A Lament for Lost Childhood Amidst Liverpool's Grief

Unravel the haunting narrative of James Bulger, a two-year-old boy whose disappearance from a Liverpool shopping center spiraled into a heart-wrenching tragedy. As we recount the day that changed a family forever, we hold space for James's memory, scrutinizing the chilling CCTV footage that marked his final moments and the unwavering efforts of a community in search of answers. The tapestry of the police investigation, a tormenting discovery, and the public's integral role in identifying the young perpetrators are woven together, shedding light on the profound impact of this case on all who touched it.

Explore the unsettling backgrounds of James's young killers, whose lives were mired in abuse and neglect. In a reflective discussion, we grapple with the complexities of their psyches, the violence they were both subjected to and perpetrated, and the broader implications for child safety and societal responsibility. These threads of discourse unravel the disturbing behaviors observed during police questioning and ignite conversation about the influence of domestic violence, the intricacies of child psychology, and the potential shortcomings of social services in shielding the vulnerable.

As the discussion transitions into the aftermath of tragedy, we analyze the controversial trial and rehabilitation of James's murderers, the struggle to balance justice with the prospect of redemption, and the public debate on the treatment of juvenile offenders. The episode closes with an invitation: join us on social media to further this important conversation. Together, we reflect upon the impacts of such crimes on societal values and the legal system, all while nurturing our true-crime community and finding connection in the shared pursuit of understanding the most challenging of human experiences.

Sources: 
https://youtu.be/TrkQe4tyJnQ?si=MvDVjcW0Bbc0MvXv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger

https://www.crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/young/bulger/5.html

https://youtu.be/m2ubHTkT4No?si=4nwvG7faqP6DU_zY

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/james-bulger-murder-jon-venables-parole-b2446946.html

https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-bulger-case

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/jon-venables-parole-hearing-james-bulger-murder-what-happened-125903383.html

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Darkcast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome to Murder and Mimosas, a true crime podcast brought to you by a mother and daughter duo.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Bringing you murder stories with Mimosas in hand.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Just a quick disclaimer before we get started. Our show is Murder and Mimosas. It's a true crime podcast. This means that we do discuss crimes including, but not limited to, disappearances, murder and sexual assault. All our episodes are told with the respect of the victims and the victims' family even mind. We strive to ensure that we provide factual information with some information, if more verifiable than others. With that, grab your Mimosas and let's dive in. Welcome back to Murder and Mimosas. I'm Danica and I'm Seanna. Today's episode we are going to tell you the absolutely tragic murder of James Volker. Grab your Mimosas, actually probably the whole bottle of bubbly que japonita you sip while we share.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Imagine being a busy mother in a shopping center and letting go of your toddler's hand to pay for your purchase and looking back to see if he's gone. This is a sad reality for the mother we're about to talk about. It's February 12th 1993, and Denise is at the Strand shopping near Liverpool, england. She's buying some chops from the butcher and she lets go of two-year-old James's hand for just a moment. She just needs to pay and then she reaches back down again for his hand, but he's gone. Panic sets in and she starts searching for James. She's unable to find him, she heads for the PA system and has him paged. Within 40 minutes after he's disappeared, the police are called and they're at the shopping center. Everyone is in a full-blown search for James, but he isn't found. That day, can you imagine having to leave the shopping center that night without your toddler?

Speaker 1: 2:21

No, I mean you realize he's most likely not there Maybe you don't even when you get there, but you have to realize you're going home without him and that has to tear your heart out.

Speaker 2: 2:34

So the police are worried for one. There's a canal not far from that shopping center, so if he's wandered out on his own he could very well be in the canal and the police decide they're going to begin by scouring through the CCTV footage trying to find who took James. If someone took James, did he wonder what happened? Basically, obviously, at this time I mean even now CCTV footage not the best and we should be able to fix that.

Speaker 1: 3:04

I just say.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Right. I mean I can see better footage on my ring camera than I can from security cameras places. So not a great picture, but they can see that he's with like two young boys and one is holding his hand. They see them leave with James out of the shopping center. And this all took less than two minutes and even though the picture quality is not great, they run the video on the news and they do like still captures in the newspaper.

