James Bulger's mom Denise Fergus keeps spare chair for murdered boy during Christmas: 'He won't be forgotten'
James Bulger's family still remembers him on important occasions and his mother keeps a spare chair around the Christmas table while they have holiday dinner. For the first time, the brothers of the murdered toddler, James Bulger, opened up about growing up without their sibling and how the family never forgot about him in the new documentary 'Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger'.
James' brothers, 27-year-old Michael, half-brother 22-year-old Thomas and 21-year-old Leon, have revealed just how much their mother Denise still misses her son after all these years. So much so that she always leaves an empty chair for James at the Christmas table. She also talks about him "as if he is still there".
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In addition to this, the three brothers have also reportedly revealed that while growing up, their mother was extremely protective of them and never allowed them out of her sight. She did so even on school trips and walked behind them when they went out.
The documentary, 'The Killing of James Bulger', which will reportedly release next week, recounts the abduction and murder of two-year-old James carried out in 1993. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were 10 years old when they abducted James from The Strand shopping center in Bootle and murdered him.
The brothers will also be speaking in the two-part documentary, which offers an insight into the hunt to find James from police officers involved in the case, and also never-before-heard tapes of police interviews with his killers, Venables and Thompson.
In one of the chilling recordings, according to reports, Thompson impersonates James saying: "I want me mum."
In another, Thompson, who had a baby brother who looked like James, says, “Why would I wanna kill him when I’ve got a baby of my own?... If I wanted to kill a baby I’d kill me own wouldn’t I?”
'We talk about him as if he is there'
Michael, who is born nine months after James' disappearance, reportedly said, "Being James' brother is not a weird thing. We have always grown up knowing he was there, what he was like, his character, In the household, we talk about James a lot. We don’t pretend he is there, but we talk about him as if he is there."
He talks about the mother's connection with him. "My mum will give us little stories and insights about what he was like. He has always been a character we wanted to know more about, wishing he was here, rather than someone who was in the background all this time. He’s never not been part of the family."
The family, he says, also remembers him on important occasions. "We have a spare chair around the Christmas table, it’s always been empty. My mum likes to see James as not sitting there but being there present with us while we’re having Christmas dinner," he said.
'I shouldn't have let go of his hand'
After 28 years since the incident, Denise still nurses some guilt inside her. "I was holding his hand and within seconds of me reaching for my purse to pay for some chops at the butcher’s, he’d gone," she said. "I shouldn’t have let go of his hand."
"It’s hard for me to say, but it’s the truth. If there’s such a thing as closure, I don’t think I’ll get it any time soon. At this moment in time, I don’t see closure." Mourning the loss, she said, "He'll never be forgotten by us. Every single day, even after all these years, I miss him. Every single day without James, he’s missed."
She split with her husband Ralph in 1993 shortly after delivering Michael. She married her second husband Stuart Fergus and shares Thomas and Leon with him.
Overprotective mother
Growing up after the incident was not easy as Denise was extra cautious regarding the boys' whereabouts. "Going through school I wasn't allowed on school trips or to go to the shops with my mates. The only place I was allowed was either in the front garden or literally outside the gate with my mates, but I would have to be in view of the window, so if I went out of sight, Mum would be straight out. 'Where are you? What are you doing? Don’t go down there'."
"If we were walking around a shop, she would always make sure she was behind us so she could watch us in front of her," Leon said. She wanted to know where we were at all times."
'Lost Boy: The Killing of James Bulger' will air at 9 pm on Channel 5, March 10 and 11.