably. But there is some, there is some, there is some talk out there about that being a possibility.

But it doesn't stop Jesse. He's just in a different location. And he finds a seven-year-old named George Pratt. This is just, you know, seven years old, just a little kid out playing. And again, he used money to lure this kid to a place where he could tie him up and attack him. You know, he beat this boy. But he goes so much further. in this attack.

He is definitely escalating. He ends up biting a chunk off of this boy's cheek. And he stabbed him. And before running away from this scene, he took a bite out of this little boy's rear end. I told you Gibbs, this kid was a monster. He's a 12-year-old monster.

He is. And he starts not only escalating, in what he's doing in the attacks, he starts escalating the frequency as well. Because it's just about a month later, he attacks a six-year-old by the name of Harry Austin. The boy was stripped. He was beaten.

He stabbed this boy as well. He even attempted to cut off his penis. And all the while, he's achieving some sort of sexual gratification from these acts. like a grown-up serial killer that we have profiled over some other episode. But I can't get it out of my mind that this kid's 12 years old. And it's what really blew me away about this story. How old's your youngest?

13. So just right there, man. Again, I'm not sure why you're equating my 13-year-old with this 12-year-old. I just try to like people I know close to that age. Oh, that have kids around that age. Yeah. And you're thinking, man, how, you know, I mean, how could somebody do that, do something like that at any age, but let alone that age? Well, so we can't figure out how 25, 30, 35, 40 year old men can do some of this stuff.

Right. Let alone a 12 year old. But he doesn't, he's not able to cut off this boy's penis. He gets interrupted and he runs away from the scene of the attack. But just six days later, he attacks a seven-year-old by the name of Joseph Kennedy. and he does pretty much the same stuff, you know, beats him, strips him naked. He cuts the boy with a knife. But then he goes a step further and he takes salt water and puts it in the wounds.

He's literally rubbing salt in the wound. In this kid's wound. Just to cause extra pain. To cause more, yeah, to inflict more pain, more suffering. And then just a week later, I can't emphasize how quickly these are coming now. He attacks a five-year-old boy, strips the boy, beats the boy, slashes him with a knife. Okay. And then he leaves this boy tied to a post.

So he doesn't kill him either. He hasn't killed anyone. Right. He has beaten, tortured, cut, slashed these boys. but it's this five-year-old boy that's finally able to tell police something that they can use. And it's that the boy that attacked him had an eye that he said looked like a white marble. And you wonder Gibbs why some of the other kids, because of these strange features that we pointed out up front, you would think they would have been able to give some of those.

But again, some of these kids may have been scared to death because they were told they would be killed. Right. If they talked. Yeah. And I guess after they went through what they went through, they believed he would do it. I think they would have believed it. Yeah. They probably, you know, couldn't imagine another boy not that much older than them doing something like this.

So Jesse Pomeroy is arrested, but he was arrested by accident. So police now have the description of the white marble eye. And they're thinking, you know, how many kids could fit that description? So they start going around to different schools with one of the victims, Joseph Kennedy, he was the seven-year-old who gave the description looking for the boy that had attacked him. And at one point, they actually do go to Jesse's school and the seven-year-old is there. they go from room to room. But somehow the seven-year-old boy Kennedy, he's not able to identify Jesse, even though he's in one of the rooms at the school.

But then Jesse does something very strange. On his way home from school, he walks into the police station where police are actually, again, talking to the seven-year-old Joseph Kennedy. and at this point Kennedy recognizes Jesse and he tells the police officer this is the guy. This is the guy that did this to me. So Jesse Bolts, he takes off out of the police station, but they're able to catch up with him. And they take him back and they lock him in a cell. And then they start to question Jesse. And my guess is Gibbs in 1872, the questioning was probably pretty damn rough.

I would think so. much rougher than it is today with the laws that we have and all of that protecting. Yeah, different rights back then. People's rights. I'm sure they did a lot of stuff that today would not be deemed legal. But he doesn't crack. He says that he's innocent. He didn't do it.

And so they give up for a while. They contact Jesse's mother. And it's about midnight when they wake Jesse up and they start questioning him again. And at this point, they threaten him that he's going to spend 100 years in jail unless he admits to the crimes. And he finally breaks down and he confesses. And eventually, all of his victims are brought to the jail. And each and every one of them confirms that Jesse Pomeroy was their attacker. And back then, you know, it didn't take a long time for justice to work.

