On 16 April, 1996, 17-year-old Kelly Anne Bates was drowned in a bathtub after suffering weeks of to
On 16 April, 1996, 17-year-old Kelly Anne Bates was drowned in a bathtub after suffering weeks of torture at the hands of her 48-year-old “partner”, James Patterson Smith, who had began grooming her when she was just 14-years-old.After realizing that Bates was dead, Smith went to the police station and said he had accidentally killed her after an argument. An investigation showed that Bates’ blood was in every room of the house and her autopsy showed that there was over 150 separate injuries on her body.She had been kept locked in the house and brutally tortured for up to a month prior to her death. She had been burnt with cigarettes and a hot iron. She had multiple stab wounds caused by a knife and scissors. Her hands and kneecaps had been crushed, rendering her unable to walk. She had been partially scalped. She had been stabbed inside her mouth. Her ears, nose, mouth, lips, and genitalia had been mutilated. Both of her eyes had been gauged out and her empty eye sockets had been stabbed. She had also been starved and hadn’t been given water for several days before she died. Before she drowned, she had been beaten over the head with the shower head. When asked why he had tortured her so much, he claimed she had dared him to. Smith had a history of violence towards women he dated. He was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. -- source link
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