The Autobiography of Jesse H. Pomeroy, by Jesse Pomeroy (1859 – 1932)

Jesse Harding Pomeroy was only 12 years old when he was arrested for the assault of 7 boys near his home in the South Boston area of Massachusetts. He was sent to reform school for a year and released. Shortly after his release, the body of a young boy was found mutilated almost beyond recognition. Then the body of a young girl was discovered in the basement of the building which Jesse’s mother had rented to run her small dressmaking shop. Jesse would be tried and found guilty of the two murders when he was but 14 years of age, and thus has been referred to as “America’s youngest serial killer”. Jesse wrote this autobiography while incarcerated in 1875, and it should be remember that he was yet only 14 at the time he wrote it. Jesse Harding Pomeroy would eventually spend 58 years in prison in Massachusetts, 41 of which were in solitary confinement, the longest each in the history of that state. – Summary by Roger Melin