He gets convicted very quickly and he's sent to a reform school not to be let out until he's 18 years old. So he goes to this Westboro House of Reformation. He's 12 years old. He's probably the most sadistic kid in the whole place. But he knew that they would let him out early as long as he didn't act up. So he doesn't. You know, he becomes a model inmate. But it was said that he was very strong.

range in there because he would go to all the other kids and pump them for the details about the things that they had done. It was almost like he, you know, another part of his sexual gratification maybe. He was living vicariously through some of the bad things that some of the other kids had done because he couldn't do the bad things anymore. But as you can imagine, they left him alone. Nobody wanted to talk to this kid. They knew what he had. done to these other kids. And they were like, you know what? We'll stay clear of Jesse.

Now, his mom fought very hard on Jesse's behalf. She didn't think that he had done these horrible things that he was convicted of. She said he was too young. Nobody that young could have done these horrible crimes. So she wrote letters to everybody that she could. But it was really Jesse and his behavior that allowed him to get out. I mean, he snowed these people by, you know, being acting like the model kid, the model inmate, the model citizen. And they let him out after about a year and a half of being in this reform school.

Just a year and a half. A year and a half. Yeah. For what he did. For what he did. Okay. Now, granted, he was 12 years old. Well, I mean, you lose that.

I'm only 12 years old when you do that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I get you. I'm with you. I'm just playing devil. advocate. So they let him out on the condition that he worked with his brother on his paper route and that he worked with his mom in her shop. So he had been out for about six weeks. He'd been

free. For about six weeks, he was helping his mom open up her shop. He was helping his brother with this paper route slash newsstand. And it's March 18th of 1874. It's about 8 a.m. Kids are getting up, getting ready to go to school, on their way to school. And early that morning, a boy showed up at the store that Jesse knew and they were talking. And then walks in a little girl, 10-year-old Katie Currant. And she's looking for a notebook because she needs one for school. They start to talk, Jesse and this little girl, and he says that he has a notebook, that he'll sell to her and he tells this boy to go home that he'd been talking to. And he lures this Katie

Curran, this little 10 year old girl down into the basement of the shop because he says that's where the notebook is. He ends up coming up behind this girl and slicing her throat. Gibbs, this kid's been out for six weeks. And he's slicing throats already. He can't, it's almost like he can't help himself. I don't want to say that because it makes it sound like he has no choice in the matter. He can't control himself, maybe is a better word. The impulses or whatever is fueling his frog demon. We haven't talked about the frog. This kid's got a frog demon. He's got it for sure, man. The size of my head. Yeah. You got a big head too. I do have big head. And he can't control it. And he cuts this little girl's throat.

And he ends up taking her body, putting it in a closet, and then he stacks a bunch of stuff on top of her body. Now, her body's not going to be found for some time. But when it's found, it's going to turn out that he completely severed her head, cut open all of her clothing, and had also violently stabbed her in the stomach and the genital area. So this was a very brutal, savage attack, even on top of him slitting her throat. Yeah. Definitely got some anger issues. He's got a lot of issues. Yeah.

This kid does. This make a really good after school special. About what? Who to stay away from? Yeah. The more you know. The more you know. But going back to present time, after he does this and he stashes her body in the closet,

it, he washes up, goes back upstairs, and acts like nothing happened. I mean, he is able to commit this horrible crime and then go on about his day as if he had just eaten an egg McMuffin sandwich. They have egg McMuffins back then? I don't think so. I just, but that's what it would be like. It would be. That's what he acted like.

Yeah. So Katie is now missing. And it became a very big deal. But there were some people that told police that she had gone to the store. And I think Gibbs, Jesse's mom knew in her heart. She knew that he had done something to this girl. But the one thing that the police thought was that Jesse had only attacked boys. So they didn't immediately, I don't believe, put him on to this crime.

But they do go to the store. they search it, but they don't find her body. Jesse Wood tried to attack another boy, but was not successful in that attack. But then in April of 1874, a four-year-old boy named Horace Millen was... This is chilling, man. It is chilling. He's on his way to the bakery. He's going to get a treat with money that his mom had given him.