Speaker 2: 3:41

So the following day they all decide they should send an underwater team in search of the canal just to rule that out, which they did because it came up empty. So on Sunday, which is just two days since James has been missing, a train engineer noticed that something is on the tracks and at first he thinks it's a doll. And it's never a doll and it's never a mannequin. I'm still unsure as to why he didn't investigate this further at the time, but he didn't. Once he went home he started to think of James being missing and he called the police. That evening, before he made the call, there were like these four boys playing around on the tracks and they found this scene, which gives me like the standby me now movie vibes.

Speaker 1: 4:38

Think about that, thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:41

And lo and behold, since we know it's not a very doll, we know it's never a mannequin, we know that it was James who's on the track and he had already been torn into by a train.

Speaker 1: 4:54

That poor baby. I'm still confused as to how the train engineer didn't look at this, Even if he thought it was at all. Shouldn't you have taken it off the tracks for future trains?

Speaker 2: 5:05

I would think so. Like that feels like some sort of, you know, safety issue with trains, but I don't know anything about trains, except for they say to choose. Who am I to judge the train engineer? So the police suspected James had been laid on the tracks by his waist, His head looked as though it had been covered with bricks, the lower part of his body was completely naked and his underwear was soaked in blood. They also found an iron bar with what appears to have blood stains and bricks that show signs of blood. At the crime scene they gather some blue paint and batteries from the area to, though they're not really sure if I have anything to do with the crime yet. They would soon know that James suffered 42 injuries and he was beaten, mostly in the head.

Speaker 1: 6:04

He said he was naked from the waist down. I would assume he was sexually assaulted.

Speaker 2: 6:10

There's not any conclusive evidence, but the forensic analysis felt some of the injuries he received below the waist were odd and probably in some way like sexual in nature. So Denise, who was the mother, had been at the police station pretty much around the clock and she was with an officer when they found the body. There was something that came through the radio and she was told to turn her radio off and get to the station. Denise knew this was probably about James and it was most likely not the news that she had been hoping for. Tons of leads start coming in. They can hardly keep up with all the calls they're receiving from after the news ran. One tip that ends up panning out from all of these tips is a neighbor that says she thinks it could be her neighbor's son. It looks like John Vanables in the video and she knows that he skipped school that Friday with his friend Robert Thompson.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Seems a little odd that she knows that he skipped school, but did she do anything about this?

Speaker 2: 7:29

No, not to my knowledge, but you'll find later out it really would have mattered much. So the police decide they're gonna bring the boys in for questioning. But get this, these boys are ten years old, okay, very young. The police have searched warrants and when they searched Robert's house, they found the clothes he was wearing that day and the shoes, which appear to have blood on them.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Witchcraft, the occult extremist beliefs, murder.

Speaker 3: 8:08

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Speaker 2: 8:53

So when they show up at John's house, his mother answers the door and said I knew you would be here. I told him you'd want to see him for sagging school on Friday. So you have to remember this is England and sagging school is equivalent to skipping school in America. So they find his coat and it had blue paint on it and it also what appears to be blood on it.

Speaker 1: 9:17

So that blue paint is probably important in the hit scene earlier. Good job, detective.

Speaker 2: 9:24

When questioned, robert would sometimes cry and he asked why all the blame is being put on him and not John. They tell him that they're questioning John too and no one's blaming him. They're just wanting to know what happened. And there are times that he's pretty smug with the police, which is why I'm fricking your mouth. I'm grown. I wouldn't be smug with the police like whatever. So John, on the other hand, he just denies everything, like he denies being at the Strand shopping center that day. Police had already taken fingerprints, dna, all of that good stuff, which worked out well, because they got a call from a store owner at Strand saying he thinks the boys that were in the video were at his store that Friday and they were in front of the store touching the window. So police had, that way, take fingerprints off the windows and you know it, there are John's fingerprints.

Speaker 1: 10:25

First, let me just say I wouldn't want to be the one tasked with the job of fingerprinting this window. But second, that doesn't necessarily prove he was there that Friday. He would have been there at any time.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Right, you know I'll present you a. That's an easy thing, I feel like in court to dismiss. But remember, you have two ten-year-old boys in custody and John is claiming he was not there. So when they hit him with the proof that he was, is he really thinking like us as adults who are very into true crime, you know, like that doesn't prove anything?

Speaker 1: 11:03

No, he's not thinking like that, he's just like oh, you know, they know they know, yeah, I get that, but I mean, let's be honest, most no, ten-year-old boys are even involved in crime like this.

