09/02/2026
This is Mary Bell, a girl whose name would become forever linked to the deaths of two young boys in Newcastle during the summer of 1968 when she was 11 years old.
Mary grew up in Scotswood, Newcastle upon Tyne, where she lived with her mum and stepdad. She was just a child herself when four-year-old Martin Brown was found dead inside a derelict house on May 25, 1968. Less than two months later, three-year-old Brian Howe was found strangled in an area known locally as the Tin Lizzie. Both boys had been playing outside before their deaths, and what initially appeared to be two tragic incidents soon began to look like something much more disturbing.
As detectives investigated the two deaths, they uncovered a series of clues that pointed towards someone very unexpected. The possibility that the killer could actually be another child shocked the local community, and before long, attention turned towards Mary and another young girl named Norma Bell (no relation). What followed was an extraordinary investigation into two brutal killings, with the children's ages making the case almost impossible for the public to comprehend.
This case is disturbing not simply because of what happened to Martin and Brian, but because of the questions it raised about childhood, violence, responsibility and whether a child could truly understand the consequences of their actions.
More than half a century later, Martin Brown and Brian Howe deserve to be remembered not simply as the victims at the centre of one of Britain's most notorious criminal cases, but as two little boys whose lives had barely begun before they were taken from their families.
