Jo Frost Looks at the Murder of 11-Year-Old Joe Geeling | What Possesses a Child to Kill?

at 700 p.m. on March the 1st 2006 police and Volunteers in Berry greater Manchester began searching for a missing 11-year-old named Joe giling the popular boy who had cystic fibrosis had not returned home after school at 10:30 the following morning Joe's body was found in Whitehead Park he had been bludgeoned and stabbed to death the killer was 14-year-old Michael hmer a pupil at the same [Music] school I've been working with children for over 25 years and in that time I've been invited into hundreds of family homes around the world I understand the complex human nature of children the behavior and healthy functional family life and for me the words evil and children just don't sit well together how can someone so so young commit follow through and execute such a monstrous act and in this case what possesses a child to kill another [Music] child they have a horrible sinking feeling when you hear about a body of a child found in a park and uh you start to wonder how why how it came about you're trying to piece together how something quite as appalling of this could have happened the more you look at it the more you read about it the more difficult it becomes to understand about how a a young child which Michael hmer clearly was could set about targeting a very vulnerable young child which Joe giling clearly was and kill him in such a brutal way on the 16th of October 2006 Michael hmer was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years for the murder of Joe giling it was a killing that stunned the community and left the family completely heartbroken trust me when I tell you that I do understand how frustrating adolescence can be but in all my years of working with children I've never knowingly met one capable of murdering another was Michael hmer born with a lethal trigger inside him or did Society turn this 14-year-old into a child killer Kim Corbett went to school with both the victim and the killer what can you tell me about Michael hmer he was very quiet um very withdrawn I'd say he was bullied quite a lot in school his personality was quite strange he would stand by himself quite a lot in school and watch people as they'd walk by very strange character he didn't have much emotion on his face when he'd stand in the corridors like if I'd walked by he'd just stand and just stare at you with not much emotion it was quite uncomfortable to walk past him I'd say right in school right Michael hmer was born on May the 9th 1991 in Berry greater Manchester I think Michael hmer was a loner from the start the dad left the family before he was even born and so I think that set things in motion for a quite a lonely existence he didn't always get on with his mother he struggled at school you know for a child who's been rejected by either parent or indeed both it could be quite devastating um you know you don't feel you're worthwhile it can really produce antisocial Behavior it can isolate people it can lower their self-esteem so that happening to a child at a young age particularly at a fairly young age uh can have kind of devastating consequences later down in life his dad's abandoned him so we've got essentially an attachment issue here haven't we he's not forming those attachments with his caregiver so the relationships that we have with our our moms and dads are really important for for shaping our relationships that we go on to have with other people and where we've got a problem with that that can lead to trouble down the line at Secondary School Michael was often the target of bully a lot of his peers would tend to pick on him he got 50 peer a day for lunches and they would bully him for that money uh they would call him names what would they say nasty names like for the way he looks his looks right nasty names yeah it wasn't nice to see right um but he used to call people back he didn't do himself much favors cuz he'd instigate a lot of the arguments school um right he'd bring a lot of attention to himself by arguing with with uh people in his class and things if you're bullied at school and over a period of years it can have a really devastating effect on you later in life it could turn in that you become a bully later in life cuz you're trying to reverse the roles and gain the control the bully had over you what effect does it have on a young boy who's been bullied at school well I think in this case what we've got at the core of of Michael Hyer is a real sense of of Shame we've seen the seed sewn for that in in the family with his dad kind of rejecting him um then we've seen that reinforced in the the school environment where the other kids are picking on him they've kind of picked up on the fact that there's there's something a bit different about him and and they've started targeting him everywhere he turns he seems to be rejected in the family um in the school environment amongst his peers he never really seems to find the place where he belongs where he fits in well we know that bullying has really very very longlasting effects on individuals so in uh some of the work by some of my colleagues where they followed people from birth into their 50s they find that those who were bullied as children have worse mental and physical health than those who weren't bullied and being a bully victim where you're