Speaker 2: 11:20

Well, that's true too, but you know this works for the police. He does admit to being there and then taking James, but then he flips it and he blames all of this on Robert. Now Robert, by the end of the day, still hasn't divulged much. They tell him he's being detained there and he says why do I have to stay here? John's the one that took the baby.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Oh, so now he has something.

Speaker 2: 11:48

Which they use. The story eventually comes out and the boys decided that they would take a kid. So they just walked up to James. John reached out his hand and told him to come with him. James has to grab his hand and they walked off.

Speaker 1: 12:03

This makes me out that he would go so willingly, and it scares me more because, as a matter of, probably wouldn't even think anything except like, oh that's so sweet. Look at these boys wanting to play with him, and the fact that they're crazy, sadistic boys would never even cross the lines.

Speaker 2: 12:22

Of course, you see a little boy, you don't think of him being a threat. So the two take him and they talk about letting him run out in traffic and want him get hit, but they decide to drop him on his head near the canal where his head was injured. They then take him to the train tracks about two and a half miles away. They throw blue paint in his eyes, which was something they stole in one of the stores that day, and then they start kicking him and proceeding to throw bricks and stones on him. They drop a 22 pound fish plate, which like a joint that connects the tracks together, on him and then they place them on the tracks when he's later cut in two when he was run over by a train.

Speaker 1: 13:07

This is so crazy and sadistic for two young boys, like, what did they do?

Speaker 2: 13:16

Okay, I'm done. Remember I mentioned that they recovered batteries at the scene too. Yeah, there was also something the boys stole that day and, like I said, there's no definitive evidence of sexual assault, but, for reasons I'm unsure about, they believe the batteries were placed in James's rectum. So police began asking Robert about this and while he was pretty calm throughout questioning, this question really sets him off. And he says I'm not a pervert. You know Well how would you like me calling you a pervert? He looks at his mother, who of course is right there, and says he said I'm a pervert. They said I played with his willy, which of course is not at all what they said. But at that point Robert shuts down and he says he's not answering any more questions.

Speaker 1: 14:07

The fact that this gets him so worked up is unsettling in a way that there might be sexual abuse, maybe in this past.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Very possible. So the officer asked him what would John say you did to James? And then he replies John would say he took off James's pants and played with his privates. So let's take a look at what the home life of Robert and John were like. So Robert was the fifth of six boys that his mother and father had together.

Speaker 2: 14:42

His mother had come from an abusive home where her father was an alcoholic, and, as we've seen before, you know, this pattern tends to repeat itself. And so his mother and married a man that beat her and was also an alcoholic. Her husband beat her and she in turn beat the boys and obviously, from this trauma, didn't have the best mental health. She had attempted suicide several times, and the boys practice what they'd learn, and the oldest would beat the next in line. So then, of course, the pattern would continue even further. The boys were unruly, they would skip school, steal, threaten their teachers, and there was even talk of them sexually abusing each other. They were not strangers at all to social workers and the police. The oldest was taken out of the home when he was just four years old for a period of time.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Is there any indication as to why he was taken from the home For visible abuse? I know that's usually confidential, but I wonder who turned them in? Because he wouldn't have been school-aged in at that time?

Speaker 2: 15:56

Now that I don't know, but the older ones were in and out of foster homes. Some of the brothers attempted suicide as well, and their father eventually left and their mother had another baby, a son who was 18 months old when Robert was arrested. Robert had started to skip school more often. He was actually held back a grade because he was so behind.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Where does a 10 or even a nine-year-old go all day when you skip school?

Speaker 2: 16:29

I think he just wandered around and got into trouble. I mean, in fact, his mother knew he was skipping school and there were times that he didn't come home until midnight. She said she never called the police because she was scared that social services would step in and then she would lose her kids.

Speaker 1: 16:45

It sounds like she needed to lose her kids. Can you imagine being a 10-year-old boy wandering around town and thought I feel like I would have been terrified of what could have happened to me out there?

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, Now this ain't gonna be terrified. Yeah, I mean I would be scared, but I think about the alternative. He has at home, beaten, maybe sexually abused. It can't be much scarier than that.

Speaker 1: 17:09

Yeah, that's true and I hate there. Is it more we can't we could do to stop this cycle?

