Kelly Higgins was just seven years old when her mother, Bernadette McNeilly, took part in the torture and murder of 16-year-old Suzanne Capper in Moston, Manchester. Kelly can still recall hearing the screams.
Suzanne was held prisoner for several days by McNeilly and five other gang members, aged 16 to 29 at the time. Kelly knew Suzanne, who she said showed her and her little brother, James, nothing but kindness and love.
Recalling the torture
Speaking about her memories of the murder, Kelly said: "I just remember her screaming. They've removed her hair. They've removed her fingernails. They've pulled her teeth. She's been injected, she's been drugged. They've shaved her pubic hair. They've sexually abused this girl."
Suzanne was tortured at McNeilly's home before being moved to a different address. Kelly can even remember hearing scratches on the wall. After abuse lasting one week, Suzanne, who was briefly released after three days to pick Kelly and James up from school, was eventually killed.
The killing
She was forced into a car and driven to woodland, where McNeilly, aged 24 at the time, and her group burned her alive after dousing her in petrol. Kelly told LADbible Stories: "Bernadette attempts to set Suzanne on fire, it didn't work. Jean (Powell) attempts to set Suzanne on fire, it didn't work. So then the 16-year-old, he's the one who set Suzanne on fire. She luckily, it is incredible, manages to pull her own body out."
She added: "Let me just say though, Bernadette walks away, so my mother walks away from a 16-year-old child who is on fire and sings 'Burn Baby Burn'. She's that psychotic."
Suzanne survived long enough to tell police who her attackers were. McNeilly, along with Jean Powell, Glyn Powell and Anthony Dudson, were imprisoned for murder. The two other members, Jeffrey Leigh and Clifford Pook, were sent to prison for false imprisonment.
Life with her mother
According to reports, McNeilly and Dudson were angry at the time Suzanne was killed after they both became infected with pubic lice. They concluded Suzanne, who often slept in the bed they shared, must have passed it on.
Kelly, born in Blackpool, said she and James, two years younger, were "constantly beaten and tortured" by their mum, who would allegedly strike them with belts and tie them to chairs. She claimed her mother's friends would come over and participate in the abuse.
She recalled: "They brought a swan into the house. A swan to a child is massive. I mean, it's massive to an adult, but you can imagine being little in that house. This swan came in. They're laughing. They're talking about what they're gonna do. And then we're just made to stand in the room, and they chop its head off. When you chop an animal's head off, the animal will still move. It still runs. Its feet was huge, it was just running around, blood. Its neck spins, so there's no head on it so it's just spinning. There's blood. They just enjoyed every minute of causing that weird reaction from them children to be feared. As a mother, there were no protection, there were no love."
After the murder
Everything shifted after the murder of Suzanne, whom Kelly had encountered on numerous occasions and described as more of a mum to her than McNeilly was. She said Suzanne was an incredibly reassuring person, and she and James were in the house while the teenager was being tortured.
After her mum was imprisoned in 1993, Kelly, who went on to live with caring foster parents and was terrified of McNeilly, had to visit her behind bars because McNeilly still retained some parental control. Kelly said: "The odd thing is, for a child who's visiting a mother who has been so evil, and psychotic, and horrendously dark, when you're in this prison, this mum's everything you wanted her to be. So you're walking in, she's open armed, she's loving, she's, 'Oh my baby girl. My beautiful baby girl.' You're getting everything that you never had. So even though you don't wanna go through that door cause you don't wanna see her, cause you don't wanna see this person, you're scared to death of her, but you go in, you get this lovely version, you then don't wanna leave. It's horrible for a child. It's horrible."
Kelly, now 40, has cut ties with her mum, who was released from prison in 2015 after serving 25 years for Suzanne's murder. She has been advocating for a change in the law that would mean abusive parents lose the right to see their children.
Despite the trauma, both Kelly and James managed to move on and find joy. Kelly said of her message to her seven-year-old self: "I'd tell her I'm proud of her. I'd tell her not to panic because she's gonna be a good mum. And I'd tell her not to worry because she's not gonna have a bad bone in her body like her mum has, and she's not gonna represent evil. She's just gonna be a good person."
Kelly now has an "amazing husband" and three children, and she said they enjoy a "beautiful life" together. Continuing her advice to her younger self, she concluded: "Just say to her that, you know, you get to live that childhood that you never had anyway through your children. You get to use your imagination with your own little girls. And I still got to play with dolls, and I've still got to, you know, run around the park, and be on adventures on holidays, and still be childlike. Me and James still say, we're the kids that never grew up. So yeah, just reassure her that she's loved, she's safe, she's a good person."
