Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers (7 page)

Shortly afterwards the police were faced with an equally unlikely suspect. In January 1980, the
innocuous
looking Bruce Lee was questioned by the police about so-called indecent acts with other men. He admitted having sex with Charlie Hastie and also admitted that Charlie had taken money from him. He didn’t say that he’d been enraged by this – in fact the police were impressed at how calm the thin, pale young man actually was.

The enquiry dragged on, and in June of that year the police invited Bruce back in to talk about his
relationship
with Charlie Hastie. Detective Superintendent Ron Sagar began to interview the surprisingly likeable young man. Earlier that day Bruce had been drinking but now the police had given him cups of tea and fish & chips so he was sober and relaxed.

Acting on a hunch, Sagar said to Bruce that he believed he’d started the fire at the Hastie house. Bruce’s features became serious but his voice was
expressionless
as he said ‘I didn’t mean to kill them.’ He went on to give full details of the accelerant he’d used, how he’d applied it and even what he’d worn that night. He seemed very proud of his actions, saying that the authorities tended not to assume house fires were arson and that he’d covered his tracks well. After
taking
many more details, the police took him to the cells for the night.

The next day, Ron Sagar spoke to Bruce again and got him a solicitor. A few hours later he charged him with Charlie Hastie’s murder. Bruce looked the detective square in the face but didn’t say anything.

The following day Sagar and another detective
visited
him in prison and said they believed that he’d set previous fires. At first Bruce denied this but after a
little
more conversation he continued ‘Do you know somat? You are the only bloke I know who shows any interest in me. You said before that in my life I’ve never had a chance. You are right.’

Sagar agreed that Bruce had ‘been kicked from
pillar
to post’ and then asked him if he had a grudge against various people. The youth replied that he did and added ‘My mum never cared a shit about me. No one ever has.’ At other times he swore that he just liked
setting fires and hadn’t wanted to murder anyone. He was clearly reinventing history, either to gain favour with the police or to feel better about himself.

The boy seemed grateful for the few kindnesses the police had shown him and admitted that he’d
expected
to be beaten up. He talked some more about his life then the detectives suggested he might have set
further
fires. At this stage, Bruce’s eyes became tearful and he admitted that he’d killed a baby in a fire in West Dock Avenue. He also talked about killing a
handicapped
boy he went to school with in another house fire, a boy he claimed to have liked.

Promising to come back and see him tomorrow, the police left. They checked and found that a fire had occurred in West Dock Avenue in which a six-
month-old
baby girl had died and that another fire had killed a handicapped boy. Moreover, a woman who had been burned in a separate fire told the police that she and Bruce Lee didn’t like each other and that he’d been seen in the area shortly before her home became an inferno. Everything that Bruce said was checking out.

Detective Superintendent Sagar and Sergeant Martin went back to Leeds Prison the following afternoon and Bruce said that his solicitor had told him not to speak to the police but that he would anyway because ‘it’s on my mind, not his.’ He then spoke of setting the fire that killed a fellow school pupil, of setting the fire which killed Charlie Hastie and his two brothers, of torching the old folks home at Hessle in which eleven men died. He then asked if he could have a Bible to read, and Ron Sagar duly got him one.

On 30th June the police asked Bruce if he was willing to show them the houses he’d set on fire. Sagar
privately
thought that Bruce might have made the whole thing up to get attention. Deep down he hoped that the undernourished and ill-educated youth wasn’t guilty of the crimes.

Bruce seemed to enjoy the ride in the car and
pointed
out the scenes of his arson attacks. He was able to give full details of the fires he’d started – what his mood had been like at the time, which windows he’d broken or door he’d entered by, what accelerant he’d used.

Though responsible for twenty-six deaths, he was still only twenty. But he had far more insight into his problems than most serial killers, admitting that he’d caused such mayhem because no one had ever shown him love and his mother had failed to provide him with even a basic home.

Some arsonists fall into distinct groups. That is, they set fires for a revenge motive or because of some pathological compulsion (a form of mental illness) or because they are fire fetishists so it excites them sexually. Bruce could claim all three motives. Fire had become all things to this alienated boy. It rid him of his enemies, it calmed the restlessness in his psyche and it
gave him sexual pleasure. (Though it’s untrue that this was his sole form of sexual release.) A legal report
produced
in December 1980 on his offending would say that he was likely to ‘continue to be sexually aroused by thoughts or acts of fire setting particularly in
relation
to killing people by fire.’

