S&D: Serial Killers

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There are def fewer “classic” serial killers than there used to be. Now we have mass shooters instead. Our collective pathology has changed its manifestation.

Οὖτις, Monday, 22 October 2018 02:06 (five years ago) link

i think to narrow it down, he's counting those who have killed people in at least two separate incidents. not sure how that's broken down, it seems to me the classic serial killer of stalking and quietly killing someone at random is different from other types of murderers who could be included there. i agree w/VG in terms of what's overlooked, and how perhaps police depts let alone the public can not notice serial killers operating. in certain areas they're especially overlooked; in urban areas, in minority populations, etc.

i think to cite on example, if you believe what is considered likely about the city of Juarez, where hundreds of women have been murdered or gone missing, it's a situation not where there were a couple killers operating w/impunity but the entire atmosphere of the city, the sense that no one would care, that allowed not two or three but dozens and dozens of different men to murder women at will. Perhaps yes, some (if not most) just killing one woman but on the other hand many, many of them killing two or three or more on different occasions. Operating as serial killers.

omar little, Monday, 22 October 2018 03:54 (five years ago) link

yeah exactly

the idea that there arent serial killers anymore because they’ve gone out of fashion. is kind of privileged thinking imo

rural areas, regions trashed by meth, Juarez, the Canadian indigenous women...killing ppl who arent missed and/or living somewhere that ppl routinely ignore, it could go on forever & not be stopped

like i’m not in favor of it but it is mental to think that it is not happening. yes, there’s no more Gacys and Kempers because suburbanites watch their kids obsessively & teen girls dont hitchhike “just to get around” anymore but societal shifts don’t magically wipe sexually motivated homicides from the picture just because we have podcasts & iphones now.

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 October 2018 04:23 (five years ago) link

my mom and cousin would always walk home from school back in the '50s (in Chicago!) when they were in elementary and middle school. she remembers one incident where a young guy in a nice red car tried to convince them to take a ride and her cousin was ready to do it, and my mom had a very bad vibe about it and just as her cousin was about to hop in she convinced her to not go and they took off running and the guy's reaction was not "ok cool" but something...else. something angrier like angry that they were going to get away.

many years later my mom was taking photos at a creek at a place near where i grew up, and she was alone, and a "friendly" guy who was walking the trail offered to help her with some photos, and after a couple photos and my mom being very nervous about this (he was big, she is 5'2" 95 lbs) he started to get agitated, angry even, about her nervousness. she "went to her car" to "get a filter" and took off, fast. said she hadn't had that feeling since that incident in the '50s.

idk what they were really on about, and it could be just bad weird guy energy vs anything sinister, but that weird guy energy is i'm sure certainly more heightened when you're vulnerable and it probably feels more sinister than a guy like me could imagine.

omar little, Monday, 22 October 2018 04:31 (five years ago) link

Those were some intense stories

akm, Monday, 22 October 2018 04:33 (five years ago) link

i think my grandparents and great aunt & uncle thought it would be totally safe to let their kids walk many blocks to and from school by themselves, if they paired up...

omar little, Monday, 22 October 2018 04:39 (five years ago) link

yeah it was so much looser back then, and parenting also seems like it had a v narrow scope too?

my favorite murder podcast catchphrase is “fuck politeness” which is sassy etc but cuts to the heart of the damage that happens a lot of women (and boys and kids!) were or are taught to go along to get along & be polite as not to upset the nice young men giving off weird guy energy

it’s a real thing even now

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 October 2018 04:41 (five years ago) link

Bruce McArthur (see just above revive) has gotten a lot of media attention up here.

In terms of the media, the serial killer has been replaced by the mass shooter (or mass vehicular killer). This is simplistic, but that would seem to be an obvious reflection of the how media works today. Serial killings usually unfold slowly, over years and sometimes decades; the mass shooter involves instant, blanket coverage.

And yeah it's remarkable that Karla Homolka is out and remarried with three children and a new name.

Amazing last line in her Wikipedia entry: "In May 2017, it was reported that Homolka has been volunteering at her children's elementary school in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a Montreal neighbourhood."

clemenza, Monday, 22 October 2018 11:44 (five years ago) link

I’m all for redemption but that is stupid.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 11:46 (five years ago) link

im not for redemption and that is criminal

lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Monday, 22 October 2018 11:57 (five years ago) link

since she is living under a new identity now, was the school able to do a real background check on her?