both bullied and you victimize is not at all uncommon and again has a bad outcome 3 years below Michael in year seven was Joe giling an 11-year-old with an infectious character I think Joe was everything that um hmer wasn't although he had cystic fibrosis that was diagnosed when he was 6 weeks old old he never let that get in the way of his life he was a bright fun lad teachers loved him his family adored him he had a younger brother who doed on him Kim Corbett was in year 11 and would often walk home from school with Joe what was it about Joe that you remember out of school I know he was interested in uh riding motorbikes and all that what you mean like dirt biking dirt bikes yeah he had a big interest in that I think he used to do a lot of competitions out of school riding dirt bikes so yeah I know he was interested in in that especially he was one of them people that you meet that were just so genuine you know when you meet someone you think they are so lovely you know he was so funny he was he was such a character and he always made people laugh he was really popular at school as well he had a lot of friends did make you laugh oh God yeah he was hilarious he was really nice always wanted to make everyone giggle just he was just a 11y old kid you know just silly yeah just daed Joe giling appeared to be the complete opposite of Michael Hyer one and out going happy child with a zest for Life the other a quiet lonely often bullied [Music] boy I think there was a draw to Joe because Joe was everything that Michael wasn't he was popular um he was interested in in football all the things that that young Lads get into doing so did he admire him I think I think there was a sense in which he did admire him and he wanted to be like him um but also he felt that kind of Amplified own sense of of Shame as well so so it's this real kind of back and forth the I'm drawn to people um who I want to be like but but also they make me feel worse about myself at the same time on Wednesday March the 1st 2006 both 14-year-old Michael hmer and 11-year-old Joe giling were present at school Michael had developed somewhat of an obsession with Joe and had hatched a plan to get closer to him he did used to hang around with a lot of younger kids like a lot of the Year sevens right he used he didn't have any friends that was his age they was all a lot younger than him Joe was in year seven did you ever see him with Joe yeah right yeah a lot of the time was Joe friends with Michael I think he was right yeah which I found was a bit strange for an older lad to be hanging around with a year seven or a bunch of year SS in school Michael was said to be socially inept and he formed a lot of friendships with children a lot younger than him why would he have done that he had maybe low IQ so he may have had a developmental delay himself and so he was actually seeking out children who work the same developmental level as him who could play at the level that he was understanding yes it could be that there's also the possibly confusing sexual element and it's not clear whether he had a sort of fixation on these [Music] children he essentially lacks the social skills to be able to to get on a level with his peers to be able to to command their their respect and and feel part of those groups of people his own age you do see this sometimes with children don't you when they have that kind of miss fit with their peers they'll go and talk to younger children because they know that younger children are going to look up to them simply because they're older than they are it was clear that Michael HR had targeted Joe giling Michael had to find a way of getting him away from school and away from his parents so that he could carry out whatever he had planned for him that day at school all revolves around a note that hmer gave to him at l lunchtime it was a note that was a complete fabrication it purported to come from the deputy head it was telling Joe that he had to go home with his mentor who was uh in the letter it said it was Michael and that uh his mother would meet him there at 4:30 she was going to be given the address and so she would meet him there that's the very clever part of the letter because it reassured Joe that his mom was coming for him this seems to have had quite a lot of planning and quite a lot of thought going to it doesn't it and and it doesn't surprise me all that much because Michael Homer spent a lot of time on his own up in his room you know with his thoughts ruminating planning and he didn't have those breaks on his behavior that kind of filter because he wasn't discussing his feelings with anybody it was It was kind of all in his head a teacher overheard Joe discussing the note with friends and asked to have a look at it she immediately recognized it for what it was a complete fraud and spoke to Joe told him that he should go to the deputy head go to her office and wait there tell her about the letter and she also made it very clear to him that he should go straight home he should not go to heer's house as he was being instructed in the letter so later that afternoon um Joe is seen by other people pupils outside the deputy head's office but it appears that he's not gone in hmer has managed to coax him away from there and then a little later on still the teacher sees the two of them together in a corridor and approaches them feels