Kelly Anne Bates' Abuse and Murder

Some say that the first love is the sweetest, but is this really true? Even Kelly Anne Bates agreed. They were so in love that she sacrificed her life for him.

Kelly Anne Bates entered this world on May 18, 1978, in Hatterslay, England. Kelly's family has always been close, and they say she is strong-willed, resourceful, and surprisingly mature for her years. It shouldn't have as as much of a shock to her parents when she came clean about dating a guy called Dave when she was just 14 years old. It was at that point that everything started to go wrong.

Kelly was a frequent babysitter for local families. She met James Patterson Smith at one of her babysitting jobs. James, at 45, had a major crush on Kelly, a teenager at the time. She thought her parents wouldn't approve of their relationship, therefore she hid numerous details from them. They took her story about "Dave" at its value, assuming he was a kid her age she knew from school.

James was Kelly's first boyfriend, and they hit it off immediately. She quickly started looking for excuses to spend more time with him. She began going out late at night and wouldn't come back till the morning. It's not uncommon for me to be gone from my house for two days at a time.

"Dave" pretended to be concerned about Kelly and started contacting her house, where he had a conversation with Kelly's mom. Her mother saw an instant ally in her daughter. Kelly introduced Dave to her parents about two weeks after they first met. Upon seeing him, her father expressed concern, saying, "He's a little older than you, Kelly. Are you sure that's what you want?"

'I would have been among older folks anyhow,' Kelly said. She was used to being among adults of all ages and even played collegiate hockey with female athletes. She has life experience beyond her years. She assured her parents that he was just 32 years old, which is not much older than their own.

Upon seeing Dave descend the stairs, her mother reacted differently than she had before. The hairs on the back of my neck sprang up when I laid eyes on Smith. As much as I could, I tried to separate Kelly Anne from him. She started asking around to see if anybody recognized Dave Smith, but nobody seemed to recognize the name or have any familiarity with the man who would soon be 32. Like he didn't even exist.

Her parents could have forbidden her to see Dave, but they are proud of her strong sense of self and decided to let the relationship continue (at least for the time being). Dave had already told them he was 48, making him one year older than Kelly's dad, but that didn't matter.

Kelly's intermittent visits with James continued throughout the following six months. Kelly appreciated the adoration he showed her and found his charm endearing. He took advantage of the fact that Kelly had lied to her parents not once but many times to put a giant chasm between her and her loved ones. Even though she had made every effort to ensure their satisfaction with her relationship, she felt unable to reach out to them and update them.

After dating for a year, she started spending the weekend with him instead of going home. Regular phone calls demonstrated his dominance over her. Kelly had the impression that he really did love her because of his keen interest in her. He was more concerned about her welfare than her own family was. She starts spending even more time at his house when she's 16 and never bothers to contact her own.

They hardly acknowledged her upon her return. She clearly wasn't neat and tidy. Her unwashed, uncared-for hair was a dead giveaway. She was wearing filthy clothing. Her slouching posture worsened, and she began to constantly hunch forward from the waist.

Her mother finally stood her ground, saying, "If you don't like the rules we're making, you've got to let us know where you are, let us know you're fine. When you do it again, you may come along. Kelly voluntarily left.

A few days later, she went back to get her belongings and go. When her mother entered the room, she saw that half of her face was completely dark. A good, deep cut.

Kelly said that a group of females attacked her.

As time passes, she becomes aware of other wounds. There are bruises from her fingertips around her neck. The signs of bites were visible on her arms. She often made excuses that she slipped or fell. Her mom called the police and asked what she could do to help. They told her to schedule an appointment at the doctor's office under Kelly's name and then to explain what was going on when she got there. In this way, if Kelly ever shows up at the clinic, the staff will be prepared.

Kelly's mom has been begging her to break up with Dave, but she won't budge. She breaks off contact with her mom and says she's too busy with work and the possibility of overtime. Kelly's mother believed her once she found out that Kelly adored working, and the two of them never saw one other again.

James has already gotten full control of her. Her relationship with her family has deteriorated to the point that she no longer communicates with them. She sometimes sends greeting cards, but she never signs them and never writes personal messages inside. Her brother goes to the house she and James share to visit her, but James says she's not there. He let a worried neighbor peek in on her momentarily from an upstairs window to check how she was doing. Her social life ended abruptly.

James goes to the police station on April 16, 1996, and says matter-of-factly, "Kelly has drowned in the bath."

When the police arrived at the residence, her mother said, "He's murdered her." Kelly, at the time, was just 17 years old.

The police let her parents see her corpse and demanded answers about what happened to her.

James kept Kelly captive for weeks, during which time he tortured her with a wide variety of commonplace objects. He used searing irons and water to severely burn her. He fastened a hair knot in her radiator hair. He would either put a ligature around her neck or tie her hair to a chair when it wasn't attached to the radiator. He crippled her and made her totally dependant on him by breaking her arm and crushing both of her kneecaps.

The pathologist who looked at her remains, William Lawler, remarked, "In my career, I have seen over 600 victims of murder but I have never come across injuries so severe."

Kelly's eyes were taken out "not less than five days and not more than three weeks before her death," he concluded. She had lost at least 44 pounds in weight due to starvation and had been dehydrated for days prior to her death.

Here are the injuries that have been officially recorded for her:

• Her posterior and left limb were burned.
• She got a burn on her thigh from a hot iron.
• An arm fracture
• Knife, fork, and scissors wounds, among others
• Wounds on the inside of her mouth from stabs
• both hands crushed
• Her external features were mutilated, including her ears, nose, eyebrows, lips, and genitalia.
• Damage from a spade and some shears
• Took out both of his eyes with a gouge
• Injuries to the vacant eye sockets from a later time.
• Scalping, Partially

James' prosecutor Peter Openshaw said, "It seemed as though he purposely deformed her, inflicting her the ultimate anguish, grief, and disgrace... The girl's wounds were too broad and severe to have resulted from a single violent outburst; rather, the defendant must have tortured her repeatedly and on purpose.

It's true that the cops discovered her corpse in the tub, but they knew immediately that it wasn't there by chance. Kelly had to be knocked out with the shower nozzle before James could put her head under the water.

James said he thought she was acting dead since she had done it before, but when police came they discovered Kelly's blood all over the home.

James said Kelly was killed by accident, and that her wounds were self-inflicted, despite the mountain of evidence pointing to his torture.

James maintained his position of innocence throughout the trial. Apparently, Kelly "would put me through hell twisting me up," as he described it. He also said that Kelly would intentionally harm herself while taunting him over his mother's death.

When questioned about why he had blinded, stabbed, and assaulted Kelly, he said that she had challenged him to do it. Gillian Metzey, a consultant psychiatrist, told the court that James had “a severe paranoid illness with pathological jealousy” and that he lived in a “distorted reality.”

In about one hour, the jury found James Patterson Smith guilty of murdering Kelly Anne Bates. He was given a mandatory minimum term of twenty years to life in jail. This has been a really horrific case, an exhaustive account of the depths to which one human being may go to debase another. In short, you pose a significant threat to society. You have abused women in the past, and I want to prevent it from happening again by any means necessary.