Jesse pomeroy biography

Jesse Pomeroy: What Drove the 14-Year-Old Serial Killer to Torture and Murder?

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    Jesse Pomeroy: What Drove the 14-Year-Old Serial Killer to Torture and Murder?

    • Author

      Sarah Kuta

    • Website Name

      aetv.com

    • Year Published

      2022

    • Title

      Jesse Pomeroy: What Drove the 14-Year-Old Serial Killer to Torture and Murder?

    • URL

      https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/jesse-pomeroy

    • Access Date

      February 16, 2025

    • Publisher

      A+E Networks

Warning: The following contains disturbing descriptions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.

In the early 1870s, someone began terrorizing children near Boston. Residents of Chelsea, East Boston, Dorchester and Jamaica found kids, ranging from ages 3 to 9, tied to telegraph poles or fence posts with injuries all over their bodies, according to The New York Times. The incidents seemed to escalate, and two children were later found dead.

That “someone” was Jesse Pomeroy, a pre-teen who tortured and, ultimately, killed at least two children between 1871 and 1874. When asked why he commi

Autobiography of Jesse H. Pomeroy, Written by Him While Imprisoned in the Suffolk County Jail and Under Sentence of Death for the Murder of H.H. Millen, Together with a Sketch of his Trial, the Several Crimes with which He is Charged and an Account of his Recent Attempt to Break Jail

Bsoton: J.A. Cummings & Co, [1875].

First Edition.32 pp, in original illustrated wrappers. Some staining and chipping to wrappers, internally clean; very good. McDade 757. Sometimes described as America's first serial killer, Jesse Pomeroy was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death when just 14 years old. He had been tried for only one murder--that of 4-year-old Horace Millen--but was known to have also killed a nine-year-old girl and brutally beaten other young children. His case sparked heated debate in the local and national press over whether justice would only be served by the death penalty, or whether it was immoral to hang a boy who was only 14 at the time of his crime. Paralyzed by fear of political repercussions, the incumbent Governor of Massachusetts declined

Jesse Pomeroy

American murderer

Jesse Pomeroy

Drawing of Pomeroy, c. 1870–1880.

BornNovember 29, 1859

Charlestown, Massachusetts, U.S.

DiedSeptember 29, 1932(1932-09-29) (aged 72)

Bridgewater, Massachusetts, U.S.

Other namesThe Boston Boy Fiend
The Boy Torturer
The Demon
The Red Devil
Criminal statusDeceased
Conviction(s)First degree murder
Criminal penaltyDeath, commuted to life to be served in solitary confinement in 1876, commuted to life imprisonment in 1917
Victims2 confirmed, suspected to be 9+

Span of crimes

1871–1874
CountryUnited States
State(s)Massachusetts

Date apprehended

April 24, 1874

Jesse Harding Pomeroy (; November 29, 1859 – September 29, 1932) was a convicted American murderer and possible serial killer and the youngest person in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to be convicted of murder in the first degree. He was found guilty by a jury trial held in the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County in December 1874.

Background

Jesse Harding

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