Bruce had the typical background of a pyromaniac. That is, he was abused during his childhood and was poorly parented. He also showed the common
pyromaniac
traits of sexual sadism and paranoia. He told the police that when he had the urge to start a fire it was very hard to ignore it. He even admitted that he’d felt like setting fire to his cell whilst he was awaiting trial. He added that he’d like to burn his mother for what she’d done to him – that is, for failing to provide him with love or a decent home. His mother would later take part in a documentary admitting that she was ‘back on the game’ within weeks of his birth.

Detective Superintendent Ron Sagar continued to feel sorry for Bruce Lee as a result of his sad childhood. He visited him in prison to make sure that none of the other prisoners were beating him up. By now Bruce had been on remand in prison for several weeks
without
a single visitor.

Ron Sagar also spoke to the prison doctor who
confirmed
that Bruce was immature and indifferent. But he was also streetwise as a result of his very tough
life. Other professionals who spent time with him confirmed that he was perceptive and alert.

Bruce Lee’s trial, on 28th January 1981, only lasted for a few hours. He was charged with twenty-six counts of manslaughter and ten counts of arson. The victims were aged from six months to ninety-five years old. It was noted that he had a grudge against four of the
victims
, though the grudges were trivial. (That is, they seemed trivial to someone who was thinking
rationally
– not to a rage-filled youth who’d been mocked and rejected all his life.)

Bruce’s defence was one of diminished responsibility though he pleaded guilty to each of the charges. He was sentenced to be detained indefinitely in Park Lane Special Hospital near Liverpool under the Mental Health Act.

Bruce had initially wanted to go to such a hospital – but in time he changed his mind and decided he’d rather be in prison or have his freedom. This decision may have been prompted by newspaper reports which cast doubt on his convictions, suggesting that a physically handicapped boy could not have climbed into houses to set these fires. But Bruce had shown Ron
Sagar how he held the petrol can – and he clearly was not without dexterity as he could even ride a bicycle. He’d also held down a job at the local cattle market for a while.

Most of the fires had originally been viewed as accidents, caused by gas leaks, lit cigarettes and so on, and a newspaper suggested the fires were still nothing to do with Bruce Lee. But several of the victims had attended the same special school as Bruce and several others had had arguments with him. There were too many such factors for it all to be coincidence.

Whatever his prompting or motivation, Bruce withdrew his confession. He now said that he didn’t like fire or watching fires. (But he’d been seen in the crowd watching one fire and was shooed away from the door of another house shortly before a fire started inside.) He also admitted that he’d changed his mind many times about everything, but that he now wanted to go to prison rather than stay in the special hospital. Bruce’s legal counsel explained that it was difficult to take instruction from the youth as he kept changing his mind.

Meanwhile a newspaper made allegations that Detective Superintendent Ron Sagar had influenced Bruce to confess to the fires in order that the police could clear their books. But this made no sense as most of the fires that Bruce had confessed to weren’t being treated as arson. Instead, they had been viewed as acts of negligence or as accidents.

That said, there have been many miscarriages of justice where educationally-subnormal or otherwise
vulnerable youths have been questioned at length without a responsible adult or a solicitor present. (Two such cases are outlined in a later chapter, Watch Me Bleed.) But Ron Sagar had given Bruce tea and food and had spaced out the interviews. And Bruce would later write to Ron, wishing him well.

After a judgement about the case, the Lord Justice said that the police had behaved admirably and that
certain
sectors of the media owed Ron Sagar an apology. A full account is given in Ron Sagar’s own impressively detailed book
Hull,
Hell
And
Fire:
The
Extraordinary
Story
Of
Bruce
Lee.
The book shows the full complexity of the case and also delineates the courage that Ron Sagar showed in taking on a powerful media in a
determined
effort to clear his name.

In March 2002 this author travelled to Yorkshire to interview Ron Sagar. The former Detective Chief Superintendent is a man with a lifetime’s worth of crime-fighting experience having spent thirty years as an operational detective in Britain before becoming a Criminal Investigation Adviser in Southern Africa. Though he and his wife have since returned to Yorkshire, they still make regular trips to Africa in their efforts to help the country’s poor.

