Free Children Who Kill: Profiles of Pre-Teen and Teenage Killers by Carol Anne Davis Page A

he’d find her still obsessing over the children. There seemed no place for him in her very full life. He pointed out that the house was a mess and she retorted that she’d been busy working and shopping . Their voices rose until the neighbours could hear and decided to keep their own children away. Little Luke listened to these increasingly common screaming matches and was terrified.
    Mary Anne was religious and took both childrento the Baptist church but it’s not known how the increasingly timid Luke fared at Sunday school. He did his best to please his mother at home though, saying his prayers at meal times and last thing at night.
    Luke became very clumsy and Mary Anne frequently shouted at him for knocking over her ornaments or his teacup. Perhaps realising that she needed some space, she tried taking him to a friend’s house but he’d been so used to an aggressive atmosphere that he immediately managed to create one, breaking the other children’s toys.
    By now his dad was staying away more and more often and Luke doubtless blamed himself for his absence. His older brother was able to visit schoolmates to escape from his mother’s nagging but Luke had nowhere to go because he was too young to be independent and hadn’t any friends. So the pre-school Luke adopted various pets and made them into his confidantes instead. He’d go out into the yard and speak to his cats and dogs in order to keep out of his angry and over-critical mother’s way.
    Not that his mum was always so negative. At other times she was very loving towards Luke and gave the impression that he was all that mattered. But it wasn’t the healthiest type of love – friends thought that she acted as if she owned the little boy.
    By the time Luke was four or five, his mother had had enough of simply being a wife and mum. She decided she wanted more fun in her life and started going out with her friends most evenings. This meant that John junior, now in his early teens, was left tobabysit Luke. Unfortunately John still had no feelings for his brother and tended to trip him over or tease him mercilessly.

School days
    Unsurprisingly, Luke was school-phobic by his first day at school. He’d had so few good experiences of life that he suspected everyone was out to get him. And as his older mother had given him an old fashioned haircut he really did stand out in a negative way from the crowd. Mary Anne also insisted that Luke wear shorts all year round so he was teased in winter when the other boys wore trousers to school. Before long the trendier boys were pushing and shoving him and calling him names.
    Luke hadn’t been in junior school for long when his father got the sack. Now his dad was at home all day and his parent’s fights intensified. Mary Anne insisted on bringing both children into the room to hear these arguments, telling them to listen to what their father had done now. Sometimes Luke’s dad would take him out to the park but at other times he hid away in his study for the entire day. Luke did what he could to cheer up both parents but by now the marriage had crumbled irrecoverably.
    When Luke was seven his father finally walked out. Luke had loved his dad and he was devastated. He turned even more to his animals for succour as they didn’t let him down in the way that other people did.Mary Anne was also thrown by the desertion and began to party even more determinedly. She also worried about how she’d pay the bills. John junior understandably stayed at a friend’s house as often as he could because he hated the tension in the household. This meant that Luke was left on his own most evenings with his pets.
    Even when Mary Anne was home, the evenings were not a success. She wanted Luke – still only eight or nine – to talk to her like an adult. But Luke was so tired of her criticism that he preferred to keep his feelings to himself. He possibly also resented the fact that he could only see his mother when she felt like it –