The flames had already taken hold of the upper floor by the time the first neighbors stumbled out of their houses. It was just after midnight on April 25th, 2011, and the street in Nottingham had been dark and quiet, the kind of night broken only by the distant sound of a car passing. Then the sirens came, and then the fire itself, and soon the whole block was standing on the pavement watching a house burn. It was the home of the Bartlam family.

Inside were 42-year-old Jacqueline Bartlam, known to everyone as Jackie, her 14-year-old son Daniel, and her toddler son. The fire had consumed the upper right corner of the house before the fire crews even arrived. Smoke poured from the windows and the roof, and the sound of the blaze was like something tearing through the building, devouring everything in its path. A crowd gathered, helpless, waiting for the firefighters.

Then, before the engines reached the scene, a small figure stumbled out of the burning property, coughing and gasping for air. It was Daniel Bartlam. He was not alone. His arms were wrapped around his younger brother and the family dog.

To the reporters who arrived on the scene, he was a hero. He had saved two lives. A legend. A survivor.

The fire crews went to work quickly, unrolling their hoses and connecting them to the hydrants. As they surveyed the scene, it became clear that the fire had started in the upper right corner of the house, in the room belonging to Jackie Bartlam. The room was in ruins. Blackened walls, charred floors, smoke still rising from the remains of the fire, the smell of burnt wood and plastic hanging in the air.

A team of investigators moved through the wreckage, their faces grim, searching for clues. They could see that the fire had been started on the bed, near the body of a person lying there. The body was almost completely destroyed, only a few twisted and melted pieces remaining. It was charred beyond recognition.

But closer inspection revealed something strange. It was almost as if the body had been the source of the fire rather than a victim of it. The body was covered in a white sheet, carefully lifted, and taken for an autopsy. The postmortem would reveal that Jackie Bartlam had not died as a result of the fire.

She had died before the flames ever reached her. The cause of death was blunt force trauma. That revelation turned a house fire into a murder investigation. Questioning began with the family, the friends, everyone connected to the incident.

Daniel Bartlam was brought in for questioning, and he gave his version of the night. He said he had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. On his way there, he was met with an eerie sight: standing in the corner was a strange man, a mask covering his face. The man swung a hammer at Daniel.

Reflecting on the encounter, Daniel said he then went to check on his family. He made his way to his mother’s room to see if she was all right. To his dismay, he found she had been the victim of a gruesome attack, lying on the bed, bloody. He saw sparks rising from the bed Jackie was lying on.

The strange man had set the body on fire before fleeing. Panic filled him, Daniel continued. He thought of his brother and ran to find him, safely escorting him out of the house. He called for the help of his neighbors to raise the alarm and call the police.

He ran back inside to rescue the family dog. He could not get to his mother. She was left stuck in a ring of flames as the house burned away. Daniel expressed intense regret that he could not save her.

It was a solid version of events, and Daniel stood proudly behind it for weeks. The police, however, did not buy it. They were suspicious. They did not see the 14-year-old as an emerging hero.

It was clear to them that the fire had been used to cover the tracks of something very bad that had occurred that night. Forensics found two weapons at the crime scene: two hammers. A burnt clawfoot hammer and a club hammer. Police investigators formed their own theory, that the 14-year-old had intentionally left the club hammer at the scene so it would be assumed to be the murder weapon.

As it turned out, forensics discovered the murder weapon was actually the clawfoot hammer. Jackie had a boyfriend at the time, a man named Simon. It had been Easter weekend. Simon had spent a few busy days working away from home when the unspeakable incident took place.

He was not around the house. The following morning, Simon heard the devastating news that a fire had occurred in Nottingham. Later it was confirmed that it was on the same street where his partner lived. He said, “That’s all I got.

That’s all I knew. And then it confirmed it had been a fire on this particular road where she lived. And I didn’t know at that point, but I knew straight away it was her house. I don’t know why, but I knew.

It was horrible how straight away I thought, Daniel. ”

Jackie Bartlam was a ray of light, a loving person who would never harm a soul. It was a wonder for everyone: who would want to kill such a good-natured, warm-hearted woman? And why?

