FOR years, Kelly Higgins was haunted by the sound of scratching, after witnessing her mother’s awful crimes while she was at primary school age.
Growing up in Manchester, Kelly’s mother, Bernadette McNeilly, was the ringleader of a sadistic cult that murdered a teenager.
Bernadette, who was 24 at the time, was known for the horrific crime that shocked the nation – after becoming the ringleader of a sick ‘satanic cult’ that tortured and set fire to 16-year-old Suzanne Capper.
Bernadette and her accomplices Jean Powell, 26, Glyn Powell, 29, and Anthony Dudson, 17, were all jailed for murder, while Jeffrey Leigh, 27, and Clifford Pook, 18, were locked up for false imprisonment.
Now Kelly reveals what it was really like living with a monster as a mother.
Speaking on the James English podcast, Kelly explained how she had met Suzanne several times aged seven, as she was a babysitter to Jean and Glyn Powell’s children and would visit Bernadette’s home.
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“My memories are very clear of Suzanne being the comforter,” she explained. “So when they levered you, then Suzanne would comfort you.”
Horrifically, Kelly and her brother were in the house while Suzanne was being tortured by the gang. Kelly was later made aware they had been following satanic rituals and that satanic symbols were found drawn around the house.
Kelly claimed that she and her brother were sometimes in the middle of rituals her mum and the gang held.
She alleged there was a distinct memory of the gang sitting in a circle in the front room while Kelly and her brother stood on a coffee table in the centre.
She claimed they were forced to stand on one leg and whoever dropped first would get beaten.
Kelly revealed that before Suzanne was brutally murdered, she was locked in the house and tortured for days.
During that time, Suzanne was repeatedly beaten, locked in cupboards, scrubbed with bleach, stabbed with lit cigarettes, and had her teeth pulled out with pliers.
She was let out once, according to Kelly, to pick her and her brother up from school.
Kelly said: “Suzanne had been tortured for three days. And she was released to pick me and my brother up.
“And instead of leaving the house and running for her life, she still went to school and picked the children up to make sure that they were safe and took them back to the house and then ran.”
Kelly recalls how she could hear Suzanne being tortured before her mother killed the teenager.
Kelly said: “A lot of my early counselling was based on hearing scratching on the wall, crying out in the night.”
After that, the gang began to play the Chucky theme tune over and over again as they tortured Suzanne.
Suzanne’s family were about to report her missing when the sick gang decided to try and cover their tracks.
They bundled Suzanne into a car, drove into the countryside and set her on fire, before leaving her for dead.
Brave Suzanne survived the ordeal and named her attackers before passing away from her injuries days later.
Kelly added how she was made to clean the room they tortured her in on her ‘hands and knees,’ just before police came bursting through the house to arrest the violent gang.
One particular detail that made Kelly horrified was cleaning up the food wrappers around the bed where Suzanne was tied up.
“I remember there being food wrappers around where they tortured her, which I really struggled trying to get my head around how they could eat while torturing this young girl in a way that they were torturing her?” she said.
“People question, why would she have kept going back? Every time they beat her, why did she go back?” Kelly explained.
“There were six vulnerable children in that house. That’s why that 16-year-old girl kept going back. And you know, if she’d have not died that day, me or my brother would have died at the hands of their evilness eventually.”
Once the trial was underway, Kelly was sent to live with her dad, who she had little contact with up until then.
She was later put in foster care after her dad gave up custody, and was forced to visit her mum in prison six times a year.
She said: “I was made to visit Bernadette six times a year in prison, I couldn’t say no.
“My foster carers couldn’t say no and they used to take us down. I would cry outside and beg, please, I don’t want to go in.”
She revealed how dyslexia was her ‘superpower’ as she hadn’t been able to read what her mum did to Suzanne when growing up.
Kelly said: “Dyslexia has been my superpower because I’ve never been able to read the events, what happened with Suzanne.
“You know, I’ve never wanted to either. I’ve protected my own mental health. I’m very aware of how vulnerable I’ve been throughout my teenage years growing up.
“My foster parents, even though I did question what Bernadette had done at one point, I was never really answered.”
It was only when the book Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators came out that Kelly realised the extent of what her mother had done and hasn’t spoken to her since.
Now Kelly is moving on with her life, she has three children and a husband of her own and has worked in mental health to help others.
As for talking out about the trauma she faced, Kelly hopes Bernadette, who was released from prison, can understand why.
She said: “I just hope if there is anything about Bernardette and she does have any tiny bit of love in there as a mother, she should sit back and say, “You deserve to speak. You deserve your time.”
