Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers (20 page)

It was February 1997 before Wendy had her day in court. She’d been thirteen when she heard the homicide
being committed – but she was now tried, at age fifteen, as an adult.

The prosecution made the trembling teenager out to be a scheming Jezebel who had charmed her lover into carrying out the murder. But her defence pointed out that her grandmother’s treatment had amounted to physical and psychological abuse. The defence lawyer admitted that ‘This is the hardest case I ever tried in my life because she is such a little kid.’

The defence also gave the impression that the murder was all James’s fault. This was hardly fair as Wendy had asked him to do it and had restrained Kathy whilst he choked the old woman to death.

James agreed to testify for Wendy’s sake. As he’d already been found guilty of murder, his presence in court was likely to make her look the less culpable teenager. He had told his psychologist that he was still in love with her.

Wendy insisted on testifying in her own defence, believing that if the jury heard what she’d been through at her grandmother’s hands they’d be more understanding. Unfortunately, like many abuse survivors, she sounded flat and cold.

She also said that James had been violent towards her and that she’d stayed with him out of fear after the murder. Unsurprisingly, the jury weren’t convinced by this.

Her defence was further undermined by her sister Kathy who said that the beatings with the paddle and the fly swat hadn’t been so bad. She admitted under questioning that Betty had gotten physical in other ways, including slapping Wendy’s face.

Buzz testified in Wendy’s defence. This essentially meant that he had to sever all ties with Kathy, as she was living with other relatives. And Betty’s relatives were hotly contesting the abuse.

Buzz said that Betty’s hitting Wendy had been a bone of contention between them for a long time – and that it had also distressed some of their relatives. He agreed that he’d failed her by leaving her with his disciplinarian mother. Looking over at Wendy in the dock he added ‘I should be sitting where she is.’

It seems that Wendy was badly advised in several ways, as she was seen carrying a teddy bear after her arrest and she turned up at court in a little-girl dress. These made her look false and manipulative. Yet she was very young in some ways as Betty hadn’t liked her going out with other teenagers, instead taking her out socially to see relatives. Indeed, a psychologist testified that she had an emotional age of eight. Her mother Jann had finally died a few months previously, adding to her distress.

That April, Wendy wept as she was found guilty of second degree murder. Her sentence was seven years to life.

As they so often do, many laypeople bought into the traditional stereotypes of James as a remorseless teenage psychopath and Wendy as the perfect child who was led astray by him. But Wendy’s problems
began long before she met James. She was so desperate for love that she came close to having sex with two previous boyfriends – and when they broke up she wrote about killing them violently. She also wrote that if anyone read her diary, she hoped they’d ‘burn in Hell.’ She was clearly a mixture of fear and despair and rage, living with a woman who constantly told her that she was turning out just like her dying mother. Eventually, something had to give.

The feminist interpretation took a different tack, suggesting this was statutory rape with Wendy as the clear victim. But, though both teenagers were underage, the sex was consensual. James wasn’t using Wendy as a sex object. His mother said that they were clearly devoted to each other and tried not to spend a single moment apart. He bought her gifts and talked about their future and kept every one of the troubled letters she sent.

Meanwhile those who subscribe to a wholly genetic basis for crime said that Wendy was violent like her mother was. But studies have shown that if animals are removed from an aggressive mother and placed with a non-aggressive foster mum, the young animals’ own aggression significantly diminishes. (One example of such a study is
The
Effect
Of
Maternal
Environment
On
Aggressive
Behaviour
In
Inbred
Mice,
a research paper by C.H. Southwick, published in a biology journal in 1968.) Similarly, studies have shown that animals are more likely to fight if they see the animals in the next cage fighting. Wendy was being hit by her grandmother and saw her grandmother and father
have regular shouting matches, factors surely more pertinent than biology.

Betty Gardner had her good points, giving her grandchildren physical care and helping to run a support group for widows. But her repressive parenting made both her son Buzz and grand-daughter Wendy deeply unhappy and desperate for fun.

James passed several exams in a young persons institution. As his sentence was nine years to life, his time in prison remains indeterminate. His 1999 appeal was turned down.

Wendy is currently incarcerated in a detention facility near Albany where Buzz visits her weekly. Assuming that she isn’t released early on appeal, she will be eligible for parole when she is twenty-one.

Sean was born on 18th May 1969 to Vonda and Rick Sellers. Vonda had been only fifteen when she became pregnant with Sean and was sixteen when he was born. The family lived in Concoran, California but by the time Sean was three the marriage had broken up. This did nothing to improve Vonda’s volatile temper and she often hit the little blonde boy, frequently slapping him across the face.

By the time he was five his mother had met Paul Bellofatto, a former Green Beret. Paul told Sean that he had killed the enemy whilst on duty in Vietnam. He was now a cross country trucker and Vonda decided to join him on the road.

She gave Sean to her father and his second wife. At other times he was cared for by his great-grandparents. His mother and stepfather came home every few weeks for a short visit then left again. Each time Sean would wave them goodbye then lock himself in the bathroom and cry.

At school he had to explain that his surname was Sellers after his natural father although his parents had the surname of Bellofatto. Plus his grandfather who he lived with had yet another surname. He knew that he was different.

Sean was a bright little boy who liked animals and said that he wanted to be a vet when he grew up. He loved his pets but was sometimes separated from them
when his mother took him away to her latest living quarters. He’d stay with Vonda and Paul for a few days or weeks then be shipped back to his grandfather or to other relatives. He had virtually no stability in his life. To the outside world he seemed unusually self-reliant – but deep down he was filled with fear, low self-esteem and an increasing rage.