Now, we also have to talk about this time. where you would give some money to a four-year-old boy and just say, hey, go ahead and walk down to the bakery. It's one of the things that makes this story so bizarre. You know, we think about it today. I wouldn't let my 13-year-old walk down the street by herself too far. But in 1874, maybe it wasn't so weird to let a four-year-old just go to the store by himself. But that's what happened. And apparently he was dressed up.

He meets Jesse Pomeroy on his way to the bakery. And somehow they end up going together, right? Jesse talks his way into going to the bakery with horse millen. Horace ends up buying a cake. A four-year-old boy buys a cake. What they did back in the day, I guess. Kind of like remember Christmas Carol, you know, the old man flips the little kid a coin, go get me the biggest turkey? No, don't remember that? A Christmas Carol, the one they

play every Christmas? Yeah. You'll shoot your eye out? No, Christmas Carol, the old movie, Scrooge. At the end, he flips him a coin out the window, tells the kid, go get me the biggest turkey. You don't remember that? No. Okay. I only watch a Christmas story. That's the one that I don't watch. I don't watch any of the ones that are in black and white. Yeah. Hey, no. I know you grew up on him, Gibbs, but they were a little bit before my time. Yeah, I'm not that old. No, but I like to say that you are. I know you do.

It gives me great pleasure. It does. All right, let's get back to Horace. Yes. This is a four-year-old boy. He's bought a cake. He's with Jesse Pomeroy. And Jesse talks him into going down to the harbor.

And you have to imagine this four-year-old boy. He takes this kid's hand and is happy to go with him. Sure. He's four years old. Yeah. He doesn't know any better. It's going to be fun. You know, I've got, I've met a new friend.

I have a cake. Life's good. But it's not going to end well because Jesse leads him down to a marshy area and he cuts this little boy's throat. This story is, it's just horrific. When you think about the evil acts that are committed against, what are, some of these are very young kids. Jesse stabbed this little boy and eventually he ends up killing Horace and at one point tries to cut off his penis, tries to castrate him. So Horace's family, as you can imagine, they're out looking for him. This is a four year old boy that never came back home and they find

his body later that same day. And I think from the very beginning, police have a pretty good idea of who they think may have done this. And they're thinking about Jesse Pomeroy and the things that they know that he did, you know, just a few years ago to a good number of little boys. So they pick Pomeroy up and they take him to the station. And they're questioning him about the murder of Horace Mullen. And of course, he denied, you know, committing the murder. But he had a problem with his story of where he had been during the time of the murder. He couldn't account for large parts of his day. Also, he had some scratch marks on his face that they asked him about.

He said that they happened from shaving. And when they examined Jesse, they noticed some things. They see that he's got what appears to be like marsh grass on his shoe. shoes. His shoes are covered in mud. On the flannel shirt that he's wearing, they find a reddish brown stain that appears to be blood. Then they ask him if he owns a knife. And he says, yeah, I have one. It's at home. They go get the knife. And when they bring it back and they look at it, the knife is clogged with dirt. And it has what appears to be dried blood on it. And they arrest Jesse Pomeroy for the murder of Horace Millen.

And then they do something Gibbs that, I think in today's age, you would say would be very strange. They actually tell Jesse that they're going to take him to the funeral parlor. They want to show him the body of Horace Millen, this poor little four-year-old boy. And he doesn't want to go. But they take him anyway. And it's when he's confronted with this body that he's. that he breaks down and he admits to killing the four-year-old boy and he says apparently I'm sorry I did

it please don't tell my mother it's almost as if he has no concept of how bad of an act this really is it's not that you know don't send me to prison don't kill me for what I've done don't tell my mother I just found that very strange it is kind of strange now one thing that happened back then that I think would happen today is the people that paroled Jesse or that were involved in letting him go just a year and a half into his sentence, they came under a lot of fire because obviously he did a fraction of the time that he was supposed to. Right. He gets out and then he kills two young people. So Jesse confessed, but sometime later he has the chance to meet with attorneys. And And it's after that that he recants his confession.

And he starts denying having any involvement with the murder. But he's indicted for first degree murder. And at that time in Massachusetts, the penalty for murder was death by hanging. I mean, it was cut and dry. If you were convicted of first degree murder, you were hanged. Walked you out, up the steps, wrap the noose. Trapped door opens. Boom.