Ron Sagar is equally aware of the poverty of Bruce Lee’s life. He interviewed the youth on at least
twenty-eight
occasions, both in police custody and in prison.
Ron provided many of the details in this profile, details which aren’t readily available as so little truth – and so much fiction – has been written about this case.

Asked about his first impressions of Bruce, former Detective Chief Superintendent Sagar said that he was ‘insignificant – you wouldn’t notice him walking into a room.’ He could see that the young man was ‘an
obvious
loner’ yet he wasn’t totally reclusive as he was clearly searching for a friend. Ron Sagar quickly became a friendly figure to Bruce because of his
non-macho
approach to interviews. He simply refuses to engage in verbal battles. ‘I never fall out with offenders or potential offenders,’ he explains. This likeable
manner
would later work in his favour when he was libelled in a newspaper – many prisoners phoned up to say that he’d always treated them well and that they’d be happy to give him a reference.

Ron didn’t think that Bruce looked at all dangerous. His only previous conviction was for carrying an offensive weapon, but this could have been solely for self-protection as he was sometimes living rough on the streets. ‘It may even have been an appeal for
attention
,’ Ron says.

When Bruce first started to confess to fire after fire, Sagar wondered if the boy was simply fantasising. At one stage he even thought he’d caught the youth out in a lie. Bruce had said he’d poured a circle of paraffin through a letterbox – but later he’d mentioned that there was a net curtain over the inside of the door. Ron figured that the curtain would have made it
impossible
to pour the paraffin as neatly as Bruce described –
but when policemen checked on the door they found that the curtain only covered the upper glass panel. Bruce was right once more.

Nevertheless, the police hoped that Bruce would plead not guilty to the crimes so that the entire story would have to be laid out in court. Instead, Bruce pleaded guilty to each charge of manslaughter. He was so calm and so clearly spoken when answering the charges that he appeared to have a very high IQ. He always seemed to be careful about his answers in a legal situation and remained alert

During my interview, Ron Sagar was able to squash many of the myths involved in the case. For starters, Bruce didn’t say that he was only happy when he could hear people roasting. (Though he did admit to getting a kick from some of the fires.) Instead, he seemed sad about some of the deaths, including the second major fire he’d started. He told a doctor that it ‘killed me, mate. I didn’t mean to do it’ then added ‘I don’t like speaking about that one.’

Another myth is that he could only orgasm if he started a fire. He did obtain sexual pleasure from some of the arson attacks and this was noted in a legal
document
. But it wasn’t his sole source of satisfaction – he had relationships with various men in public toilets. It’s clear that he wasn’t acting as a rent boy as at least one of the boys (Charles Hastie) had demanded money from him.

Bruce also told a female senior medical officer that he had had relationships with females but that he had no children because he used contraception. He said
that he’d never cohabitated with a female because he liked ‘keeping by myself.’ But he’d had relationships with a few females and had two girlfriend’s names
tattooed
on him. He at first denied to her that he’d had any homosexual experiences, but later admitted it, explaining that it had started when he was in a
children’s
home.

A third myth about the case is that the police were running an investigation for a serial arsonist called The Holocaust Man. There was no such investigation because the police weren’t looking for a serial arsonist. Most of the fires had been wrongly attributed to
electric
faults, dropped cigarettes and so on.

Former Detective Chief Superintendent Sagar was also able to refute a fourth story that went the rounds, namely that he found a singed piece of paper at the Hastie fire which contained the address of the Salvation Army Hostel where Bruce had been living, went there and found a can of petrol under his bed. These stories may have been invented by writers looking for a
sensational
angle or by amateur crime writers trying to fill in the gaps of Bruce Lee’s life and arrest.

Bruce himself lied to his prison doctor and his
exaggerations
may have led to some of the myths. For example, he told his doctor that he was spending £20 a day on alcohol. In the seventies, this was a formidable amount of cash to spend on drink – and Ron Sagar says it’s unlikely to be accurate. Bruce was more
moderate
when discussing his smoking, saying that he bought forty cigarettes a week.

Bruce also told the doctor that he’d been paid to
start some of the fires and was given between £300 and £500 for such arson attacks but he refused to elaborate on this. These allegations might have been true or could have been invented to boost his ego, but they weren’t brought about by organic brain dysfunction because an EEG showed that Bruce’s brain wave was only mildly abnormal. Instead, he was diagnosed as having a psychopathic personality disorder and written up as ‘a highly dangerous repetitive arsonist who derives pleasure from this behaviour.’