Jackie gave birth to her firstborn, Daniel, in 1996, with her then-partner Adrian. The pair tied the knot three years after Daniel came into the world. Jackie was regarded as a wonderful mother with a nice, gentle, and common spirit. Jackie and Adrian had only one child, Daniel, because she wanted the best for her son.

Jackie felt her son would benefit from attending private school. Jackie and Adrian lived a nice, comfortable life, and it seemed like the perfect setting for Daniel. His younger brother was born shortly after Daniel was enrolled in private school. Soon after, an cloud settled over the Bartlam family as Adrian and Jackie decided to split up.

The divorce resulted in a great deal of financial hardship for the mother. She could no longer afford private schooling for Daniel. Even though she tried for months to catch up with his school fees, he was put into a state school instead. Jackie, along with her two boys, moved to another part of Nottingham in 2008.

While Jackie was enjoying a night out alone, she came across a man named Simon. He noticed her kind and caring demeanor and got smitten by her outlook on life. The pair became infatuated with one another and quickly started dating. This man appeared to be good for Jackie, and he decided to help her, as she was a single mother struggling financially.

The couple decided to pool their money and buy a big house so that they could live happily together as a family and leave their financial troubles in the past. So the two, along with Daniel and his little brother, searched for the perfect home. Jackie and Simon found many houses they liked. Daniel, however, did not seem to be on the same page.

In fact, Daniel said he hated each and every house they visited, pointing out problems with every single one. Jackie, being a mother, always put her kids’ happiness before her own, and did not want to move into a house Daniel was not happy with. Their dream of moving in together was delayed. Eventually they decided on a house and moved in together, but again Daniel did not cooperate with the decision.

He became very isolated and spent most of his time alone. The family would have a nice dinner or movie night, but Daniel refused to join. Instead, he would shut himself away in his room and feed into his dark fantasies. The decision to transfer him to a state school did not sit well with Daniel.

He felt that state education was beneath him, and that he had lost his status. At this time, Daniel was around eight years old and showed an obsession with gory fictional stories and horror films. Not just any scary movies, but the ones that genuinely kept you up at night. A Nightmare on Elm Street and Saw were just two examples of his taste in movies.

It was also noted that the young boy carried a lot of pent-up anger. He appeared angry with everyone, and as the years passed, his anger only seemed to grow. He harbored intense hatred towards his mother, presumably due to the divorce, the change in school, and the birth of another child. He blamed Jackie for turning his life upside down.

Daniel went through second child syndrome and was very unhappy with the fact that he was no longer the center of attention. Jackie still put Daniel as her first priority, however, with another partner and the financial problems, her focus had understandably shifted. All of these factors seemed to feed into his rage. Daniel was also mechanically inclined.

He frequently brought damaged items into his room and attempted to fix them. No matter what was wrong, he always seemed able to fix computers and laptops. Daniel also showed a passion for the arts, spending time sketching. One of the common themes of his drawings was children killing other children.

Maybe Daniel was letting out pent-up anger on a piece of paper, or expressing his dark intentions. Even more disturbing was the fact that he was only 12 when he made these sketches. He also wrote a drama script that involved children killing people. He went from watching violent media to creating it.

Jackie and Simon did stumble upon his drawings from time to time, but they did not give them much thought, considering the fact that Daniel watched a lot of violent movies and played a lot of video games that involved fighting. Daniel would often act up and behave selfishly. He stopped helping around the house and did not do any of his chores. Simon was very concerned about Daniel’s behavior.

He did not support the idea of a young mind being filled with such strange adult content. However, as he was not Daniel’s biological father, he could not do anything to discipline him. Whenever Jackie tried to tell Daniel right from wrong, he would get violent and irrational. Many times Simon had to intervene and save Jackie from the boy.

Simon recounted an incident that happened during a heated exchange between Jackie and Daniel. Simon had to stop Daniel from getting in Jackie’s face during the argument. Daniel went upstairs and began kicking banisters, swearing and yelling in revenge. He made a lot of noise, slammed the door, and declared that he was angry with his mother.

Simon sat down on the settee, and Daniel stood over him, his face clenched, shouting right in his face, swearing and shouting at him. Simon remembered Jackie being a little shaken and honestly thought she was afraid of Daniel. These were not the only red flags about the kid. Simon also recalled the time Jackie was moving out of her house.

