14. The Boston Boy Fiend

On December 22, 1871, four-year-old Billy Paine was found hanging by his wrists, half-naked, from the roof beam of a tumbledown privy on Powder Horn Hill in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His back was covered with welts from a whipping. Over the next nine months seven more children, none older than 8, were found tied and brutally tortured in Chelsea and South Boston. The assaults became increasingly vicious and in 1874 resulted in the deaths of a four-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. When the killer was proven to be fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy, Massachusetts had to face two tough questions: could someone so brutal be considered sane? and if so, did the state have the will to execute the “boy fiend?”