♪ (somber intro) ♪
- (React) Today, you're gonna react to some very unlikely murderers.
- (gasps) Murders? - True crime. The vices are scary.
- (voice-over) Josh Phillips was born in Jacksonville, Florida
on March 17th, 1984. He was born into a troubled household.
His father was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and also possessed
a violent temper. - Ah, it always starts with home.
- (voice-over) ...in 1998 when a young eight-year-old
Maddie Clifton was reported missing.
- Oh! She's the one in the-- underneath the bed, the mattress.
- (voice-over) Phillips' mother, Melissa, was cleaning
her son's bedroom one evening when she noticed his water bed
seemed to be leaking.
After inspecting it... - Oh my god.
- (voice-over) she was horrified to find that underneath the bed
laid the corpse... - Oh!
- (voice-over) ...of the missing child. - He just slept on her!
- (voice-over) As told by Josh, the little girl had come over
his place one evening. - Yeah, they're neighbors
or something, right? Like, they all know each other.
- (voice-over) They decided to play a game of batting.
- No. - (voice-over) However, when Josh
struck the ball, it ended up... - Jeez.
- (voice-over) ...hitting the small girl on the head,
knocking her on the floor... - Oh.
- (voice-over) ...causing her to bleed and cry uncontrollably.
- Oh. - (voice-over) And in panic and fear
of what his violent father would do to him
for hurting the child and having her over
when he was not allowed to have... - Oh my god. Oh my god.
- (voice-over) ...any company when no one was home,
he immediately dragged the small child into his house
and began choking her with a telephone wire
until she ceased to cry. - Ah, Jesus.
- Ah, he just panicked. - Ohhh!
- (voice-over) Phillips was charged... - Oh my god.
- (voice-over) ...with first-degree murder.
He was then convicted and sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole. - Yeah... oh, wow.
- Holy crap. - That was really sad.
- That just ruins lives, ruins so many lives.
- What was interesting about this case is that you understood
how everything just got out of control.
- I think he could've been scared of his dad,
especially 'cause as a young child, you actually don't know
what they're gonna do, but, I mean, I still
wouldn't have done that. - (React) In later trials,
it actually came out that he may have fabricated
that entire story about his dad. - Oh, in that case,
that [censored] deserves to burn. - Is it fair to send a kid
to prison for the rest of their life for something that they did
at 10, 12, 13 years old?
I don't... think so.
I don't know. I don't know. - I don't know.
That's really hard to say. If that were me,
just saying it personally, I wouldn't want him to be out,
'cause I honestly wouldn't feel safe. - You look at their eyes,
and you can tell that they're just-- there's, like, no soul.
There's no life whatsoever.
- (reporter) What drives a child to kill another child?
That's the heart-wrenching question
being asked in a tiny New York village,
where a jury today began considering the case of a 14-year-old boy
on trial for murder. His victim? A four-year-old boy.
- (voice-over) The only thing more shocking than the crime
was the identity of the killer... - Ooh.
- I've seen this case before. - (voice-over) ...a freckle-faced
redhead named Eric Smith, who was 13 when he confessed
to the killing just a few days... - Oh, I remember this kid!
- (Walter) Eric enticed him into a wooded area that's adjacent
to McCoy Street, and once there, killed Derrick Robie
by means of choking him as well as trauma
to his head and body. - Oh my god.
- Oh yeah, this one was really disturbing.
- Ah, that poor mom. - There's like nothing there. (laughs)
He's just so dead behind those-- oh my god.
- That is awful. His poor mother.
I mean, the guilt that she has to be living with right now.
- That kid was so messed up. He did it younger,
but it would've probably happened in his adult life.
- People are probably gonna ask, "Well, you know,
it's the parents' fault. What part did they have
to play in this?" - You think of kids
as the innocent ones, right? And so, for that to happen
so brutally, it just begs the question, was there something
off in him mentally at birth?
And then, what then does his home life look like?
- When you look at a child,
you kind of just think of innocence automatically.
So, it's kind of really, really crazy that they're able to do
all this stuff, and you're just like, "What was going on
through that kid's head? What did he experience
for him to have a type of drive to even physically even hurt someone
let alone kill them?" - (React) In 1994,
Smith was convicted of second degree murder
and sentenced to the maximum term available for juvenile murderers.
He is still in prison and has been denied parole
10 times since 2002, most recently in January of 2020.