that hmer is being Shifty and starts to interrogate him but then the fire alarm goes and all the children all the staff have to evacuate very very quickly it was a false alarm but had it not gone off and had the teacher not been interrupted would Joe giling still be alive today so school will have ended that day at 10: to 4: hmer sets off for his home in Dalton Street and Joe is seen a couple of times by other pupils shuffling along a few Paces behind well I'd seen Joe outside school I'd seen him walking away from school yeah um which I thought was strange cuz obviously he lived near me so I'd see him usually walking towards where I walked home yeah um so anyway I I just thought where's he going thought nothing of it why didn't I just go and speak to him and ask him what he were doing cuz if if I did did then I would have you know piec I could have pieced it all together and has that thought haunted you yeah but there was nothing that Kim or anyone could have done to prevent what happened next Joe giling had ignored the the advice of his teacher and began to follow Michael back to his house I think if a kid's been bullied at school a lot has a difficult Family Life confused about who he or she is I think it's understandable if in that scenario where other people are controlling you and you have no control over that circumstance that you might want to control a younger person to do the same thing to them that everybody's doing to you we'll never know why Joe went back to Michael's house but it would become the sight of the 11-year-old boy's murder they get to the house at 4:15 and bear in mind that his mom is supposed to be coming for him at 4:30 um by 4:30 he's actually dead it would appear that hmer has made a the sexual pass at Joe Joe has resisted he's said you're gay and he's apparently said that um he will tell other children in school the next day angered and embarrassed by rejection and worried that he would be outed Michael cracked and reached for a frying pan he hits him so violently that the frying pan breaks in two he then runs downstairs grabs two kitchen knives and goes back up and stabs and stabs and stabs Joe repeatedly 16 times it was a a murder where there was an opportunity to to stop that that trip downstairs was the chance to go okay you know I'm not going to go through with this but he made that decision he was going to go upstairs and he was going to finish this most people when they commit murder are so horrified at what they've done they're they're so overwhelmed with the the impact of that act and the realization they've taken someone else's life that they they can't think straight they some of them go into a kind of trauma and start freaking out but Michael he he acts in a very cool a very calm and detached way and that's because he doesn't see that oh my goodness I've just taken someone's life what he sees is a problem he has to solve he has the body of a young boy in his house he wants it out of his house so it's problem solution I'm going to take him in the wheelie bin and he'll be out of the house he drags him down the stairs and then puts him into a wheelie bin which he then is dragging out of the house um and on towards the park through the little streets and Alleyways and by the time that Joe's mother is meant to be picking him up at 4:30 he's already at the park and he is being dumped in a wooded Gully [Music] Michael had brutally murdered Joe and hidden his body nearby in Whitehead Park but was this killing premeditated or was it a fit of rage I think that there is a premeditation in wanting to get him to the house because here we're dealing with somebody who just doesn't have those normal social skills who wants this other lad to come to his home because he wants to make a sexual advance but he doesn't know how to kind of go about doing that in a normal socially acceptable way so he comes up with this kind of elaborate plan to do it but when he rejects him the reaction is is wholly disproportionate one theory of what's going on in adolescence is that the limic the emotional brain has matured and is really active really full of desires and your frontal lobe hasn't developed f yet so it's not able to rain in pull the brakes exactly it's not able to reain in that emotional brain and so you get risk-taking impetuous Behavior I think in terms of premeditation it can be seconds in in the making that intention to to want to do somebody harm doesn't have to be you know days and weeks it can be something that happens in the moment when Joe hadn't returned home by 5:30 p.m. his parents called the police a huge search began across Berry for the young [Music] boy there were four police dogs with you know dog handling teams from the police and we had two types of Mountain Rescue search dog and also there were family members neighbors and people you know from the area who didn't necessarily know the family but had heard that there there was a lad missing and so joined in but it's very unusual for us to be called to search for a school boy of just 11 years old as a father myself you know I could empathize with what it must be like and I think everybody felt the same we we wanted to find Joe and we wanted to find him alive after killing Joe giling Michael returned home to the scene of the crime the little boy's blood is in the bedroom on the stairs Etc on carpets and he has to clean