True Crime

[twistedmartini]

mugsy said:

adawn, I'm the one who brought up Steven Truscott; I'm from Listowel. Small world, and all that. I went to high school in Arthur, and we studied his case in law class. Right then and there, I was convinced he was innocent and have read everything and kept up with the case. I'm glad for the ending, although yes, I feel sad that the victim's family feels they've been wronged somehow. Truscott didn't "wrong" them, the justice system in the 50s/60s did.

(And Guelph is not a "strange little town"! You're to be commended for holding off the Wal-Mart machine as long as you did.)

Funny how the Jack the Ripper case doesn't interest me at all. I'm not sure why.

Whoa! I'm from Guelph too! Small world is right! I've always been fascinated with the Truscott case as well. I don't think I know anyone who thinks he actually did it (from around here anyway). They had a great special on the CBC about it a few years ago.

I am totally obsessed with Jack the Ripper. When I went to the UK this summer, the Ripper walk was on my top ten things to do and was pretty awesome. It was so creepy walking the same streets and seeing the crime scenes. I'm still undecided on who it actually was though.

[Shanmac]

I am obsessed with reading about Jack the Ripper, but I scare the crap out of myself when I do it, then I can't sleep. Same with reading true-crime books. My sister is always giving me her old true-crime books, knowing I can't resist them.

[monkey]

So, to all Ripper-ologists, what's your best assessment? Who do you believe is most likely the culprit?

[Deleted]

I don't have any specific idea about who Jack the Ripper is, but I think that there was more than one killer. Mainly because the two murders on September 30 happened so close together, I think it was less than an hour. And Mary Kelly's death was different than the others. She was killed indoors, where the others were killed outside. There was also much more postmortem mutilation than the others, as those of us who've seen the photos are well aware. And she was also much younger than the previous victims, she was 25 and the others were in their mid-to-late 40s. Serial killers tend to be very consistent in their choice of victims and their MO, the variance in the cases suggests to me that there were two or more unknown sickos wandering around London cutting up prostitutes.

[satellite]

You guys should check out the show Most Evil on the Discovery Times channel and also on regular Discovery channel sometimes if you don't already watch. Each week they have a theme and this recent one was revenge killings. They mentioned Betty Broderick, and this Australian guy (Mad Dog something?) who thought he had to kill 7 people to bring back his dead baby son (he got to three people and was heavy into PCP at the time). He acquired a wife while in prison and was released after 30 years and deported to Scotland where he and the wife had three kids. Eventually she divorced him because she couldn't deal with the publicity, but so far he hasn't acted out again and just goes on with his normal life.

Getting back to the women who marry these guys- Richard Ramirez's (The Night Stalker) wife is a prime example of "woman with issues". In Phillip Carlo's true crime book on him, she makes a big deal about her marrying him as a virgin (and she was like 41 already) and winning him from all his other female admirers.link

[chiqui]

This is kinda related (not really a true crime), but there is some guy (whose name I can't remember for the life of me) who decided he was going to sit down and eat himself some human just to see what it was really like and to see if we should be judging cultures that practice cannibalism. He was really super-vague about where the "meat" came from, so who knows what happened there. I think the only thing he mentioned was that it came from a person who wasn't white and he was white, so that kicked up a lot of racial stuff, in addition to the whole cannibalism stuff. He also went into huge amounts of detail about how he prepared it and ate it, most of which my brain has blocked out. I do seem to recall that he said it tasted like veal to him.

This sounds like the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Trotsky's murder happened under his sponsorship (and wife Frida Kahlo had an affair with him.)

[whatever]

celerydunk said:

The John List case has always fascinated me. NJ husband and father kills his entire family because he's afraid of them becoming sinful and wants them to be close to God - more likely that he was ashamed he had lost his job, couldn't find work, and didn't want to admit the financial problems to his family. Left the family in the house for a month while he went on the run - I think it was at least 3-4 weeks before they were found, because he told people they were going on vacation.

The best part is that he most likely killed them because he was ashamed of losing his job, but what he didnt know is that he had an extremely valuable Tiffany stained glass skylight in the dining room.

Oh, I forgot about that detail! I wonder if the house is till there in Westfield, or if the skylight was ever sold?

[Deleted]

FYI -- Casebook.org does work for Jack the Ripper photos. I shouldn't have looked.

Does anyone here know a lot about The Boston Strangler? There was a show about him, and the supposed police cover up and confession "tampering" by F. Lee Bailey, on Discovery Times or one of those obscure cable channels a couple weeks ago. I found it very interesting but I wasn't able to watch the end of it.

I was just wondering, is the idea that DeSalvo didn't do it more of a fringe thing or does it have actual merit?

I could wikipedia this, but I'm more interested in any thoughts you all have.

[bklynred]

Most Evil is really interesting. What I like is that it airs at like 10 am on the weekends, so I have enough time to watch it, then work off the total freak-out I get from it.

[livviebway]

ihatejanuary said:

FYI -- Casebook.org does work for Jack the Ripper photos. I shouldn't have looked.

Ok, good to know. And.... sorry I linked you.