But they had never. had to hang somebody as young as 14 years old. So this was a big deal. So one thing that happened after this, Gibbs, is obviously his mom and dad came under a lot of scrutiny, Jesse's. And his mom had that store. Well, nobody was going to that store to buy anything from the mother of this 14 year old killer.

So she had to shut down the store. And it's when somebody else came in. they were going to refurbish the basement. They brought in some workers, and that's when they found the remains of 10-year-old Katie Curran. And it didn't take them long to find it. Apparently, the smell in that basement was beyond horrendous. Horrendous.

That's a great word of the day. So they found her in the manner that I described before, and they know that it's probably Jesse that did that. this. But they actually end up arresting his mom and dad. And when they tell Jesse about it, he says, you know what? I don't know anything about that. I didn't do that. Even though he knew his mom and dad had been arrested. But a couple of days later, he changed his mind. I don't know why, whether he felt like he had to save his mom and dad. Seems strange for a person as callous as this kid. But he finally admits to killing Katie Curran. And I guess he went through

every detail with police and was very specific about what happened. But when he was asked why it happened, he first he said, I don't know. I don't know why I did it. But then very quickly, he said to the authorities, I wanted to see how she would act. It just blows me away. Yeah, it really does. I mean, his whole thought process. There's something wrong with it.

Yeah. He killed this girl because he wanted to. see how she would act as what as she's being murdered yeah it's like it was like a just a big toy for him like a game yeah but latching onto that theory of something's not right with his thinking you know this is where things start to go that he's not legally saying so the fight becomes over whether he's sane or not so he has a lot of doctors that examine him rightfully he's not so. Rightfully so. And apparently he freely tells them about the crimes that he's committed. But just like he had done before, he recants all of his admissions, both to police and says that what he told

the doctors wasn't true. So the trial finally opens on December 8th, 1874. And this was a big deal in Boston. The courtroom was packed. Imagine the headlines, the story of this 14-year-old. who is this sadistic killer and previously was this unbelievable torturer of young boys. And apparently the testimony was gruesome. I mean, they went through every detail. And it was said that through it all, Jesse sat there with a look of what people described as boredom. He was bored. Really?

By what they were talking about. And the worst part of it was when they got to. to the murder of four-year-old Horace Millen, reporter said that Jesse sat with his head back and he had his hands laced behind his neck as if he was lounging. Like something you would do in the hammock, right? Not when you're on trial.

Right. For your life for killing innocent children. Right. He's just different brew, man. So obviously the defense lays the groundwork for some type of an insanity defense. and they called a bunch of witnesses to try to back that up. And Jesse's mom got on the stand,

talked about that he had all these childhood illnesses that had made him insane. They had neighbors come up talking about how he would hurt their animals. They had one person that talked about the fact that he would see Jesse holding, like with his hands on the side of his head, holding it like it was about ready to explode. He'd just be running around screaming.

So you have all these witnesses, both sides arguing against each other, and then they have closing arguments. And the jury gets the case. And they deliberated for five hours before reaching a verdict. The jury found Jesse Pomeroy guilty of first degree premeditated murder. And like I said, there was only one sentence for this crime. It was mandatory, death by hanging. Yeah.

That's probably why they spent five hours instead of one. They wanted to give it a good shake, I guess. It probably is. So basically what you had was people on either side of the fence. There were a lot of people that didn't think a 14-year-old should be executed. Then there was the other side that thought he should be executed because of what he did to Horace and Katie, not to mention the other boys, for which he really didn't. a whole lot of time for what he did to them. But it all came down to the governor of Massachusetts,

who at the time was a guy named William Gaston. And after a bunch of back and forth, he basically said he couldn't do it. He couldn't sign off on Jesse being executed. And it cost him his reelection because the guy running against him said that he would have signed it. He said he would have killed Jesse Pomeroy. And he became the next governor of Massachusetts.

So what Gaston did was he basically changed his sentence to life in prison. But he added that he had to spend it in solitary confinement. And he started this. This took a couple of years. So he was about 16 years old when he started this solitary confinement. And he would spend over 40 years. The next 40 years in solitary confinement, can you imagine? No, but good, I mean.