it up he knows he has 90 minutes in which to clean up before his mother gets back and so he sets about that task when his mom comes back she notices redness in the carpet and questions her son about it he says he had a leaking red pen and explains it away that way as the search continued night fell and the temperature dropped dramatically it was one of those harrowing cases there's always in the back of your mind you know that this is a young lad and everybody's Keen to to find him it's frustrating that you you search for hours and hours you don't find anything it's a very um troubling case isn't it even if it wasn't premeditated he managed to keep a pretty calm uh manner afterwards lying to his his mom and to others so very puzzling and troubling it's hard to know whether he would qualify as having Psychopathic traits you know more generally um but suddenly a lot of lack of remorse there later on he has a bath presumably as a means of washing away the last of the res res a du of of Joe's blood and then finishes off his homework which with huge irony is about the 10 commandments the six being they sh not kill as night fell over Berry in Greater Manchester on March the 1st 2006 hundreds of people were out searching for 11-year-old Joe giling he had not returned home from school that afternoon one of the things that made this search unusual was the involvement of the U Manchester fire and rescue service in in particular firefighters from Berry it was exceptional in fact I would say unprecedented and the reason was that there was a family connection between members of the berry firefighting crew and the young lad Joe giling who'd Gone Missing [Music] I think from the very start there was a feeling of desperation both among the family and and the local community they all knew that they needed to find Joe as soon as possible it was a cold night and whether he'd been taken kidnapped or whatever um if he just collapsed it was important that they find him sooner rather than later he was a frail young lad and it was Winter while the search continued continued 14-year-old fellow school boy Michael hmer was in his bedroom doing his homework before going to sleep in the very same room where he had killed Joe giling just hours earlier he's literally just on autop pilot going through his his day-to-day routine and I think that is because that there is no emotional reaction to what he's done he had a problem he had a dead body in his house and he disposed of it so he solved the problem and and it's back to normal we finished our search about 3:00 and we were told that we could stand down temporarily and go home get asleep if you think about it you know a lot of our members would have been at work like myself would have been at work all day and then they've been searching all night the thing that I remember overwhelmingly is a desire to find this lb but they were never going to find Joe giling he had been murdered by Michael hmer who' hidden Joe's body under some twigs and a few discarded sofa cushions in Whitehead [Music] Park the following day Thursday March the 2nd Michael went back to school as if nothing had happened he was on time for the first Bell the day after there was a picture of Joe going around school saying something like um have you seen this boy Joe gilin and I thought I I know him I'd seen him so I'd put my hand up and said I know him I walk home from school with him so my teacher said you need to go to the Headmaster and speak to him so I'd gone to the Headmaster and sat down in the um the fire and waited to speak to the Headmaster now Michael hon was sat next to me with waiting to speak to the Headmaster as well what did you think then well I thought nothing of it at the time but then Michael spoke to me and said did you see Joe last night and this gives me the creeps even now and I said yeah did you and he said yeah and to think that I I spoke to him and the thought of speaking to him now and him having no emotion at all on his face after everything he did the night before it gives me the creeps it's still stuck in my mind now I still not really got over that I don't think so does he think I've got everyone fooled I don't know whether he's that sophisticated he's just kind of kind of living in the moment he's like well everything's okay and and he doesn't think through the consequences of his actions and and how are the people might feel about them he's done it it's over move on the search for Joe giling had resumed that same morning just as we were arriving we got some urgent messages came through on the pager um and the first thing I remember one of the messages was to be careful what we said on the radio because the family were able to hear at the radio communications because they were around our control so there was a kind of radio silence and we were all ordered to cease our searches and we all sensed really that something had happened that the lad must have been found and that it wasn't good news and a kind of an atmosphere dis ended upon everybody present the mountain Rescuers firefighters the family especially the family at 10:30 a.m. a police dog searching Whitehead Park found Joe ging's body just over an hour later 14-year-old Michael was taken out of his school and straight to the nearest police station to be questioned on suspicion of Joe's murder even though hmer was their number one