The gruesome murder of James Bulger in 1993 by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson was a crime that horrified the nation and left the two-year-old's family heartbroken.
In February 1993, the toddler was snatched from his mother at the New Strand shopping center in Bootle, Merseyside, after she let him out of her sight for a few seconds.
Thompson and Venables, then just ten years old, subjected James to a series of horrific attacks before dropping a 22-pound railway strap on his head.
They then threw his body onto a railway line, where it was found two days later.
This week, Venables, now 41, had his request to be released from prison rejected by the parole board. He was initially released in 2001 but has since been put behind bars twice for possessing indecent images of children.
Thompson, who was also released in 2001 and was considered the ringleader of James' murder at the time, was said to have been living in a stable homosexual relationship in Canada in 2006 with a man who was aware of his true identity.
In November 1993, the Chron revealed the young killers' full backgrounds, highlighting a home video showing them happily playing at their school, which was filmed less than a year before their crimes.
The scenes revealed nothing that would identify them as future murderers.
The gruesome murder of James Bulger in 1993 by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson was a crime that horrified the nation and left the two-year-old's family heartbroken
In February 1993, the toddler was snatched from his mother at the New Strand shopping center in Bootle, Merseyside, after she let him out of her sight for a few seconds
In November 1993, the Chron revealed the full backgrounds of the young murderers
Destroyed houses, destroyed lives
The Evil and the Innocent: Alone they might have survived, but together they became savages – Chron, November 25, 1993
The home video was made to mark the 97th anniversary of St Mary's School in Walton and showed the students laughing happily at their party.
Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, in collars and ties and short, neat haircuts, played casually with their classmates. Certainly there was nothing that could have identified them as future murderers.
But just a year after this video was made, they were awaiting trial for an unimaginably brutal crime.
Every parent will wonder how one child can commit such merciless violence against another child.
There may be no conclusive answer, but with children so young, their upbringing must be crucial.
Robert Thompson and Jon Venables' lives were in disarray long before the murder.
After his father ran away, Robert developed a streak of cruelty
Investigators believe Robert Thompson was the mastermind of the conspiracy to kidnap a child.
It was he who turned to Venables at the Beach Mall when he saw another child and said: “Make him disappear outside so he gets knocked over when he goes into the street.”
Throughout the case, he was the more defiant and tougher of the two, maintaining blatant lies about the kidnapping and murder of James Bulger.
While Venables slumped in his courtroom, his head bowed in shame, Thompson maintained an arrogant expression that even his legal team found remarkable.
As harrowing tapes of police interviews of the boys played, he yawned, drummed on the edge of the dock, knotted his handkerchief and glittered his ring.
Robert Thompson appears in a home video filmed at his school, St Mary's in Walton, less than a year before he and Jon Venables murdered James Bulger
The fifth of Ann Marie Thompson's seven children, he comes from a home characterized by unrest and lack of discipline.
The comments from the neighbors around her were typical. “A terrible family,” said one. “A really bad child, full of cheek,” said another.
No one mourned Thompson's arrest and the family's subsequent departure.
The decisive moment in his life seems to have been the collapse of the family. His father Robert apparently ran off with another woman in October 1988 after a caravan holiday in North Wales.
According to neighbors, he had been a strict father and often beat his sons with the pole, but his departure seemed to have led to a complete breakdown in the family.
Six days after his departure, a fire mysteriously destroyed the family home on Belmont Road, Anfield, a mile from Liverpool Football Club.
Investigators believe Robert Thompson was the mastermind of the conspiracy to kidnap a child
Ann and the children were moved to a homeless shelter and then to Walton Village in Walton, Liverpool, where she became known as a heavy drinker.
At the Top House pub in Walton, neighbors recalled fights with other women and, once, other men.
According to a family friend, a man who commented on her clothing was flattened with a single punch to the jaw.
The children, intimidated by their recently deceased father's temper, initially behaved well and were modestly dressed, but quickly became more unruly.
As a typical problem family, it didn't take long before social workers became aware of them.
According to neighbors, the second oldest, David, then 16, was the first to have to be taken into care because of theft.
Philip, then 14, was next, followed by 15-year-old Ian, considered the smartest of the boys, after he asked to go into care when he was beaten with a two-foot garden stick.
But neighbors said Ian asked to go into care after seeing the tracksuits and expensive training shoes Philip had been given as a gift.
His departure caused Ann to change her attitude. She feared she would lose other children if she continued to physically punish them.