Simon wanted to help her, and he went into Daniel’s bedroom. Like most weird cases, he found something gross lurking in the room: containers full of urine hidden in the room. Not only that, but he found some filthy towels tucked under the bed. When Simon said Daniel did everything in his room, he really meant everything.

Simon was horrified by what he found. But that was not the worst discovery made by Simon. When looking around the room, Simon caught a glimpse of a laptop bag. What he found inside was something he never wanted to discover: Jackie’s underwear.

One might think one pair of underwear was an accident, but it was full of his mother’s underwear. Simon picked up the bag and took it to Jackie, saying he had found something disturbing in Daniel’s room. Jackie did not see it as a red flag. She seemed completely unbothered, saying she had been looking for those for a while.

Simon was shocked, but he understood that Jackie wanted to avoid confronting Daniel and causing a lot of drama. All she wanted was to have a peaceful life. Daniel’s disturbing behavior was not confined to his home. In May 2010, Daniel was referred to the school counselor after a violent outburst.

He told his counselor that he heard voices in his head telling him to do things to hurt people around him. He also mentioned that the tie he wore to school was trying to choke him. It was around this time that he became interested in soap operas. Daniel took pleasure in two of the biggest UK television programs: EastEnders and Coronation Street.

He even had a YouTube channel where he made his own content based on EastEnders. EastEnders is a popular British soap opera that has been on the air since 1985. The show is set in the East End of London and follows the lives of the residents of the fictional borough of Walford. The show is known for its dramatic storylines, which often involve family conflict, romance, and crime.

Daniel based his content on two of the hardest, most violent characters. However, that was not the only program he was fixated on. Further research of the child’s search history by the police revealed that he had searched for a specific murder scene from Coronation Street. Coronation Street is a long-running British soap opera that has been on TV since the 1960s.

It has had some disturbing plots with numerous killings and other atrocities. Daniel was particularly obsessed with the character John Stape, who was repeatedly involved in major violent storylines. One of his famous storylines involved him attacking another character with a hammer and leaving the dead body in a tram crash to cover his tracks. With these concerns, Daniel was taken for a mental health assessment in March 2011.

The professionals at the Foreman Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services concluded that Daniel had no mental health conditions and posed no threat to others. Daniel’s anger with his mother continued to grow, and their relationship hung by a thread. On April 25th, 2011, Jackie texted Simon and told him that Daniel would be spending the Easter weekend with his grandparents. Daniel spent the day before catching up on one of his favorite films.

As the day passed, Daniel had gone down to the shed to grab the petrol and claw hammer that he had stashed there. He headed upstairs to his mother’s room and calmly watched her as she slept comfortably in her bed. He then set his plan in motion and began the brutal attack, smashing his mother seven times with the hammer, breaking the bones in her face and skull. After the assault, he continued to sprinkle newspaper bits around her wrecked body and room, doused her in petrol, and lit the fire.

Before placing a decoy weapon to throw off the investigators. Daniel then ran to wake up his brother and get him out of the burning building. The neighborhood was enjoying a quiet night’s sleep when suddenly word of the house fire got out. The entire block of neighbors gathered on the street and dialed 999.

There was already a crowd surrounding the home when news reporters arrived. Before the firefighters arrived, Daniel emerged from the fire with his younger brother in his arms and the family dog, and to the news he was a hero: a brave little kid that saved his sibling from a devastating fire. Daniel started to tell people that a masked intruder had broken into their house, attacked his mother, and escaped through a window. The fire investigators took on the task of determining the cause of the disaster.

Deeper investigation revealed that the fire truly started with Jackie’s body, not the bed. Police investigation began, and the police started questioning Daniel’s version of the night. Simon heard the news that there had been a fire in the street where Jackie lived, and his mind jumped to only one conclusion: it was Jackie’s house. Daniel was behind it.

Although Simon had no concrete evidence to prove his theory, he had a really strong feeling that whatever had happened, the little boy had done it. He knew something was going to go wrong and just counted the days till it happened. And he was right. Behind this devastating fire was the mind of a 14-year-old boy.

Jackie had been murdered by no stranger, but her own flesh and blood. Daniel watched a lot of soap operas, but it turned out he did not just enjoy these dramas; he actually took inspiration from them. Soap operas do not always depict reality; they reveal dramatic incidents and situations, and people always seem to get away with their crimes, unlike the real world. Maybe Daniel thought that if he could just make up a fake story and a decoy murder weapon, he would get away with the crime and emerge as an inspiration.