Do you think he should ever be granted parole?
- You know, the thing-- in a word, no.
- Not until a psychiatric evaluation
and demonstration of behavior
that allows him-- that shows that he can readjust to society.
- This wasn't kids who got into a fight and one got so mad,
hit him with a bat, and then-- I mean, this was lured him away,
strangled him, dropped the rock. I don't think it's safe
for that person to get out of jail ever.
- It makes me wonder, for kids like that,
can they be saved? Can they be worked with?
- (voice-over) On May 25th, 1968, the body of four-year-old Martin Brown
was found dead from asphyxiation in an abandoned home
in a rough neighborhood of Newcastle.
Two months later, another toddler was found asphyxiated
on Newcastle waste ground. - (gasps)
- (voice-over) This time, it was three-year-old Brian Howe.
The police knew they had a serial killer on their hands
and launched a large-scale... - What?!
- (voice-over) ...investigation that involved interviewing
1,200 children. - Ooh.
- (voice-over) Two of the children interviewed
were of interest to the police
due to the answers they gave being suspicious.
The two girls were 11 and 13-year-old Mary Bell
and Norma Bell, who... - Oh my god. It was a kid.
- (voice-over) ...although they shared a surname,
were unrelated beyond friendship. The girls had actually broke down
during interrogation and turned on each other.
- They always do that. They always slip,
and they always blame each other. It's so dumb.
- (voice-over) On August the 5th, 1968, both girls
were put under arrest. Mary's response to this was
"That's all right by me." - Wow!
- She said, "That's all right." - (voice-over) Whereas Mary
was found guilty of killing the boys. However, due to her young age,
it was impossible for her to be tried for murder in Britain...
- Oh, yeah, this is different. - (voice-over) ...and was thus
sentenced to life for manslaughter. - Manslaughter?!
- (voice-over) ...eight years at a young offenders institute...
- Oh my gosh. - (voice-over) ...followed by
four years in an open prison before being released
with a new identity in 1980. Mary Bell became the first person
in British history to be awarded a lifetime anonymity...
- What?! - (voice-over) This meant
that she was provided with a new name and a life
away from the public eye. - That was too kind!
- Whoa, that's crazy. - (voice-over) Mary Bell was born
in 1957 to mentally unstable 17-year-old prostitute Betty Bell.
Betty took an instant disliking to her daughter and began abusing
the child from a very early age. - Oh.
- (voice-over) There were at least several attempts on Mary's life
at her mother's hands.
- What? - (voice-over) The most vindictive
murder attempt came when Betty Bell pushed her daughter from a window.
- Jesus. - (voice-over) Mary suffered severe
head trauma during the fall... - Jeez. Ooh.
- (voice-over) ...and sustained brain damage to her prefrontal cortex,
the area of the brain used in voluntary movements
and decision-making. - It all starts at home.
It all starts at home. - Aww, I kind of do feel
sad about that one. - (React) What do you think
of the fact that she was granted anonymity?
- That's pretty nuts. That's almost rewarding bad behavior,
and I'm just like, "What were you guys thinking?"
- Yeah, I don't really know why they deserve that.
- And it could be because she was a kid when that happened.
So, I guess that makes sense. I just don't like it.
- (React) So, you saw some pretty disturbing cases today
involving heinous crimes committed by children.
What do you think it is that leads kids to commit such crimes?
Is it more nature? Is it more nurture?
- Oh my god. That's hard to say. - I think it has to be
the perfect blend of both. - Between the two,
I'm thinking more nurture. - There are, like,
really aggressive children. I had a family friend
who bit someone when they were in preschool.
But then, the parents nurture them to not bite people.
- I mean, I think there's gotta be obviously a mental disorder,
because there's people who come out of abusive households
that don't commit murder. So, I think that it's probably
medical and environmental. - You know, there are bad seeds.
They're just whatever. They're just wired.
I mean, if you're really just-- if you're able to sit there
and actually contemplate that thought of taking someone's life,
I mean, you're already not wired correctly.
But I mean, there has to be, you know, from the very beginning,
something to do with how you were raised.
- In many of these cases, they said the father was abusive
or was on drugs, the mother did horrible things.
And usually, that is enough explanation to go,
"Oh, okay. We get it. This person is a bad seed."
But you also have bad seeds that come from perfectly good,
well-meaning parents. And those are harder to explain.