The children sensed this and mocked her. Robert in particular challenged Ann: “You can’t beat me up, otherwise I’ll go to the bus companies (to the police).”
Ann's best friend said at the time: “If she made a mistake, it was too much discipline.” I would tell her to give them a spanking – I would even volunteer to do it – but she was very afraid the social services.
“Robbie and the others knew. They knew that bad behavior had no consequences.
“It was a mistake because on the rare occasions she hit Robbie, it immediately stopped him from improving.”
She tried to keep Robert inside by hiding his shoes, but he sneaked out in her slippers and borrowed friends' shoes.
He had good reason to fear accusations from adults, for he had been a misbehaved child from a young age.
He was considered by neighbors to be a cruel child, apparently unable to play with other children without bringing them to tears. When approached by other parents, he said, “That’s how my brothers play with me.”
He and his brothers made life miserable for their nearest neighbors. One neighbor said: “Robbie was constantly lighting fires in the back garden and burning batteries and aerosol cans with other children.”
James Bulger is shown out of the New Strand Shopping Center in Bootle, Merseyside
“I would try to insult him and he would say, 'I can do whatever I want in my garden.'
“All the Thompsons could turn against you very quickly. I had given them money for candy, food and even bottles of drinks, but they were never really grateful.”
There were frightening signs of James Bulger's treatment in his behavior towards other children.
A friend took pity on him because he always seemed to be alone and invited him to play with her son James.
One day, as he was playing in their backyard, he looked up and said poignantly, “I wish you were my mother.”
Their generosity was rewarded with Thompson missing for hours with James and their young daughter.
“It scares the hell out of me when I think about what happened to little James,” she said. She noticed her own son's behavior deteriorating.
When she grounded him, Thompson explained to him how he could sneak out a back window.
She saved a cat from Thompson when she caught him trying to tie it to a railroad track.
He bragged about drowning the family mongrel's puppies.
She forbade her son from seeing him when she noticed sores on Thompson's mouth that she attributed to solvent abuse.
“I chased Robbie out of the house and he said he was going to break my windows and steal the pet. And he meant it.
“There was something very sadistic about him long before this case.” I told Ann he was out of control, but she didn't like it.
“She thought people were picking on her kids, so she stood up for them even when they were wrong.”
The impression of sadism was supported by Thompson's friend Michael Gee, who often played truant with him.
He revealed that they would go out and shoot pigeons with an air rifle.
“Robert put some bread down, shot them, and then stomped on them while they fidgeted,” Michael said.
“I liked him at first, but when I didn't want to steal anything he would beat me up. 'I was afraid of him.'
Ironically, Thompson had already shown promise in school. According to one report, he had the potential to be very smart and powerful.
But as his behavior worsened, the truancy became chronic. In the two years before the killing, a total of 250 half days were missed.
Council officials insist they followed standard procedures, including home visits, letters to his mother and reports to the local authority, but none of them worked.
Ann tried to take him to school herself, but he avoided her by running out of the house before she was awake.
Dejected, she said to a friend: 'You can all go into care.' I'm sick of the crowd.'
She was also busy with the upcoming birth of her seventh baby, a son from new boyfriend Bobby Gill.
She showed baby Ben after he was born and told a friend, “I don't care about the other boys. This one will be different and better.”
Truancy continued in the fall semester: 49 half days in the fall semester and 37 of 60 in the first half of the spring semester.
While Ann focused on the new baby, Robert spent even more time away from school and away from the house.
Whenever he was confronted, Jon would throw himself against the walls
Jon Venables is, perhaps inevitably, the classic product of a broken home.
He was born in 1982, the third child of Neil and Susan Venables, whose marriage was already in crisis when he arrived.
They were at odds over Mrs. Venables' friendship with several men and divorced when Jon was just three years old, an event that was crucial in his life.
Mrs Venables took the children and moved to Norris Green, two miles from the old family home in Walton.
Venables appears in the home video, filmed at St. Mary's School in Walton in June 1992
On the surface, the pretty townhouse on tree-lined Scarsdale Road should have been a better place to raise children.
But friends noted that in the absence of a father figure there was an atmosphere of what they called neglect.
Jon's older brother Mark was sent to a special school where his learning difficulties could be addressed, and he was soon joined by their sister Michelle, making Jon the only child to receive a mainstream education.
His behavior quickly deteriorated.
He stole from local candy stores and treated his mother's attempts at discipline with disdain.
When she grounded him, he would run away from the front door and kick it on the way out.
Friends recall an occasion when his mother chased him up a tree and he fell to the ground in agony.