No, yeah, good. I'm not saying he shouldn't have. I'm just saying, can you imagine spending 40 years in a cell without anybody to talk to? No. I don't feel sorry for him. Don't get me wrong. I'd go crazy, man. Well, guess what Jesse did was somehow he learned some foreign languages, he wrote poetry.

he studied the law and he worked hard to try to get his conviction overturned or tried to get a pardon. I mean, all he had was time, right? And he went, he went a little Shawshank too. Did he? Yeah, because he tried to free himself the old-fashioned way about at least 10 times. I guess they were always finding like tools and things in his cell. I mean, you have no, what do you have to lose? No, you might try everything at that point.

Try every day, man. Apparently he lost an eye, and I don't know. I don't know if it was the good one or the white one. But he lost an eye in one of these escape attempts. He tried to redirect this gas pipe and it backfired on him. He lost one of his eyes. Not to laugh about somebody losing their eyes, but it is this kid. So I don't feel so bad about it.

Now, in 1917, they commuted his sentence so that he didn't have to do the solitary anymore. He was given the same rights as the other prisoners. Within 12 years later, in 1929, he was sent to a hospital, Bridgewater. And this was actually the same hospital that Albert DeSalvo would be in, the Boston Strangler. That's interesting. Yeah, a little side note. So he's having some medical issues. so they send him to this hospital and it was said that this was the first and only time that he

ever rode in a car because you have to think there were no cars well that's true when he went in the prison so they took him by car to this hospital his one and only car ride but even that imagine riding in the car for for for the first time no apparently he showed no signs of excitement like it was it was nothing to him i just don't think this this guy had anything inside there was just nothing there he was devoid of any real emotion and he died just a few years later at this hospital so he spent almost 60 years in prison he actually lived quite a long time yeah if you think about it really for that time for that time period and his final wishes were that his body be cremated and scattered in the wind.

And that's the story of Jesse Pomeroy. That's funny how you said that. It sounds like you're signing off from a newscast. That's a little Tom Burkaw or something. Dan Rather or something like that. And that's the way it was. Yeah, Walter Croncrate. But how do you end it?

How do you end the story about... Yeah. This is as bad or worse than some of the horrific serial killers that we talk about. And I think partly just because of the age and the age of the victims. Yeah, I mean, if you would have said he was 22, 30, whatever, it would have been terrible. Terrible, terrible. Either way. But just because the fact he was like so young, man, it's just, it's alarming that somebody, some little kid can do that.

Scares you? Yeah, it does. Yeah, it's like the real Michael Myers. So think about that, people. we'll leave you with that one. All right, Gibbs. I think we got to do some voicemails. We've got to clean the palette a little bit because this was a rough one.

There was no doubt about it. Hey, Mike. Hey, Givie. How are you doing? This is Juan from Tracy, California. I want to call. Let you guys know you guys are doing a great job with the podcast. I love it.

Being here from Tracy, I am very familiar with the Sandrick and two case you guys did. And also the Lacey Peterson case you guys did because that's just about a 30-minute drive to Modesto. And I've actually taken my kid's bike riding at that park. Lacey was said to be walking her dog at the Loma Park. And also, I love it when you guys forget to hit the button to stop the show. It's freaking hilarious. You guys are funny as shit. I love it when you guys rag on each other.

That's hilarious. Keep up to good work and keep your own time taken. Bye. Well, Juan, pretty much summed it up right there. That's it, right there, man. But you know what amazes me, Gibbs? and I think I've talked about this before, but how many emails and messages we get, kind of like what one was talking about, where people or their family, their mom, their dad had some type of

brush with some killer that we're talking about. I got one just the other day and now I can't remember who it was, but they knew them, they interacted with the killer. I just can't remember what episode it was. Yeah. Yeah. There's, um, there was a thread out there on, Facebook, the private T-CAT group. And I was surprised how many people were, you know, were tied into some pretty horrific crimes. Yeah. And, yeah, tied in. Maybe it's not the.

Roped in. They were like six degrees of separation. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Or maybe two degrees. Two degrees?

They weren't actually involved in the crimes. I hope not. Or that was a, that might be a thread that we need to keep an eye on. Yeah. Gidey, Mike and Gibby. This is Camilla calling from Australia. I just wanted to say how much I love your podcast. I listen to basically every true crime podcast there is, and yours is one of the best, if not the best. I love your senses of humor, and yeah, you're just both great on it and keep up the good work. And I really, really, really want to see an Australian story done by you. And if you need any suggestions on some lesson on crimes, that would be great. I'm happy to part. ask someone. But yeah, keep up the good work and we'll keep listening. Keep your own time taking. Bye. Oh, that's awesome there.