suspect he seems to have been very calm and um was calm in the questioning calm as he was taken out of school um he denied everything until at 10:30 p.m. his solicitor called the police back in and said he wanted to speak and that's when he [Music] confessed after he was arrested by the police he didn't last very long before before he confessed The Killing I mean that the evidence they' gather was pretty formidable in any event but one thing that he didn't admit and therefore was less than Frank about was the sexual element um which was discovered when they saw the letter that he drafted it later on scribbled over or tore up which was found at his home during a search of Michael's bedroom police had found the note on top of a wardrobe which outlined his desire to have sexual relations with Joe the entire Community was stunned by the murder of Joe giling the Charming young boy with his whole life ahead of him had been killed at the hands of another child the Press descended on Berry there's a lot of interest in it but again a feeling of almost helplessness how can these things happen uh as far as anger is concerned I suppose you naturally there's going to be some some anger locally the guiling family how do you explain how do you understand what's happened to your child in these circumstances it's just beyond imagination this was a close-nit family they adored him he had a younger brother who doted on his his older brother and they will forever miss that bright spark of a a lad who I think his dad said that he lived life at 100 milph it's utterly tragic I remember in particular the coldness of those nights and the great sadness that because of the forensic work that had to be done Joe's body was kept where it was for another two nights which is an awful thing for the parents to have to deal with even spent 5 minutes talking to him you'd leave an impression on you that you'd remember and usually we fond us we were spoiled we had him every day when did you hear the tragic news of Joe's death um I think it was on the Friday I think it was 2 days after he'd gone missing I was at home I was watching on the news right when we found out that he he was confirmed dead right it was horrible on Saturday March the 4th 2006 Michael hmer was charged with the murder of Joe giling the hearing was set for October in preparation for the hearing psychologist interviewed Michael to try and find out what was going on inside the head of this 14-year-old boy uh he wasn't particularly intelligent as I recall and he had a number of social issues such as isolation and being bullied difficulty relating to other people uh which was eventually diagnosed as an adjustment disorder if they're labeling something as a disorder that implies that it's outside the ordinary range or that it's severe enough that it causes impairment but I have to say that adjustment disorder does sound a little bit more vague than a lot of clinical disorders that or diagnoses that you might be given like psychosis or Autism or Psychopathic personality on Friday March the 31st 2006 the funeral of Joe giling took place the whole of berry was United in grief the coffin was brought down to the school just before the funeral um so all of the pupils lined up outside the sko and the cofin the coffin was brought down the coffin was so small and it was brought down and we all let balloons off as the coffin was brought down and turned around in front of us and drove back up towards the church it was so sad that coffing was so small that sticks in my mind that was [Music] awful it was hard to deal with didn't get I couldn't get over it for a few months um I don't think anybody could really what was the general feeling in the school I it was e it was horrible but I need to say St Gabriel's as a school they they did us proud yeah they pulled together and they were brilliant yeah yeah the hearing was set for October the 16th 2006 it's probably the youngest person I've prosecuted for murder from recollection set against that background it nevertheless remains one of the more memorable and certainly one of the more upsetting cases that I've dealt with I mean most of all because of Joe and his vulnerability a really nice little lad with cystic fibrosis who struggled against it all and as a human being mind the professional bit was a human being it really hits you in the guts in October 2006 14-year-old Michael HR was in court charged with the murder of fellow school boy Joe giling alist Webster was Prosecuting and there's a real feeling of anticipation when you go into court in cases like that there sort of lots of nervous tension around the court because it's such a significant occasion for all sorts of people we ask a lot for example of victims families to actually allow the court process to to deal with things where their natural feelings will be anger and a desire for Revenge but the guing family are absolutely immaculately behaved and uh were very good to deal with I attended the court case and I think my abiding memory is is really how dignified the family were they were stupendous given what they'd been through they were remarkably calm and dignified and all credit to them on the first day of proceedings Monday October the 16th Michael hmer pleaded guilty to 11-year-old Joe's murder in our law we don't look at just the act of the killing but we look at the mental