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 12:41 (five years ago) link

Her kids go to the school and it sounds like she just participated in a parent-supervised trip to a museum or something so I can’t imagine they would be doing background checks.

Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 22 October 2018 12:55 (five years ago) link

feels like this is not a situation where "we wait for an ordinary check to come up" should be the measure

lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Monday, 22 October 2018 13:02 (five years ago) link

"i think my grandparents and great aunt & uncle thought it would be totally safe to let their kids walk many blocks to and from school by themselves, if they paired up..."

not to be too "American exceptionalism" but in Paris in 2018 lots of little kids (like ages 5-10) walk to/from school every day, and take public transportation, alone. There have been a few Parisian serial killers but I would think a bigger factor in why American kids don't do this anymore is city layout.

droit au butt (Euler), Monday, 22 October 2018 13:05 (five years ago) link

Man, how weird must this be for Homolka's kids

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/05/31/convicted-serial-killer-karla-homolka-volunteering-at-montreal-elementary-school.html

jmm, Monday, 22 October 2018 13:23 (five years ago) link

Who is this person who married her and decided she would be a good person to raise children with?

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 13:32 (five years ago) link

assuming any of em know?

lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Monday, 22 October 2018 14:05 (five years ago) link

Everyone in Canada over a certain age knows who Karla Homolka is.

wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:09 (five years ago) link

I read about this case this morning because of this thread. It’s extremely fucked up she is not in jail. I want good conditions for prisoners and a path to rehabilitation for most people who feasibly could re-join society, but this woman tortured and murdered young teenagers.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 15:13 (five years ago) link

xp i figured she was under an assumed identity now

lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:32 (five years ago) link

Fucking disgusting

F# A# (∞), Monday, 22 October 2018 15:37 (five years ago) link

The husband certainly knows. The school maybe not.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 15:37 (five years ago) link

In terms of the media, the serial killer has been replaced by the mass shooter (or mass vehicular killer). This is simplistic, but that would seem to be an obvious reflection of the how media works today. Serial killings usually unfold slowly, over years and sometimes decades; the mass shooter involves instant, blanket coverage.

i'm going on pure speculation here and i really don't know how much the hard work of reporters helped to shed light on quietly operating active murderers, vs the more instantaneous and visceral and public violence of mass shooters, but we personally know someone who was a crime reporter in L.A., and who wrote a true crime book which received a lot of notices for quality and in terms of being an important book in the genre, and who worked very hard on the urban crime beat. And she was let go by her newspaper despite all her accolades and bonafides and the importance of her work. she seemed fairly cynical about the current media landscape iirc, it sounded positively nightmarish.

i think local crime coverage really gets a short shrift nationwide these days, generally speaking. the crime might be covered, but the followup doesn't exist anymore. and w/serial murders you'd need followup, and w/mass killings it's much more tied up in one tidy package.

again, pure speculation; people who have worked in media could shed better light on that.

omar little, Monday, 22 October 2018 16:12 (five years ago) link

i think you are onto something there definitely

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 22 October 2018 17:56 (five years ago) link

it might also be Thomas Harris's fault

Number None, Monday, 22 October 2018 17:59 (five years ago) link

It’s extremely fucked up she is not in jail.

Her reduced sentence and early chance at parole caused much outrage at the time. It's been a few years since I read this really good book on the case, but as I remember it--same old story--the Crown was panicky that, without her testimony, they didn't have enough solid evidence to put away Bernardo. (And there was a key videotape that was being held by one of the attorneys?) So they basically gave away the store when cutting a deal with her. Many people feel that she may even be the more culpable of the two.

clemenza, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link

They couldn’t subpoena the videotape?

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:20 (five years ago) link

I’m mostly disturbed that she has children and is raising them. I guess the state can’t do anything but what a nightmare.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:23 (five years ago) link

I'm trying to remember specifics but I can't--the prosecutors were in a tough spot, I think. I don't think anybody knew about the videotape except the lawyer who had it, and he subsequently was disbarred or something.

clemenza, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:35 (five years ago) link

Ken Murray: he sat on the tape(s) for 17 months.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/torture-tapes-left-lawyer-traumatized/article18422428/

clemenza, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:36 (five years ago) link

Jesus

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:49 (five years ago) link

Imagine sitting on evidence of a murder to protect a client.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 18:50 (five years ago) link

well...lawyers and the law, eh

lie back and think of englund (darraghmac), Monday, 22 October 2018 21:02 (five years ago) link

I guess it might fall under attorney-client privilege? Seems weird that video of a murder could be protected information. Would like one of the lawyers to explain this

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 21:14 (five years ago) link

Murray was Bernardo’s lawyer, not Homolka’s iirc. Bernardo’s defence was that Homolka was the killer and Murray intended to use the tapes to show she was lying after she testified - though he belatedly realised that she was withholding evidence illegally.

Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 22 October 2018 21:20 (five years ago) link

quite confusing, he thought the tape helped his client so he kept it hidden for almost a year and a half because reasons

( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 22 October 2018 21:21 (five years ago) link

Very odd. It doesn’t sound like it was especially exonerating.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 21:37 (five years ago) link

I gotta stop reading about this. Apparently he applied for parole recently and gave some self-pitying excuse about how he was acting out due to low seld esteem. How reprehensible and also ridiculous.

Trϵϵship, Monday, 22 October 2018 21:42 (five years ago) link

His argument is that the tapes would have come up sooner had the prosecution not gone out of their way to stop Homolka from being cross-examined. Bernardo always claimed he had never actually murdered anyone and, in theory, the tapes would have been used to show that Homolka was lying about being a reluctant participant - which could have introduced a measure of doubt as to whether he might have been telling the truth. He would almost certainly still have been convicted of murder even if Homolka had actually killed them but there might have been more hope of parole at some point.

There is pretty much no prospect of him ever getting released.

Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 22 October 2018 21:45 (five years ago) link

i feel so sad for homolka's kids - they're gonna find out one day what their mother did and it's gonna fuck up them up.

just1n3, Tuesday, 30 October 2018 03:11 (five years ago) link

yeah that will be an awful experience

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 30 October 2018 05:42 (five years ago) link

Just read Peter Vronsky's Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers From the Stone Age To the Present. Kind of an odd book. Vronsky has a weird style in which he veers between fairly dry sociological analysis and jarring pop culture refs. Also too many exclamation marks!

But definitely some interesting material, especially the stuff about pre-Jack the Ripper "werewolves" and the medieval witch panic as a state-sanctioned serial killing epidemic. The section on the 19th-century French serial killer Joseph Vacher and the pioneering investigation that led to his arrest is particularly fascinating. I'd never even heard of him before

Number None, Thursday, 1 November 2018 21:26 (five years ago) link

one month passes...

read today about the benders of kansas, 1869-1872, a sweet spot where pioneering and serial killing mix and match

macropuente (map), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 03:00 (five years ago) link

pioneering must have had it’s share of serial killers you would think now looking back. everyone’s dying left & right from every disease/trampled by livestock/drunken fistfights, creates a pretty convenient & chaotic cover for deliberate violence, lotta ppl not being missed etc

Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 03:24 (five years ago) link

few opportunities to taunt law enforcement via the media though :(

valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 16:26 (five years ago) link

Pony Express rider with a bag full of Frontier Zodiac letters

Plinka Trinka Banga Tink (Eliza D.), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 16:43 (five years ago) link

The Ingalls family, made famous in the books and television series Little House on the Prairie, lived near Independence, and Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned the Bender family in her writing and speeches. In 1937 she gave a speech at a book fair, which was later transcribed and printed in the September 1978 Saturday Evening Post and in the 1988 book A Little House Sampler. She mentioned stopping at the inn, as well as recounting the rumors of the murders spreading through their community. She alleged that her father, "Pa Ingalls", joined in a vigilante hunt for the killers, and when he spoke of later searches for them she recalled, "At such times Pa always said in a strange tone of finality, 'They will never be found.' They were never found and later I formed my own conclusions why."

omar little, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 16:45 (five years ago) link

TO EDITOR SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BY THE TIME THIS REACHES YOU ANOTHER GIRL WILL BE DEAD STOP YOU WILL NEVER FIND ME STOP I'LL KEEP KILLING FOREVER STOP

"Uh . . . are you sure you want me to send this, sir?"

Plinka Trinka Banga Tink (Eliza D.), Tuesday, 4 December 2018 16:46 (five years ago) link

however --

Some have cast doubt on the story saying that Laura would have been only 4 when her family moved away from the area, and that the Benders were exposed in 1873, two years after the Ingallses left.[21]

someone needs to make this into a film: Bloody Nights: A Little House on the Prairie Thriller

omar little, Tuesday, 4 December 2018 16:47 (five years ago) link


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