Speaker 2: 17:16

So now let's pivot real quick. Let's look at John. He was the middle child. He had an older brother that went to school for special needs and a younger sister who also went to school for special needs. His parents relationship was very on again, off again, which of course isn't stable for children. So when his father, neil, would leave the home, his mother, susan, would move her and the children into her parents home. Neil and Susan both battled with depressions, but from all accounts it doesn't really appear to have been an abusive home.

Speaker 2: 17:51

John had a very difficult time in school. He showed a lot of like unusual behaviors. For example, he would rock in his desk, holding onto the desk, making it rock as well and moaning. He was moved to the front of the room so the teacher, you know, could keep him in check. He would knock things off her desk. He was also struggling with the issue of self harm, cutting himself with scissors, banging himself his head onto the desk, really anything he could find a thing has had on. He would throw his self onto the floor and for a time it only seemed to want, he only seemed to want to harm himself. But he began to tear things off the wall and start throwing them out at other kids. One point you got a ruler and put it to a classmates neck, holding it there, choking the student. It was after this incident that he was transferred to another school and he met Robert.

Speaker 1: 18:51

I have a behavior is very disturbing. You said he had special needs siblings. Was there something he saw them doing and maybe he thought that was normal? Or maybe attention for that he's acting out, maybe wanting attention.

Speaker 2: 19:05

That could be, but honestly I can't say for sure.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Did they ever seek a counselor for him or help in any?

Speaker 2: 19:14

time? Not to my knowledge, no. So let's move on to the trial. Two boys go to trial. Their families are given new identities and moved because of all the death threats against them. The defense uses the defense of Dolly and Capyx, which means that the boys were too young and incapable of committing a crime, that they did not know what they were doing. But this didn't work and they were given eight to ten years.

Speaker 4: 19:45

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Speaker 2: 19:48

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Speaker 4: 19:59

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Speaker 1: 20:11

During the trial did it come out about their mental health at?

Speaker 2: 20:14

all. No, since they were so young they couldn't give this information out. Due to being so young, they were sent to two separate children's homes. They were able to finish their schooling and had regular sessions with a therapist. Now, this didn't sit well with the Bulger family as well as others. Not only did they feel the children's home was far from enough punishment, but the homes had pools, gyms, hot tubs. They were also awarded playstations in the room as well as their own personal computers.

Speaker 2: 20:46

And thinking about, especially for Robert, the type of home he came from, this is like a vacation. So I understand how these people felt. They also found out about a program called Mobility that the boys did. They start taking them out once a week, starting really small, like maybe walking the park, and they build up to go into the mall with their own money to buy new clothes. Now, according to Roy Walker, with Secure Accommodation Network, this is all part of the process to make them productive citizens when they get out. We're talking rehabilitation, that type of thing, but most of these students don't have any structure, or these kids don't have any structure in their lives when they enter and they haven't been taught how to properly care for themselves. This program costs more but, like you said, in the long run they're hoping to not see these children back as adults, so they're saving money if they can keep them out of prison in the future.

Speaker 1: 21:49

I can definitely see both sides. I mean, if I'm a mother, I'm not going to be happy that they're having this, so I would want them locked up and throw away at the key. But it's hard to wrap my mind around this because, like we've said, these boys are 10 years old, so with that I understand one is actually rehabilitate them.

Speaker 2: 22:12

Right. I mean when thinking about them. This, like I was saying, is the most stable life They've ever had. They're required to go to school. You know they can't skip school and roam around town. They have schedules, their own room. This, like I said, is a step up for them, but we also know that they weren't given life in prison. They will be back on the streets. If we can rehabilitate him, then it's possible we don't have another crime like this. So it is hard, I get it, but the boys Can only stay in the children's home until they're 19.

Speaker 2: 22:52

There are lots of appeals that happened over the years, wanting harsher punishment, longer sentences, but in the end the parole board ruled the boys were no longer a threat to society. Let me also say, though, the bulger family were not permitted at the parole hearings and honestly I feel like that's an injustice to them that the victims family is not allowed to speak. The boys' Locations and names have been kept private for their safety, which I do understand that in 2001, home secretary David Blunkett approved the decision by the board, and the two were released after eight years. So they're like 1819, yeah. So upon release, they were given new identities, moved to secret locations. A Court inject injunction was also given to the media, which prevents the media from publishing Anything about their new identities or their locations.

