15 Disturbing Cases Of Child Criminals Who Horrified The World And Are Now Free

Morgan Geyser and her friend, Anissa Weier, were 12 years old when they stabbed their classmate, Payton Leutner, to appease the fictional supernatural character Slender Man.

The friends lured the victim into a suburban Milwaukee park after a sleepover at Morgan’s home in 2014.

Payton survived the attack after being assisted by a passing cyclist.

The girls were charged with attempted intentional homicide and were tried as adults. They were later found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and were committed to psychiatric facilities.

Weier received a sentence of 25 years to life, and Geyser was sentenced to 40 years to life. Weier was released in 2021, while Geyser was released this year to live in a group home under supervision.

More than a decade later, Geyser, now 22 years old, cut off her court-ordered monitoring bracelet and escaped the group home in Madison, Wisconsin.

She and another adult reportedly took a bus to Posen, Illinois. On Sunday night (November 23), Morgan was located at a truck stop with the other adult, and they were both taken into custody.

Curtis Fairchild Jones was sentenced to prison when he was 12 years old. In July 2015, he was released at the age of 21.

Curtis and his sister, who is one year older, fatally sh*t their father’s girlfriend, Sonya Nicole Speights, in 1999. They had also planned to shoot their father and a male relative who they said was s*xually ass*ulting them.

After committing the crime, the siblings hid during the night in a wooded area until Brevard County Sheriff's investigators found them.

They were charged as adults, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and accepted the sentence of 18 years and probation for life.

No one believed the teens were being ab*sed, despite the evidence found by investigators from what is now the Department of Children and Families.

Curtis’ sister, Catherine Jones, was released the same month at the age of 30.

In 1991, when he was 12 years old, Edwin Debrow Jr. was arrested for the slaying of San Antonio taxi driver Curtis Edwards.

Debrow grew up on the streets. The adults in his life struggled with illegal substances, and he surrounded himself with older people involved in crime.

Bexar County sentenced him to 27 years behind bars. As a juvenile, he was eligible for release at the age of 18. 

“I wasn’t ready to get out at 18 years old. At 18, I wouldn’t have been a changed person,” he admitted.

While serving his sentence, Debrow obtained his GED, took college classes, and learned computer skills.

“This stuff works, if you want it to work. There are some people who want to change, and some who don’t,” he said.

Debrow was released in 2019 at the age of 40. Once he completes his parole, he reportedly plans to visit the grave of Curtis Edwards.

In 2001, Bailey Junior Kurariki was involved in the robbery and homicide of pizza deliveryman Michael Richard Choy in Auckland, New Zealand.

The then–12-year-old was convicted of manslaughter, making him the youngest person in New Zealand history to receive that conviction.

On September 12, 2001, Kurariki and a group of teenagers attacked Michael Choy with a baseball bat and robbed him of money and the pizzas he was delivering.

Two of the teenagers, Whatarangi Rawiri and Alexander Tokorua Peihopa, were convicted of murder and received life sentences for planning the attack and leading the group.

Kurariki was released on parole in 2008. At the time, the victim’s mother, Rita Croskery, expressed doubt that he no longer posed a threat to society.

"They say in the last month, he has made amazing progress. I just sincerely hope that they are right, but it seems pretty amazing all right that he can change so suddenly,” she said.

In 2011, Kurariki was convicted on domestic violence charges and sentenced to 14 months in prison. He had previously been sent back to prison in 2009 for breaching his parole conditions.

In 1998, students Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden opened fire at Westside Middle School, taking the lives of five people and wounding ten others.

Johnson and Golden, then 13 and 11 years old, respectively, were arrested as they attempted to flee the scene. They were convicted of five counts of murder.

The Jonesboro prosecutor later stated that, were it not for their young ages, he would have sought capital punishment for both perpetrators.

Arkansas state law mandated that both youths be released on their 21st birthdays. Johnson was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis in 2005, having spent seven years in prison. Golden was released in 2007 after serving nine years.

After his release, Johnson repeatedly ran into legal trouble as an adult. He was sentenced to prison on weapon and illegal substance-related charges, as well as theft and financial identity fraud. He was released from federal custody in 2015.

As for Golden, he applied for a concealed-carry permit in Arkansas in 2008, but State Police denied the application, determining that he had lied about his past addresses and was legally banned from possessing firearms. 

In 2019, at age 33, Golden lost his life in a car crash near Cave City, Arkansas, when another vehicle veered into his lane.

Amarjeet Sada has been linked to the homicides of three babies, including two family members, according to a 2008 report by The Guardian.

The 8-year-old boy from Bihar, one of India's poorest states, reportedly admitted to strangling a six-month-old baby in Musahari and led villagers to the spot where he had buried the body.

He is also believed to have taken the lives of his eight-month-old sister and nine-month-old cousin. Villagers suspect the boy’s family covered up the earlier crimes before he carried out the third attack.

Sada was reportedly placed in a juvenile home in Munger and was released in 2016 after turning 18.

Police stated that Sada suffers from psychiatric disorders. A psychologist described him as a “sadist who derived pleasure from inflicting injuries,” as per NDTV.

In 2022, Eric M. Smith was released from a correctional facility after serving 28 years for a crime against Derrick Robie.

When he was 13, Smith fatally struck 4-year-old Derrick Robie with a rock after luring the boy into a wooded area near the victim's home in Savona, western New York, in 1993.

Smith was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to nine years to life in prison.

During his parole hearing, Smith blamed the attack on the anger he felt from being bullied as a child.

"After years of reflection, looking at who I was then and what was going on, I essentially became the bully that I disliked in everything else in my life," he said, as per the Associated Press.

Jake Eakin was 12 when investigators said he beat and fatally stabbed Craig Sorger, a 13-year-old developmentally disabled boy, after spending time with him in a park.

Sorger’s body was discovered in a park in the small community of Ephrata, Washington, on February 15, 2003.

Police noted that the accounts given by Eakin and his 12-year-old accomplice, Evan Savoie, were inconsistent and that the victim's blood was found on both boys’ clothing.

Savoie and Eakin were charged with first and second-degree murder, respectively, despite maintaining their innocence. Savoie's mother criticized the verdict, calling the judge "biased.”

Eakin eventually confessed as part of a plea deal and agreed to testify against Savoie.

Eakin was sentenced to 14 years in prison, while Savoie initially received a 26-year sentence, later reduced to 20 years on appeal.

Eakin was released in 2017 and has since become an anti-abortion activist. He has been arrested twice since his release: once in 2018 for trespassing and again in 2022 for larceny. Savoie, who confessed to the crime after ten years, was released in 2023.

Robert Thompson and friend Jon Venables took the life of toddler James Bulger in Merseyside, England, in 1993.

The perpetrators were 10 years old, while the victim was 2.

Thompson and Venables led the boy away from the New Strand Shopping Centre, where he was visiting shops with his mother, before inflicting pain on him and brutally taking his life.

The toddler’s body was found on a railway line in Liverpool two days after the crime. The perpetrators had intended for a passing train to strike the victim, making his fatality appear accidental.

The minors were found guilty of abduction and murder, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern British history.

In June 2001, a Parole Board decision recommended their release on a life license at the age of 18.

In 2017, Venables was again sent to prison for possessing child p***ography images on his computer.