Asked by this author why there was occasionally a year between Bruce lighting a serious fire, Ron Sagar explained that it’s possible he started smaller fires which didn’t make the newspapers and which he
subsequently
forgot about. Or he might have set fires which failed to ignite.

Ron has maintained compassion for Bruce, though he’s aware that this isn’t a view shared by the general public. (This author has encountered the same attitude when delineating the horror of most killer’s
childhoods
. For some reason, the public doesn’t believe that it’s possible to have sympathy for the childhood yet hate the murderous actions that can spring from such a violent start.) Ron says that Bruce ‘still crosses my mind – with a touch of sympathy for him as a mere human being.’ At the time of his arrest, the youth
clearly
wanted to bond with someone for he befriended Ron Sagar and subsequently related to a female doctor who interviewed him as a motherly figure. When she asked how he got on with his birth mother he admitted he ‘never did – she did stick up for me sometimes. She
was adapted (sic) to booze, an alcoholic.’ Bruce also bonded with his solicitor.

Asked if he’d met many offenders as disadvantaged as Bruce, Ron Sagar says ‘many people have had rough upbringings – but Bruce was disadvantaged in all three ways, mentally, physically and socially.’ This made him a particularly unfortunate case.

So does Bruce fit the profile of a typical arsonist? ‘Yes, he’s tending towards the classic profile. The arsonist is often a loner. Bruce fits the upbringing and personality type, the feeling of resentment towards his fellow human beings.’ So is this type of arson attack unique to developed countries like Britain and the USA? Ron Sagar says not, that ‘it could happen
anywhere
.’

Sadly, he knows of many other criminals who
started
offending as young as Bruce. ‘Eight or nine-
year-olds
were arrested with monotonous regularity in the early sixties and presumably in earlier decades, and paraded before the juvenile court.’ He goes on to paint a picture of unthinking adults and traumatised
children
that many of us are very familiar with.

‘These children would be described as difficult – but no one seemed interested in looking into their
background
to find out why they were difficult. They were thrown into approved schools and didn’t see a relative for many months. Nobody thought that the poor little devils would be homesick.’ These kids would try to toughen up in order to survive – and as a result they’d probably end up in borstal. An adult prison would be next.

Bruce’s life was as hopeless as many of these kids. Indeed, he’d had so little encouragement from society that he simply couldn’t envisage his future. His prison doctor would write ‘Asked about future plans, he has none.’

That said, Ron was pleased at how much better nourished and cared for Bruce looked when he visited him in prison after his arrest. For the first time he had the security of a roof over his head and three meals a day. He was later moved to the secure hospital in Liverpool where he still resides. ‘He’s better off since his arrival there than at any time in his life,’ Ron says.

Bruce also has friends of sorts for the first time. Ron says that the former arsonist ‘enjoys his reputation and likes rubbing shoulders with the more notorious inmates.’ Some of these inmates leave, of course, so he has to make other friends. He sometimes talks about his ‘defence team’, a term he seems to have picked up from another offender or from television. In truth, there isn’t one.

He still resents being told what to do (who doesn’t?) and acted strangely when first imprisoned, having shouting spells for no apparent reason. But he seems calmer now and has access to a snooker table and a TV.

Ron has understandably chosen not to keep in touch with Bruce, preferring to maintain a professional distance. But he was pleased to get a letter from him in 1990 via his solicitor. Bruce had heard that Ron was going to Africa to work and told him to take care.

It’s interesting that a boy as brutalised as Bruce Lee would worry about a detective, albeit a caring and
insightful one. But it seems that Bruce could be two very different personalities at different times, an
uncaring
arsonist who wanted to seek revenge on society and a desperately uncared for child who simply wanted love.

Bruce once told Ron Sagar of his earliest memory, possibly stemming from an age before he could walk. ‘I was crawling about floor (sic) looking for anything left in beer bottles and cans at me home once. My mum always had men in for a drink and that and I used to get the slops they left. I was only little then.’

It’s unlikely that any psychiatrist will risk setting such a confirmed arsonist free in the future, especially now that Bruce has spent almost his entire forty-two years in some form of institution – that is, in
orphanages
and then a secure hospital. It’s a sad indictment of society, but this special hospital has provided Bruce with the closest he’s ever had to a secure home.