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Boston at the same time her family relocated, she must have been more than a little suspicious.
    George Pratt, a sickly seven-year-old, was wandering along the South Boston shoreline when he was approached by an older boy who offered him some money if he would help him with an errand. The young boy, tempted by the offer of money to buy some sweets, accompanied Jesse where, like the others, he was stripped, bound and tortured. This time, however, Jesse’s attack became even more violent. After beating him with a leather belt, he bit a chunk out of the boy’s cheek and tore at his young body with his fingernails. Apparently not yet satisfied, Jesse then took a long sewing needle and repeatedly stabbed the child’s body. Finally, he tried prying open the boy’s eyelid to stick the needle into his eye, but Pratt managed to roll over onto his stomach. By now his sexual appetite satiated, Jesse left the youngster alone and fled, but not before biting another piece of flesh, this time from George’s buttocks.
    It was clear by now that these attacks had been carried out by someone with a very demented mind and the police rounded up any youth in the area that fitted the description, but none of the victims could pick out their attacker. Local anger escalated, and the vigilantes stepped up their patrols of the streets.
    Pomeroy’s next two attacks showed just how depraved he had become. It was less than a month since he had molested George Pratt when Jesse kidnapped and assaulted a six-year-old boy named Harry Austin. The pattern of the assault was the same as before, after beating the boy with his belt, Jesse bound him and stabbed him under each arm with a pocket knife, and then between his shoulders. But this time it did not end there, for as Austin lay wriggling beneath him, Jesse knelt down and attempted to cut off the boy’s penis. Luckily, Jesse was disturbed during the assault and ran before he was able to complete his mission.
    The attacks now increased in both frequency and ferocity, despite the intense investigations carried out by the police. Just six days after Austin was attacked, Jesse lured seven-year-old Joseph Kennedy to the marshes and beat him savagely. Once again he was attacked with a knife and this time Jesse forced his victim to kneel down and recite obscenities. When Kennedy protested, Jesse slashed his face with the knife and then dragged him to the waterfront to bathe his face in salt water.
    Six days later a five-year-old boy was discovered tied to the railway tracks in South Boston. His story was that he had been lured to a remote area by an older boy who had promised that he would show him some soldiers. Once again, when the pair were on their own, the boy was stripped, beaten and slashed about the head with a knife. As Jesse held the knife to the boy’s throat, he was disturbed by some railway workers, causing him to flee the scene. The boy, whose name was Robert Gould, gave the police their first positive clue in the case. He described his attacker as a large boy with an eye like a white marble. With this information to hand, the police were now convinced that it would only be a matter of time before the assailant would be apprehended.
     
    THE ARREST
     
    On September 21, 1872, the police arrived at Jesse Pomeroy’s school with one of his victims, Joe Kennedy, and started a room-to-room search. Kennedy, however, was unable to identify his attacker and Jesse narrowly avoided detection.
    But then there was a strange twist in the story. For some unknown reason, on his way home from school that same day, Jesse Pomeroy walked into the South Boston police station where detectives were once more questioning Joe Kennedy. Whether Jesse was just playing a game with the police, or whether in fact he wanted to be caught no one will ever really be sure. When Jesse saw Joe Kennedy he quickly turned around and ran out of the door, but this time it was too late. Kennedy had already seen Pomeroy from across the