First love is always the sweetest, or is it? Kelly Anne Bates thought so. She gave everything to her first love – even her life.
Kelly Anne Bates was born on May 18, 1978 in Hatterslay, England, United Kingdom. Her family was always very close, and described Kelly as confident, independent, mature for her age. So it wasn’t a big surprise when, at age 14, she told her parents she had a boyfriend named, Dave. And that’s where the trouble began.
Kelly often babysat for families in her area. While on one particular babysitting job, she met James Patterson Smith. James was 45, and smitten with 14 year old Kelly. She decided to keep many aspects of their relationship a secret, thinking her parents wouldn’t understand. When she told them about “Dave,” they assumed he was a boy, probably from school, around the same age as her.
Kelly and James got along great, he was her first boyfriend, and it wasn’t long before she began to look for ways to spend more time with him. She started sneaking out at night, sometimes not returning home until the next morning. Sometimes not returning home for two days at a time.
Feigning concern, “Dave” began calling her home, speaking to her mother about Kelly’s activities. Instantly her mother felt she had an ally. A couple of weeks later, Kelly brought Dave home to meet her parents. When her father saw him, and saw that he was much older than he had expected, he asked his daughter, “He’s a bit older than you Kelly, are you sure that’s what you want?”
“I would’ve been with older people anyway…,” Kelly answered. She had grown up around older people, even played hockey with girls in college. She was too mature for kids her own age. She told her parents he was only 32, so not too much older.
As her mother caught site of Dave, coming down the stairs, she had a different reaction. “As soon as I saw Smith the hairs on the back of my neck went up. I tried everything I could to get Kelly Anne away from him.” She began asking around, trying to find out if anyone knew Dave Smith, 32 years old, but no one had ever heard of him. It was as if he didn’t exist.
Her parents could have forbade her from seeing Dave, however they took some pride in the independence and confidence she exuded and opted to allow the relationship, for now. Even after Dave admitted to them that he was actually 48, 1 year older than Kelly’s dad.
Over the next few months, Kelly continued to see James off and on. He was charming and Kelly felt good about the attention he gave her. Knowing Kelly had lied to her parents, not once, but multiple times, he used that to drive a deeper wedge between her and her family. She no longer felt like she could reach out to them, let them know what was happening with her relationship when she had done so much to make them happy with it.
After being with him a year, she began staying with him over weekends, Friday to Sunday. He would call and check on her constantly, exuding his control over her. This interest in her, made Kelly feel that he truly loved her. He really cared to check on her more than even her family. By age 16, she is spending even more time with him at his home, not even bothering to call her parents.
When she returned home, they almost didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t clean. Her hair was dirty, greasy and unkempt. Her clothes were dirty. Her posture eroded – her head was always down, chin to her chest.
Her mother put her foot down, and told her, “If you don’t like the rules we’re setting; you’ve got to let us know where you are, let us know you’re alright. The next time you do it, you can go.” Kelly chose to leave.
A few days later, she returned home to pack her things. When her mom walked in, she found that one side of her face was just black. One solid bruise.
Kelly claimed she had been jumped by some girls.
She begins to notice other injuries as time goes on. Fingertip bruising around her neck. Bite marks on her arms. She always claimed she fell or even tripped. Her mother contacted authorities and asked what she could do. They instructed her to make a doctor appointment in Kelly’s name, then go in and explain what was happening. Then if Kelly ever turns up at the doctor, they will know and be able to assess accordingly.
Her mother begs her to leave Dave, but Kelly refuses. She stops seeing her mother, telling her she got a job, and had opportunity for overtime. Knowing Kelly enjoyed working, her mother believed her, and they only spoke on the phone from that point.
By now, James has complete control over her. She no longer speaks to her family. She sends cards, but she doesn’t sign them, and they’re not addressed in her writing. Her brother tries to see her at her home she now shares with James, but James tells him she’s not home. When a concerned neighbor asked how she was, he allowed her to be briefly seen through an upstairs window. She no longer went out.
April 16, 1996, James makes his way to the police station where he calmly tells police, “Kelly has drowned in the bath.”
Police went to her parents house, and before they could say anything, her mother says, “He’s killed her.” Kelly was 17 years old.
Police allowed her parents to view her body and demand they tell them what happened.
Kelly was held prisoner for weeks where James took his time torturing her with various types of household items. He burned her all over her body using hot irons and scalding water. He tied her hair to the radiator. And when her hair wasn’t tied to the radiator, he tied it to a chair, or wrapped a ligature around her neck. He broke her arm, and then crushed both of her kneecaps, leaving her debilitated and fully reliant on him.
