James Bulger

**James Bulger** (March 16, 1990 – February 12, 1993) was a British boy.

## Death

on February 12, 1993, showed Thompson and Venables casually observing children, apparently selecting a target. The boys were playing truant from school, which they did regularly. Throughout the day, Thompson and Venables were seen stealing various items including sweets, batteries, a troll doll and a can of blue paint. One of the boys later revealed that they were planning to abduct a child, lead him to the busy road alongside the shopping centre, and push him into the oncoming traffic.

That same afternoon, Bulger, from nearby Kirkby, went with his mother, Denise, to the New Strand Shopping Centre. Whilst inside the A. R. Tym's butcher's shop on the lower floor of the centre at around 15:40, Denise, who had let go of James' hand whilst paying for her shopping, realised that her son was missing. Thompson and Venables had approached James Bulger, took him by the hand and led him out of the shopping centre. The moment was caught on CCTV at 15:42.

Thompson and Venables took Bulger to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, around a quarter of a mile from the New Strand Shopping Centre, where they dropped him on his head and he suffered injuries to his face. The boys joked about pushing Bulger into the canal. An eyewitness said that when he saw Bulger at the canal, the boy was "crying his eyes out." The boys went on a 2.5-mile (4 km) walk across Liverpool; they were seen by around 38 people, but most bystanders did nothing to intervene. Two people challenged Thompson and Venables, but they either claimed that Bulger was their brother or that he was lost and they were taking him to a police station. At one point, the boys took Bulger into a pet shop, from which they were ejected.

Eventually, the boys arrived in the village of Walton. With Walton Lane Police Station facing them across the road, they hesitated and led Bulger up a steep bank to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield railway station, close to Anfield Cemetery.
James Bulger being abducted by Thompson (above Bulger) and Venables (holding Bulger's hand) in an image recorded on shopping centre CCTV
One of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger's left eye. They kicked him, stamped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him. They placed batteries in Bulger's mouth and, according to police, may have inserted some into his anus, although none were found there. Finally, the boys dropped a 10-kilogram (22 lb) railway fishplate on Bulger. He sustained 10 skull fractures as a result of the bar striking his head. Pathologist Alan Williams stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries – 42 in total – that none could be identified as the fatal blow. Thompson and Venables laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble in hopes that a train would hit him and his death would be ruled an accident. After they left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train. Bulger's severed body was discovered by some schoolboys two days later. A forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was struck by the train.

Police suspected that the boys had sexually assaulted Bulger, since his shoes, socks, trousers and underpants had been removed. The pathologist's report, which was read out in court, found that Bulger's foreskin had been forcibly pulled back. When Thompson and Venables were questioned about this aspect of the attack by detectives and a child psychiatrist, Eileen Vizard, the pair were reluctant to give details. When Venables was let out on parole, his psychiatrist, Susan Bailey, reported that "visiting and revisiting the issue with Jon as a child, and now as an adolescent, he gives no account of any sexual element to the offence."

The police quickly found low-resolution video images of Bulger's abduction from the New Strand Shopping Centre by two unidentified boys. The railway embankment upon which his body had been discovered was soon adorned with hundreds of bunches of flowers. The family of one boy, who was detained for questioning but subsequently released, had to flee the city due to threats from vigilantes. The breakthrough came when a woman, upon seeing slightly enhanced images of the two boys on national television, recognized Venables, whom she knew had played truant with Thompson that day. She contacted the police and the boys were arrested.