Bad behavior manifested itself in fights with neighboring children at soccer and basketball games and in kicking rounders, a variation of the traditional game that used a soccer ball instead of a bat and ball.
Jon Venables is, perhaps inevitably, the classic product of a broken home
Jon's favorite trick was a kick to the shin followed by a punch to the chest.
When he didn't get his way, he would burst into tears before causing the family Rottweiler, Blackie, to bark at other frightened youngsters.
According to neighbors, complaints to his mother were invariably met with insults.
One said: “Mrs Venables wasn't with us at all.” Jon threw stones and gave you incredible insolence.
When I scolded him, he covered his eyes as if he could shut me out. You could never tell his mother that her children were wrong – she was just so aggressive.”
Another neighbor took the children in when they came home from school and found no one there.
“They were out on the street the whole time, so I took them and gave them lemonade,” Sarah Ogden said.
“I have to say we didn’t agree on this – Mom just wasn’t there and I stepped in to help.”
Neighbors noticed a procession of friendly men for Mrs. Venables.
She regularly visited the local pubs and drank lager and vodka tonic.
At a New Year's Eve party, Jon developed a severe headache after staying up late, but his mother ignored the suggestion that he take him home.
Another mother at the party, Susan McCrossan, recalled: “He got worse and had to lie down. “She downed alcohol like there was no tomorrow.”
At Broad Square Elementary School, Jon became known for causing trouble and trying to evade blame.
When told, he became enraged and threw himself against desks, tables, and walls.
One teacher said: “He was the strangest child I ever had in my class.” He constantly demanded attention and when he didn't get it, he threw the worst tantrums.
“He literally threw himself around the room, hitting the walls and furniture.”
He was expelled from school in June 1991 after attempting to strangle another child with a ruler.
His attack was so violent that it took two teachers to get him away, and staff later told police they were unsure how far Jon went.
Ms Venables considered enrolling Jon in the same special school as Mark and Michelle, but her request was rejected.
Instead it was decided that he should attend St Mary's Church of England School in Walton.
To help him settle in, Jon was invited to occasionally spend nights and weekends with his father nearby. It would prove to be a fateful decision.
The house was just a few hundred meters from the home of Robert Thompson, who also attended St. Mary's. The couple became firm friends.
Initially, school staff noticed an improvement in Jon's behavior, which was attributed to the presence of a male teacher, one of the few male figures in his life.
Neighbors, accustomed to the bad reputation of Thompson and his brothers and sisters, tried to warn Mr. Venables that their friendship would be of no use.
“You want to stop your boy from playing with that Thompson kid,” a friend recalled as they looked out a window at the duo on the street below.
But the friendship grew when both were held back for a year due to poor performance.
It was a humiliation that increased her hatred of school and led to more and more truancy.
Venables was absent for 50 half days during last fall semester.
Mr. Venables had now moved to the more comfortable home of his own father, who had just died, and Jon moved in with him full-time.
Friends insist Mr Venables, an unemployed tradesman now 40, was a devoted father and bought Jon a computer games system, a CD player and a VCR.
For Christmas, all three children received new bicycles. But if he was friendly, he may also have been unwise in his choice of entertainment.
James Bulger is led down a street by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson
A police car takes Jon Venables and Robert Thompson to Preston Crown Court on the first day of their trial
He insists he didn't allow Jon to watch horror videos, but the Chron has seen evidence that Jon may have had access to the most graphic films.
Jon lent one of his best friends, seven-year-old Paul, a homemade cassette tape of the horror films Alien Nation and Witchboard.
The tape's label reveals that the films were shot over the infamous “I Spit On Your Grave” video – and it is labeled “unabridged version.”
Paul's mother Karen noticed that Jon was developing a cruel streak, particularly towards animals.
She was horrified when Paul showed her how Jon had taught him to catch and kill wild birds using a piece of string and breadcrumbs as bait.
However, Jon's parents seemed more concerned about the repercussions of his friendship with Thompson.
Mr. Venables had drastically reduced Jon's absences by picking him up from school every afternoon, and they had decided to move him to a new school in the summer of that year.
But on Friday, February 12, he skipped again and James Bulger died.
When Ms Venables found her son at the local video store, she beat him and took him to Walton Lane police station to disguise him.
But she was so unaware of his true activities that when investigators came to arrest him, she assumed it was another reprimand for truancy.
Two days earlier, her lack of knowledge had been betrayed when she told a friend: “I don't understand the parents who protect the children who killed James Bulger. 'What they are doing is terrible.'