true crime

When Paris was 13 he murdered his sister in cold blood. His mum has never once stopped loving him.

In 2007, 13-year-old Paris Bennett murdered his four-year-old sister in their Texas home to punish their mother.

He knew he would go to prison for his heinous crime. 

But he also knew he would succeed in his goal: His mother would lose both of her children in one heartbreaking blow. 

Watch: Charity has forgiven her son. Post continues after video.


Video via Good Morning Britain.

On the night of the murder, Bennett convinced the babysitter his mum, Charity Lee, had said it was fine he was left alone with his sister Ella while she worked at a local restaurant. 

He'd originally planned to kill her instead, telling Piers Morgan in an ITV documentary in 2019, "for many years, there was just this hot, flaming ball of wrath in the pit of my stomach, and it was directed at my mother."

But he knew killing Ella would hurt her more. 

"I found a way to take away both her children in one fell swoop," he explained.

Bennett sexually molested Ella before stabbing her 17 times – a crime for which he was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Paris murdered his little sister Ella in 2007. Image: Inside Edition.

During his 911 call, Bennett can be heard telling the operator, "I accidentally killed someone... no, I KNOW I did. My sister, I feel so messed up."

ADVERTISEMENT

He originally ran with the story that he'd suffered a hallucination and saw a 'demonic' version of Ella.

Later he'd admit to waking up the next morning with a clear state of mind, having carried out a calculated, and planned attack on his little sister. He'd actually called a friend and chatted away for six minutes before calling emergency services and pretending to perform CPR on the phone. 

Before children, Charity had a heroin addiction. When Bennett turned 12, she relapsed with cocaine and in his first confession, he told detectives he had decided to "punish" her for not staying clean and "putting drugs before him". 

Two weeks after the murder, Charity found herself in the local District Attorney's office staring at her son who told her: "You used to say that you would never be able to kill anybody unless they hurt one of your kids. I bet you didn't think it was going to turn out like this."

ADVERTISEMENT

Over the years, Bennett has continued to tell his mother variations of: "I enjoy watching your pain."

In a memoir released in 2020, Charity explains that her son later confessed to watching "hours of violent porn" before torturing, molesting and murdering Ella.

Years after his conviction, Paris would admit he also murdered his sister to cover up the sexual abuse that took place that evening.

"... His stabs were slow and methodical, not frenzied, not an uncontrollable rage," Lee writes in her memoir of her son's attack.

"Not all were deep. Most were shallow jabs and punctures. He told the detectives he stabbed her and pulled the knife out slowly; that it felt like stabbing a mattress or a marshmallow."

"I have never once stopped loving my son."

Bennett is a diagnosed psychopath, and every expert that has met him says that he cannot be cured. 

Despite telling Piers Morgan he "loved his sister with every fibre of his being" he admitted he didn't find it easy to "recognise" love.

"It’s not simple. I can’t just point at something and say, 'Okay, that’s love,'" he said.

Morgan wasn't even allowed to sit in the same room as Bennett for the televised interview because it was "too dangerous" and noted after the chat that it was one of the most disturbing interviews he'd ever done.

ADVERTISEMENT

As well as being charming, a psychopath and a murderer, Bennett has a genius level IQ only shared by 0.025 per cent of the world's population.

In her 2020 memoir, How Now, Butterfly?: A Memoir of Murder, Survival & Transformation Charity Lee writes, "My son is a psychopath. I can’t help him. That may not matter in the long run. What may matter is I can’t, not at this point, give up on him either.

"I love my firstborn with as much intensity as I have since the day I found out I was pregnant with him."

She says it took years of self-reflection and healing to forgive her son and accept him for who he is. 

In her victim impact statement, which is published on her website The Ella Foundation, Charity writes, "When Paris was born, I promised him two things: I would love him, no matter what, and I would be the best mum I could be, no matter what. I have never failed to keep the first promise. I know I have never once stopped loving my son."

Speaking to Good Morning Britain in 2019, Charity said she reached a point where her mental health couldn't handle "walking around that angry" and she also didn't want to give Paris the satisfaction of destroying her.

Writing for Good Housekeeping, she explained that she sees her son as a 'predator', likening him to a shark, unable to be anything other than what he is.

But that doesn't mean she won't run.

Charity Lee and son Paris. Image: Facebook.

Bennett wioll be eligible for parole in 2047, and experts have advised Charity Lee and her youngest son Phoenix to go into hiding after his release from prison.

ADVERTISEMENT

If she doesn't, they could both be a target for his psychopathic resentment.

Despite the threat, Charity allows Phoenix and her eldest son to communicate via phone, because she wants to teach her youngest child "unconditional love and forgiveness."

But as she wrote last year, "What I know about my son is this. He is sick. He couldn't care less that he sexually assaulted and murdered Ella. He has a dark side that is dormant right now, but my son is dangerous. Under the right conditions, I truly believe he could kill again, with as little compunction about it as he has for what he did to Ella. I know he will experience those conditions on a regular basis once he is sent to prison. 

"I sincerely hope he does not have to kill again because Texas has no concern for human rights."

Feature Image: Charity Lee.