Yeah, it's great voicemail from Camila. So Gibbs, I think we have to say, I keep saying we're going to do an Australian case. We have so many listeners in Australia. We have to do one in the next month, hands down. Yeah, we need to go out to the Barbie. You're acting like the Barbie is a place. The Barbie is like a barbecue, like a grill. Yeah, we're going out to the barbecue. grill, the Barbie? You act like it's a...

Put a shrimp on the Barbie. You're going to do a walkabout out to the Barbie. Do the walkabout. Maybe you should brush up on your Australian knowledge. Yeah, lingo. Before we do this case. Yeah, you know, understand what a kangaroo and a dango. Did you just call it a dango?

Yeah, a dango, ain't my baby. Baby, yeah. I can give me, it's Michael Jeff from South Africa. on a beautiful east coast in the city of Durbin. We had a serial filler in the 90s that had been 13. Normally I left them in the sugar-gating fields not far from where I live. An interesting case, the guy's name was Moses Twala.

I could send you some information about that. Anyhow, great show. Really enjoyed listening to what you have to say and the dynamic between the two years. Great. If these pronunciations are probably the best comedic value that money can buy. I haven't done it on Patreon yet, but I won't be seen. Just trying to go through buying a house.

Once I've done that, some cash coming your way. Thanks for a great show. Keep your own time thinking. Well, that's good timing because you just said the word dango. Yeah, but that's going to get a kick out of that. Yeah, yeah. Of course, you know, I can tell you right now. Now, I think some of the T-CAT women are going to go crazy over that.

Accent? South African accent. That is a cool accent. Yeah. I mean, that is one thing we talk about with voicemails. We get to hear, because we have listeners all over, so we've had an Australian caller. Yeah. We just had a South African caller.

Yeah, I was going to try to do that voice. No way you get that. No way. If I could pull it off, I would do it all the time. It would just turn into Paul McCartney because that's what happens. That's really the only accent you can do. That's true. It's Paul McCartney.

Yeah. Hi, guys. It's Kate calling from Melbourne, Australia. I just wanted to ring and say that I love, love, love, love T-Cat, and I'm a huge fan. I haven't quite got onto T-Cat Unsold because I have to know what happens. I can't stand it when I don't know what happened. I'm really sorry, though. I feel like I'm betraying you by not listening to that one as well.

I wanted to suggest, of course, the Australian Port Arthur murders. I just think with everything that's going on in the States at the moment, with your gun control issues and the profound effect that Port Arthur had on our culture and our country, I think it would be really interesting for those who don't know the intricacies of the case to maybe hear what happened and the fallout. out. But otherwise, I just wanted to say, I love you guys. And I don't know what keep your own time ticking means, but keep your own time ticking. Thanks. Bye. So I love that voicemail. You don't have to know what it means. No, even though I think we just explained it this the other

week. Yeah, we did. So it's best with you. It basically means keep your head on a swivel. Keep your wits about you. Yeah. Stay away from bad people. That's right. So that you stay alive. Every now, then let your freak flag fly fly. That's not really a part of it, but... I just add that in there. Hello, my name is from Trimuth and Devon in the UK. So you might detect us, Devon. I just love your podcast.

And I think you're really brilliant, both of you. So hello, and thank you. Bye-bye. I got a kick out of that one. I just want her to talk to me all the time. I know. So just accent. After accent, it's awesome.

Yeah, we're all over the place. Old accents. And they're saying, well, we're hearing your accent right now, meaning us. But she said we might detect an accent. I think I can't, I couldn't make out the word right before. It might have been Devin. And I can't tell the different accents. Oh, from the different regions?

Yeah. Yeah, I can, but I don't want to bore you with that. Oh, you don't want to give a dissertation on the different accents. I don't want to, you know, dive that deep right now. But we appreciate the voice. Yes, we do. All right, Gibbs. Tough one. Yeah. But we do some tough ones. It's a lot lately, yeah. I haven't slept in a while. You haven't? You're looking haggard. Murl. Muriel? Merle Haggard. All right. Merle, Merle, Marl Haggard. All right. Let's hit it. So that is it for another episode of true crime all the

time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking and let your freak flag fly. Thank you.