When Sean was eight his parents again took him to live with them, this time in Los Angeles. The couple were living with relatives in an apartment block that was supposed to be childfree so he was constantly being told to keep quiet. Various relatives shouted at him and one of them made the child give him oral sex. Like most abused children, Sean thought that this was his fault. Within weeks it was clear that they were never going to play happy families so his parents shipped him back to his grandfather’s house in Oklahoma and he returned to school there.

The next seven years passed in this way. Every so often Vonda and Paul would take Sean to live with them in their latest house. They never stayed in the one town for more than a year so he often had to cope with new schools and new friends. By now Vonda’s violence had increased and she hit her son with a belt, a hairbrush and wooden spoons. Sean tried very hard to please her then opted for trying to avoid her by staying in his room. Meanwhile Paul spent little time with his
stepson and Sean came to the conclusion that the man – who he thought of as Dad – didn’t like or admire him at all.

Vonda and Paul smoked dope and by age twelve Sean had joined them in this. He also started playing Dungeons & Dragons games.

By the time Sean reached his teens he was filled with rage. He turned to the martial arts to improve his self-esteem and read up on how to kill people. During this period he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle who laughed at him for his interest in Ninjutsu. But Paul took him to see the film
Rambo
and said that soldiers should be able to kill people and not worry about it.

When Sean was fifteen they moved him again, this time to Colorado. For the first time in ages he was happy. He joined the Civil Air Patrol and became a cadet commander. This pleased Paul and their relationship improved. But the couple decided to move back to Oklahoma which would mean Sean losing everything he’d built up. Sean begged them not to go – or to let him stay on his own – but they made him return, showing his wishes didn’t matter. Like many children, he was being given no respect.

His needs ignored once too often, the boy gave up trying to be part of everyday life. He no longer tried to make friends and began to read up on Satanism in the hope that it would give him some control over his days.

He and his friend Richard would talk about what it would be like to rape and kill people. They also planned robberies but didn’t carry them out.

The teenage Sean increasingly turned to the occult in the hope of acquiring power. He wrote in his own blood that he served Satan and added ‘to my enemies, death.’ He told his schoolmates that he saw flying demons. This isn’t unusual in poorly patented individuals. Under intense stress, people often hallucinate and see or hear things – usually of a frightening nature – that aren’t actually there.

He got into a fight at school about satanism and when a teacher intervened she discovered he had the occult book The Satanic Bible. She called his parents who discovered he’d set up a satanic altar in his room. Sadly, this started yet another shouting match during which his stepfather yelled ‘You don’t exist.’

Sean was now even more desperate to prove that he did exist, to exert some form of power. He decided he’d enhance his satanic status if he broke the Ten Commandments. His seventeen-year-old friend Richard was also interested in murder and the two youths decided to kill a shop clerk called Robert who Richard knew.

On 8th September 1985 the boys entered the convenience store where thirty-six-year-old Robert Bower was working the night shift. Richard was angry at
Robert who had previously refused to sell him beer because he was underage.

The boys went to the store and spoke to him for the next hour. They joked that he was at risk because the store didn’t have a security camera but Robert explained that there was only fifty dollars in the cash register at any one time. He had no reason to fear Richard and had no idea that Sean – who he didn’t know – was toting Richard’s grandfather’s gun.

Moments later, Sean aimed the gun at the clerk’s head, fired and missed. The shocked clerk ran and Sean fired again. This shot also missed as Robert had slipped and fallen to the floor. He screamed and grabbed hold of a jacket, trying to hide behind it. Sean could see his terrified eyes. Nevertheless, he fired a third time, hitting the man and sending blood spurting everywhere. Laughing, the youths raced from the store.

No one connected the brutal killing with the withdrawn teenage boy. Sean didn’t think about the death for days – but when he did he felt superior. He wondered if his stepfather would be pleased with him for taking a life and not feeling upset about it. Paul had given him the impression that soldiers who suffered from post traumatic stress were weak.

Sean got a job as a bouncer for a youth club. There he met a teenager called Angel and for the first time, he
fell in love. Unfortunately, Sean’s mother couldn’t stand the girl who smoked and was a high school drop out. Sean thought that Angel reminded his mother of herself as a girl, acting tough but feeling lost. Vonda called Angel a tramp and a bitch and tried to split the couple up.

The next six months were increasingly unpleasant at home. Sean brooded in his room and practiced the so-called black arts. He took driving lessons to have more control over his destiny. Meanwhile his mother threw him out of the house so Sean decided to sleep in his van but Paul promptly went to Sean’s work and fetched him back. His mother then threatened to send him to his natural father in California, presumably to separate him from his girlfriend.

During one of their many arguments, Vonda attacked Sean – but this time he pushed her back, meeting violence with violence. He alternated between just wishing he could leave and wishing that she was dead. He even put rat poison in her coffee but it had no effect.

Sean had been counting the days until he turned eighteen and could leave home, but now he just could not wait. He was only sixteen – but during those sixteen years he’d had good reason to build up a lot of hate.

On 5th March 1986 he waited until Vonda and Paul went to bed, stripped to his underwear and went
through one of his satanic rituals before creeping into their bedroom with Paul’s .44 revolver at his side. He would later say that he felt like he was shooting his way to freedom, knocking down the door of a prison cage.

He put the gun close to his forty-three-year-old stepfather’s head and fired, killing him instantly. He turned the gun on his thirty-two-year-old mother and shot her too. As she rose, wounded, from the bed he shot her again, watching the blood run down the side of her head. He laughed, just as he had done after killing the shop clerk. Then he showered and staged the scene to make it look like a burglary.

Afterwards he drove to Richard’s house and they talked about what they’d say to the authorities. Sean contacted them after pretending to discover the bodies the next day.