He could not have been more wrong. Forensics searched the house for evidence, and when they went to Daniel’s room, they found the missing piece of this strange puzzle. Out of the few things that survived the fire, one was Daniel’s computer. It turned out that Daniel did not only watch gory shows and movies; he was somewhat of a writer himself.

He had written a soap opera-style script on his computer that had him as the main character, and in that piece of writing he had written the future. Daniel had deleted this script, but thanks to technology, the team of forensics was able to recover the deleted evidence. In the story, Daniel is a criminal mastermind who gets away with a string of disturbing murders. His storyline even includes cases of rape and gruesome attacks.

He writes that the Daniel character kills his mother with a hammer and makes it look like a break-in had occurred. He then sets her on fire along with the family home, locks the door, goes to save his brother, brings the rest of his family to safety, and asks the neighbors to contact the police. Jackie dies and no one is caught for her murder. Daniel gets to move on and live his life.

This was not just a creative spurt; this was his plan. It seemed like Daniel had set up a perfect crime in his mind, a crime he would never be suspected of. The forensic team dove deeper into the computer and found an entry in Daniel’s search history, a search that would be considered a dummy mistake by anyone who wants to get away with murder. The search was “how to get away with murder,” literally, “killing 101.

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The police now had a mounting amount of damning evidence against Daniel. His soap opera fantasy did not translate into real life. He could not escape his deeds like his character did. He had no choice but to admit to the murder of his mother.

Daniel confessed to the police and told them about the actual events that occurred on the night of the horrifying incident. He said that a fierce argument had broken out between the two of them that day. Since Jackie wanted to avoid confrontation and preferred to keep things bottled up, she chose to go to bed instead of resolving the argument. When the clock struck one, Daniel went into his mother’s room shouting about a pair of trainers that he could not find.

This insignificant argument escalated as the room filled with loud screams. In the heat of the argument, Daniel picked up a hammer and struck his mother. He kept on hitting Jackie with the weapon even after she fell unconscious. After setting fire to the house, he ran to find his brother and get him out of the house safe and sound.

He found the family dog and quickly grabbed him and fled the scene of the crime. He had every intention of coming out as the angel in this whole incident, a hero, the boy of the year. Daniel had carefully gone over the situation in his mind over and over again. He had always wanted to get revenge on his mother for ruining his perfect little life.

He always wanted to inflict pain on her. So he finally decided he would do what he had been planning for a long time: take the life out of her so that she would no longer shout at Daniel or call him out for his misbehavior. The trial of the mysterious murder of Jackie Bartlam began on the 23rd of January, 2012. Even though Daniel was sane and knew what he was doing, he pled not guilty.

He blamed it on his mother, claiming he was provoked to attack her because she had verbally and physically abused him. However, other witnesses stated that Jackie was a kind-hearted woman who would never act like that with her children. This murder has devastated everyone involved. There is only one person who knows why it happened, and Daniel lied consistently throughout, making attempts to besmirch Jackie’s character.

Everyone who knew her knew she lived for her children and was a warm, loving mother. Daniel showed no remorse or sadness for the incident whatsoever. It seemed like Daniel had lost himself in a world of fantasy where the lines between fiction and reality got blurred. During the trial, he even locked eyes with Simon and, with his finger, drew a line across his neck, an emotionless gesture used to threaten to kill someone.

It was up to the prosecutors to decide if this murder was ill-plotted revenge or a mere accident. The jury did not fall for his innocent-looking face. They found Daniel guilty of murder. On the 2nd of April, 2012, the fall of the child, the worst nightmare for any parent, Nottingham Crown Court found Daniel guilty of first-degree murder of his mother, Jackie Bartlam.

He was given a minimum life imprisonment of 16 years. Daniel is eligible for release in 2020, which can be delayed if the jury does not deem him fit for full release. Simon hopes that he is never released, as he is a threat to society. This case has caught a lot of media attention due to the age of the murderer, along with the amount of planning that was involved in this unspeakable incident.

However, to this day, no one has been able to discover the real reason why Daniel did what he did.