Ralph and Denise Bulger's dreams for their son, however, ended on February 12th, 1993. Denise and her friend Nicola went to run errands at the Bootle Strand Mall, taking James and another child with them. They spent the day shopping and were about ready to take the tired, restless children home before making one more stop. It was there at the butcher shop that young kids, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, spotted the child standing just outside the door waiting for his mother. James obeyed their call to follow along and even raised his tiny hand to take hold of Jon's (see above). For the first while the two-year-old protested either little or none at all, and in his young mind was perhaps thinking he was off to play some fun game with a pair of big, exciting friends that were sure to return him safely to his mum when it was over.
But it wasn't too long before these two new "friends" starting becoming pretty hateful. They took him to the canal and after trying to push him in, picked him up and dropped him on his head. He began to sob momentarily out of probable mix of pain and feeling of betrayal, but quickly got up to follow them again when they called. After all, Mum wasn't around, and he could either be left by himself or go ahead and obey these two big people. Even if they had just hurt him, big people could always be trusted when it came down to it. Besides, hadn't they seem so nice to begin with?
The boys calmed down a bit, and suddenly became reasonably nicer. They took him with them around town, to pet shops and such, and ceased the violence for just awhile. But all the same, James was getting tired. About this time of evening he was always with his mum, and he wanted her now. He was ready to end this big adventure and go back to her.
"I want my mum?"
The older boys laughed and one said "She's this way. Come on."
He settled down again, fully confident that they would help him find his mother.
But his ten-year-old accomplices soon became hateful again, and were prone to periodically swat him across the face or kick him. He had no idea why, but since they were taking him back to his mum, all was well and it would end soon enough.
However, it started to get dark, and still no mum. Jamie was getting horribly impatient now and the boys more and more hostile. They eventually led him to railroad tracks and began to beat him worse than had before. He sobbed as they pummeled him over and over again with all kinds of rock-like items, everything from stones to bricks. James kept getting up though, in a desparate struggle to avoid the flying objects and move into the way of safety. But there was no safety for James that night......no mum or dad, no warm bedroom full of toys. He had nothing familiar to cling to as they struck his head one final time with a massive iron bar and emptied a whole container of paint into his eyes and mouth, rendering him sightless and probably speechless. It was in a partly conscious state that he was forced to endure a severe measure of sexual abuse, horrifying beyond all imagination and not generally known to the public. Finally two-year-old James Bulger was laid out on the railroad tracks to be sliced in half by a passing train while his two friend-turned-tormenters took off, leaving him completely and utterly alone.
The owner of one of my two sister-sites, Kathy, has informed me of the dreaded actuality that James was somewhat alive at the time the train hit him. This makes it all seem so much worse. However, I sincerely hope that he was at least in such an unconcious state so as not to fully experience the trauma of the train wheels. I do believe in God though, and although it may sound a bit pretentious, I would like to think that there was an angel watching over James during his death, offering him a kind of ethereal comfort that none of us could possibly know about. But no matter what anybody believes, there is no one that can ever really know in this life exactly what Jamie's last few hours were like for him.
My Email: vision_jn316@yahoo.com
