Heroes & Zeros- A True Crime Podcast · Annie Weaver

Episode 66 The Story of Kelly Anne Bates

·28 min·1 clip

The autopsy found 150 injury sites and evidence that Kellyanne Bates was blinded alive.

Annie opens with a warning for torture and murder. She then tells the story of Kellyanne Bates, a 14-year-old from Manchester who comes from a close family, is described as bubbly and confident, and gets pulled into her first relationship with an older man, James Patterson Smith. What starts there does not stay innocent for long. Smith steadily isolates Kellyanne from her family and friends, and the episode treats that isolation as the point where things turn dangerous. Kellyanne starts showing bruises and bite marks, and she keeps covering for them with one excuse after another. Annie keeps coming back to how common that denial can be when someone is scared, trapped, or trying to protect the person hurting them. Kellyanne’s parents can see that something is badly wrong. Her mother, Margaret, goes to Kellyanne’s doctor and raises concerns about possible abuse. She also goes to the police and asks them to watch for any call-outs to Smith’s address. Annie clearly thinks that was the sensible move. The police response is the part that really makes the episode boil. Because Smith had no prior criminal record and no earlier domestic abuse report, officers decline to pursue him and send Margaret away with leaflets from the domestic violence department instead. Annie does not hide how absurd that feels. She pushes the obvious question of why a welfare check was not enough to at least look in on Kellyanne. The case keeps moving toward its terrible ending. Smith is later described as having become eligible for parole in 2022, and the episode notes that he appeared before a three-person board in November. He reportedly said he was changed. The board rejected his appeal in January 2023, according to the Daily Mail article Annie cites. The episode closes on the horror of what happened to Kellyanne and on Annie’s wish that she and her mother rest in peace. It is a plainspoken, case-first telling that leaves the listener with the failure of the people who should have protected her.

As heard by us

A blunt case-first account of abuse, told with clear anger.

The episode treats Kellyanne Bates's story as a grim domestic abuse case and keeps the facts in clear order. It follows the start of the relationship, the isolation, the violence, and the fatal ending, with Annie moving through the family background, Smith's control, and the…

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Why you'd press play

A first boyfriend turns into a grim story of isolation, torture, and murder.

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