However, the blogpost and the comments that praises how well researched it is makes it impossible not to comment on this. This post is not meant to make the events seem less tragic, in fact they seem worse in some parts in my opinion.

One crucial part of this story that is neglected, and wrongfully, speculated on are the facts of sentencing and incarceration.

Sentence: Detention without a time limit. Which means that it wouldn’t have been a problem to keep her locked up for life. This means that her release after 12 years was conditioned on it being deemed safe to do so.

Mary’s upbringing: Her mother attempted to kill her FOUR times within her first four years. Two of these attempts came very close, and this behavior stopped only after the intervention of relatives (What took them 4 attempts over 4 years boggles the mind). When the mother stops trying to poison her daughter, the next phase of torment begins. Mary is used by her mother in her work as a prostitute; for Mary that included oral sex, anal sex and sadism (she was tied and whipped).

The area where she grew up was in large plagued of socioeconomic problems. High rate of unemployment, poverty, criminality and for the most part made up by condemned buildings or buildings that was already demolished.
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The letters were written, and found, between the two murders, not after both. Mary, also wrote about the first murder in school the Monday after Martin’s death. These contained details that had not been released to the public, i.e. the can of pills beside the body.

After the second murder Mary and Norma guides the Brian’s older siblings in where to search. This search continues for a long time, and adults are notified at 7 pm. They contact the police, and the search is concluded around midnight with the finding of Brian. This doesn’t fit that well with “Mary wanted the sister to find the boy’s body”, which she had ample time to make sure of.

The general slant of the article overall can be found in the details, which seem placed in the blogpost just to build on the horror of the events. This makes me ill, since the nature of the actions are more than enough tragedy in themselves. This might be seen as nitpicking, but I maintain the importance of trying to be balanced when writing of things how horrible they may be over sensationalize.

*The children murdered were 4 and 3 years old, i.e. not two toddlers. The motive for for using this term I can only speculate on, but the conclusion I reach is that the author of the article felt the need to distinguish between the innocent and defenseless victims and Mary. Something that the events should be able to put beyond any possibility of confusion.

The term psychopath and sociopath is often used interchangeably, but the terms can also be used to underline the debate of genes vs environment. And a glance at the conditions under which Mary was brought up and the fact that she was released, and have been law-abiding since, surely makes the argument for environmental explanations deserving of a hearing over “born evil”/”pure evil” rants in this case. Especially since psychopathy is widely regarded as a permanent affliction, and would have warranted continued incarceration.

If all comments are written under the firmest of beliefs that rehabilitation in any and all cases is impossible, the this post won’t change your mind, but otherwise I’d urge you to at least consider the circumstances of Mary’s childhood. First, to grow up being repeatedly subjected to poisoning to the brink of death by one of the persons in the world that is supposed to care for you and to protect you from harm and to TEACH YOU HOW THE WORLD WORKS. Second, when this stops it is only to have that unimaginable hell to change into a life of sexual abuse with elements of sadism.

The decision to release Mary, which implies enough change on her side to deem it safe, makes the anonymity discussion quite simple in my opinion. She was released assuming that she would be able to live a ordered life from then on out, which the tabloids made impossible. A free citizen, one that has served time/repaid debt/been rehabilitated, shouldn’t be harassed to only serve newspaper circulation. And the sentence that allowed her anonymity to be kept after that also led to making it illegal for newspapers to reveal identities of people that have court order that guarantees their anonymity and new name. And to think that anonymity equals her not being monitored closely at some higher level within the police seems naive to me. Imagine the the crisis for the state if she were to get arrested again.

The “served more time”-question must have been the main one for the judge that ordered her release, since it surely was the controversial choice. To be frank few would have cared if the choice would have been further incarceration. I cannot imagine that this was done on a whim, and that I can only see it being easier to err on the side of caution in these matters by keeping prisoners locked up. A lot must have happened during those 12 years both on getting to the full life story of Mary as well as change in Mary’s understanding of the events as well as personal development. So, even though we now the benefit of her record after release, there is little reason to doubt that releasing Mary was the right choice.

This post is not meant as an argument absolving Mary for the ACTIONS, it is meant to give some nuance to the knee-jerk-reactions posted here to a poorly researched article which seem to have been perceived as something different by many readers.

Isn’t it? Mary’s story is shocking and sad. I don’t understand it either. Because of her childhood abuse and early warning signs, I’ve no doubt she’s still a threat, wherever she is.