Mary’s family background may be responsible for her unusual behavior. She thought for a long time that her father was Billy Bell, a habitual criminal who had been arrested for armed robbery, but her biological father is unknown to this day. Mary claimed that her mother, Betty, who was a prostitute, had forced her to engage in sexual acts with men—particularly her mother’s clients—at the age of four. Mary ended up at an all-boys facility after her trial; she was too young to be held in prison and too dangerous to be kept in an unequipped mental hospital or an institution that housed troubled children. Her mother repeatedly sold Mary’s story to the press at the time of her daughter’s conviction. Mary was only 11 at that time. She was released after 23 years and fought and won the case for both her own anonymity and that of her daughter. This order is consequently known as a Mary Bell Order.