William Lawler, the pathologist who examined her body, said, “In my career, I have examined almost 600 victims of homicide but I have never come across injuries so extensive.”
He was also able to determine that Kelly’s eyes had been removed “not less than five days and not more than three weeks before her death.” She had been starved, losing at least 44 pounds, and had not been given any water for several days before her death.
Her documented injuries are as follows:
- Scalding to her buttocks and left leg
- Burns on her thigh caused by the application of a hot iron
- A fractured arm
- Multiple stab wounds caused by knives, forks and scissors
- Stab wounds inside her mouth
- Crush injuries to both hands
- Mutilation of her ears, nose, eyebrows, mouth, lips and genitalia
- Wounds caused by a spade and pruning shears
- Both eyes gouged out
- Later stab wounds to the empty eye sockets
- Partial scalping
Peter Openshaw, the prosecutor in James’ trial, said, “It was as if he deliberately disfigured her, causing her the utmost pain, distress and degradation … The injuries were not the result of one sudden eruption of violence, they must have been caused over a long period [and] were so extensive and so terrible that the defendant must have deliberately and systematically tortured the girl.”
While police did in fact find her body in a bathtub, they could see that how it got there was no accident. After knocking Kelly unconscious with the shower nozzle, James then had to have forced her head under the water.
James claimed that he initially assumed she was playing dead, as she had done so in the past, but when the authorities arrived, they found Kelly’s blood smeared on the floor and walls in every room in the house.
Despite the overwhelming evidence of his torture, James maintained Kelly’s death happened on accident, and that her injuries were self-inflicted.
At the trial, James continued to declare his innocence. He claimed Kelly “would put me through hell winding me up.” He also said that Kelly would taunt him about his dead mother and often hurt herself to make it look worse.
When he was asked to explain why he had blinded, stabbed and battered Kelly, he said that she had dared him to do it. Gillian Metzey, a consultant psychiatrist, told the court that James had “a severe paranoid disorder with morbid jealousy” and that he lived in a “distorted reality.”
The jury only took one hour to find James Patterson Smith guilty of Kelly Anne Bates’ murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, serving a minimum of 20 years. “This has been a terrible case; a catalogue of depravity by one human being upon another. You are a highly dangerous person. You are an abuser of women and I intend, so far as it is in my power, that you will abuse no more.”
If you, or someone you know is experiencing violence at home, please seek help. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline or go to their site where you can find information, resources, and even chat with an advocate.
Perhaps the worst case of human torture ever known is the case of Junko Furuta, who suffered for 44 days.
View Comments (10)
The degree to which he tortured and eventually would kill her ABSOLUTELY constitutes a life sentence. The reasoning of “they’ve only killed one person” for a murderer to get a lesser sentence is absurd. He KILLED someone.
Despite the intense suffering that Kelly Anne must have experienced in the weeks leading up to her death, it appears to me that because her murder was the only one Smith had been convicted of, giving him a whole life sentence was not something the judge had the power to do.
hahahahahaha WILD
I'd happily execute this pos.
The judge could have given it a whole life sentence.
It should never be allowed to walk among us ever again
Just 20 years for this?? I've always said that sentences were too lenient in Europe. By the same token Europe doesn't have as many serial murderers per capita as the States does. This story is just horrific, and as one poster wrote earlier, it IS about time that capitol punishment is reinstated in many places. There should be no way that this "thing" should die of natural causes in prison...no way!
There are POW'S who treated better and war crimes not nearly as shocking. This? Is a great reason for the monarchy to reinstate beheading. Or hot iron torture.
Her parents are at fault too. So dumb that they even allowed this relationship in the first place.
I seem to recall reading elsewhere that it was a long time before Kelly's parents realized her partner was a lot older than her because she'd put off introducing him to them until she was 16, and that she'd done that for fear that they'd have him arrested if they found out about the relationship prior to her reaching that age. In any event, by the time she was 16, she was not only well and truly in James Patterson Smith's clutches, but too old for the authorities to do much to help her parents get her away from him on top of that. How bitterly Tommy and Margaret must now regret not doing things differently even if it would have meant taking the law into their own hands.
Is the house in which she was tortured and murdered still standing, I wonder? Can't think why anybody in their right mind would be happy to live there if they knew about that aspect of its history.
You know they could have done so much more to save their daughter. I feel like they were more afraid of her being upset with them, than they were of the ultimate outcome.
I think it’s really really easy to sit where we sit, WHEN we sit here knowing what we know and objectively view this situation from this lens. This was the mid-nineties at the least. The lack of knowledge of domestic abuse situations alone... it’s unfair to hold them accountable. And if you think you could be harder on them than they are on themselves you’re delusional.