Speaker 1: 23:54

This seems like overkill. I mean no kind of intended, but these boys were ten when this occurred. I would have to believe, say about this time the public after eight years could like this go. I mean they were ten.

Speaker 2: 24:08

Maybe I mean they were, but it's possible that maybe they were still getting threats, for this is just Abundance of a cop like precaution. Also, let me mention that one of the deciding factors for letting them out when they did is Because they were going to have to be entered into prison and they honestly felt like putting them there would ruin all of the progress that they felt they had made with the boys and trying to Rehabilitate them conceptively can understand that much.

Speaker 2: 24:39

We know we can find a lot on the internet not always a great thing, but both boys are now men and were assigned probation officers. John's found him trying to destroy a hard drive and, of course, that's a red flag right. The hard drive was examined and they found child pornography. John was sent back to prison in 2010. The Justice Secretary revealed that John had gone back to prison but not did not feel the reason needed to be divulged.

Speaker 1: 25:15

Doesn't need to be the ball, it's. It's one thing when you're a monitor that you're wrong now, so you don't need to be hiding behind somebody for your actions.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Right, I mean they. It is very clear that they tried very hard to do the right thing by these kids because they were young, they worked very hard in rehabilitating them. If you are grown and you come out and you continue to make mistakes, that is now an active choice and that's exactly what James's mother was up in arms about. It would later be Known to the public, obviously, or we wouldn't know about it. We don't have any secret Clearance to be able to get that information. Yeah, in 2013, john is released and with, yet again, a new identity and location, apparently for his protection. Once again this time, I don't agree with that. When they were kids and they're coming out fine, I, as an adult, I don't think so.

Speaker 1: 26:09

Yeah, and that's expensive for anyone to give them new identity Right.

Speaker 2: 26:15

You made a choice as an adult. You have to own that and if you get threats to your home after that, you made the choice. Lo and behold, in 2017, his butt is back in prison for the same thing, having child pornography on his computer and, as of right now, is still there.

Speaker 1: 26:36

So all the extra money they put into rehabilitation, free homes, didn't work for him. But what about Robert?

Speaker 2: 26:43

So Robert, from what has been reported, is in a committed relationship with his boyfriend who, by the way, does know about Robert's past and he's managed to stay out of trouble, so the money may have paid off for him, which, honestly, is crazy to me because, looking at the homes that they came from, I would have been more likely to suspect that the rehabilitation wouldn't have worked for Robert and probably would have worked for John because he had a little bit more of a stable environment. He wasn't, from what we could tell, didn't have any visible abuse.

Speaker 1: 27:15

But when you think about all the things that John was dealing with, I mean all the strange behavior in school. That's why I wish I knew what Spinal Health was, because there's something going on with that.

Speaker 2: 27:29

But Robert would have had to have mental health issues too, and I'm assuming, because they said that they went to see a therapist, so it's like they tried to handle his mental health.

Speaker 1: 27:39

So I feel like with John his mental health, with all that, and he didn't have the abuse and all that in his background something was definitely going on in his head that just wasn't right.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Yeah, that's very true, but I don't know child pornography consistently. That seems to be some sort of fetish he had and I don't know that. You can cheer.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And we all know what all happened in the facility he just had.

Speaker 2: 28:05

That's very true Because they were in two different facilities, so maybe Robert ended up with a great therapist and John didn't end up with a great therapist or something happened to John while he was there. But anyway, it's a very sad case all the way around. I feel for James's mother, especially because it's got to be really hard to lose your child because it's just a second you let go of his hand. There's a lot of that guilt and then to see that they didn't even end up in a prison, they ended up in a rehabilitation home, which I think they objectively I think they should have. But I think, as his mother, I would feel a lot like she did too. I hate that this didn't work for John, but I'm glad to see that Robert came out of it better and it did work for him. It was rehabilitated, but it's all around a very sad case. So if you needed your entire bottle of bubbly today, we understand.

Speaker 1: 29:19

We always recommend more bubbly and less OJ Cheers.

Speaker 2: 29:26

If you'd like to see pictures from today's episode, you can find us at murdermamosasin Instagram. You can also find us at murdermamosas on TikTok, twitter, and if you have a case you'd like us to do, you can send that to murdermamosas at ginocom. And, lastly, we are on Facebook at Murder and Mamosas Podcast, where you can interact with us there. We love any type of feedback you can give us, so please write and review us on Spotify, itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.