responsibility of the individual and there's a natural feeling when there's such a a bizarre murder as this where it's a youngster and where the victim is particularly vulnerable you wonder how it could have happened and it's inevitable that the defends are going to want to explore the mental capacity and state of the defendant in this case Michael hyr on any view was a lonely isolated young boy he was socially inadequate he was a victim of bullying and so there are a number of aspects which had to be examined but eventually the result came from the the psychiatric report that he was not insane and he wasn't a diminished responsibility although clearly had some personality issues which were relevant to sentencing Michael hmer was sentenced to a minimum of 12 Years imprisonment but Joe's parents were angry at the relatively short length of the sentence immediately after the the hearing I advised Mr Mrs guiling and the crown prosecution service that in my view the sentence was probably too light that we need to look at it again and probably refer it up to the court of appeal appe by way of an attorney general's reference and eventually that's what I advised and that's what happened the court of appeal agreed with the gings and extended Michael's minimum term from 12 to 15 years Malcolm Michael HR was an isolated character could this have been avoided I'm going to put uh my cards on the table and say yes it can it could have been prevented uh those these sorts of cases are not unprecedented and uh there are youngsters who who uh have behaved like that in the past and and children have died the serious case review should ask those questions of all the agencies involved with Michael and from from the word go and they should answer those those questions about what did you know about him at the time they didn't pay enough attention to him and his needs and the consequence is that a child has lost his life in most horrendous circumstances he's set to be released in 2021 yeah so can someone like him be rehabilitated yes they can be rehabilitated but it's subject to giving it your best J are these difficult cases to rehabilitate oh yes absolutely and that's why as a society we need to give it our best shot these are children who have committed the most serious offenses in our in the book and uh and we need to be alert to the fact fact that as you say they're going to come out at some stage or other I want to come out less dangerous than when they went in not more dangerous I want to be assured that if they come and move next to me or you that uh that they uh they're going to be okay it's going to be safe and that they're going to not repeat the cycle it's been over 10 years since the murder of Joe giling and one question remains why sadly many children are bullied but they don't resort to that kind of behavior so does seem to be around that that sexual experimentation and then rejection and maybe fear of being found out but the very calm way that he then dealt with disposing of the body and so on is pretty chilling isn't it [Music] very I think what I'll Come Away with and what um most of the people who covered it either in the police or or as journalists covered it um is the complete Injustice of it all that this bef fellow lad who just didn't deserve to die had so much to live [Music] for what's the sweet memory that will always stay with you walking home from school with him yeah having a laugh with him yeah that'll always stay with me yeah yeah what would you give to walk home with him one more time anything yeah thinking about the the mindset of of Mr and Mrs giling they've done the thing very positively in the sense of they set up a a charity and raise money in Joe's name but it's bound to be for them a very very difficult moment when they're told that he's going to become out of prison it if if that's what happens of course and um it will be with them for the rest of their [Music] lives to be considered for parole you need to have expressed remorse and to be remorseful you need to have an emotional reaction and if that's not there it it becomes incredibly difficult so it is a problem because if you don't feel that in the first place then then you you can't be released there's no doubt that Michael had a problematic childhood being rejected by his father and not accepted by his peers clearly affected him as he grew up he was bullied and he bullied isolated with his teenage emotions and sexual desires this one last rejection had broken him and determined his fate no one will ever know if Michael HR killed Joe giling because he wanted to be him or because he wanted to be with him maybe it was a combination of the two but either way Michael's obsession with 11-year-old Joe led to the most brutal murder and ultimately a complete waste of young life [Music] [Music]

Channel: True Crime Central

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Keywords: Australian Crime, Crime Stories, Jeffrey Dahmer, Serial Killers, Ted Bundy, True Crime, True Crime Central, asmr, cases, cold cases, community, crim, crime, crime recaps, doco, documentary, full episodes, gangsters, murder, murder mystery, podcast, podcasts, recap, treu crime, true crime, true crime addict, true crime asmr, true crime podcast, true crime recaps

Id: M0dddTD9Jdo

Length: 42min 42sec (2562 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 13 2024