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Archive through January 14, 2004Caroline Anne Morris25 1-14-04  8:06 am
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AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 724
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 1:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thanks Caz
I am glad to hear that the diary has had a positive effect on your own world, and I do hope it continues to do so.
I'm probably wrong about a lot of things, but like you I enjoy the metallic sound of the blade as it leaves the sheath.
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 464
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 3:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi AP and Caz

I read the 'Inside Story' and enjoyed it. I am curious as to your statement that you found no point in it. You may have been looking for solid conclusions or conclusive information which simply is not at hand as of the present.

Perhaps the point of the book to some degree was that at present we can't judge the diary one way or the other. There are just too many unanswered questions which have yet to be resolved. Or, perhaps were not asking the right questions.

All The Best
Gary
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AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 727
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Sorry Gary
perhaps I wasn't being specific enough, I did mean that I found no point in the entire diary affair, not just this parcel of it that we discuss here. And I do mean that regardless of the merit of Caz's own investigations.
As I said, it is not my world, because despite many years of intensive research I have yet to come across a serial killer who kept a diary, it appears to be not in the nature of men who kill repeatedly to write repeatedly, and funnily enough I can understand that.
The best I ever found as regards a genuine diary entry was regarding poor old Sweet Fanny Adams, and I quote this single line from a killer in historical fact:
'Killed a girl today, it was hot.'
I believe the killer - and diarist - was a clerk.
Come back, Thomas, all is forgiven.
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 467
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 5:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi AP

I just happened to have a book open to a page on serial killers and their notations on their crimes. The Book is called Serial Killers; The Insatiable Passion, David Lester PHD. Charles Press (1995)pg 55 The relevant quote reads as follows. 'More than half of the men (a study of thirty or so serial killers)kept records such as calendars and diaries of their offenses...' I don't want to be disingenuous here so I should point out that this is a reference to a study of sexual, sadistic serial killers. Nevertheless it would not be unheard of for a killer such as Jack, the non-sadistic type of offender, to keep records of his activities.

As I recall the famous serial killer/multiple murderer Carl Panzram wrote an autobiography while in prison about his activities. He either had a photographic memory or he kept notes as he details his activities since the age of eight when he was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.

I don't believe that Maybrick was JTR.
Nevertheless, the true JTR may have made a few notations of his activities just as he kept human viscera as a reminder of his crimes.

All The Best
Gary
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AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 730
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 1:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Very fair comment, Gary.

As ever I freely admit that I am often out-of-date where these matters are concerned, and the book you quote was published the year after I walked off the stage.
That is not an excuse, just a small apology for my lack of present knowledge.
However I do note that the quote you use does say ‘calendars and diaries’, and I do feel that it is the word ‘calendar’ which perhaps skewers the statistics David Lester is using. For I believe it to be very common for such serial killers to make notes of dates associated with their victims but really not so common for such killers to keep what we would term as ‘real’ diaries.
Richard Chase kept a scrap book of newspaper cuttings and other related items connected with his crimes and other crimes in the area, and he did write scrambled ramblings down in this jotter but it wasn’t a diary, and I’m sure quite a few serial killers have done similar.
I honestly don’t believe semi-autobiographical accounts written by serving prisoners count as diaries, they just got a hell of a lot of time on their hands.
As we move from the age of the written diary into the age of the video camera, voice recorders, mobile phones with video and so on I do expect to see a sudden and alarming rise in the use of these modern tools of communication in the recording of such despicable crimes by the criminals who commit them, but again I can’t be sure that what we talk of here are diaries in their true and real sense.
But a valid point, sir, and I stand corrected.

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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 474
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 1:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi AP

I know you feel Chase was a template for JTR and I am surprised to learn he kept records of any kind of his behavior.

I respect your view on Chase and I believe you would find the book by Robert Ressler entitled Whoever Fights Monsters to be a good source on this rather odd young man. Strangely enough for a strange man Chase believed he had been born Jewish and claimed to have been persecuted his whole life by the Nazis because he bore a Star Of David on his forehead. Of course no-one else could see it but he insisted on pointing it out to other people. the Nazis appear to have been connected with the U.F.O s that followed him and who commanded him to kill in order to replenish his supply of blood.

I believe that if JTR was this delusional he would have been brought to the attention of the authorities and captured eventually.

All The Best
Gary
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AP Wolf
Chief Inspector
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 733
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 2:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Again I can’t argue with your post, Gary, but just because I’m a bloody-minded old fool I will.
My point being that Chase did evade capture for a very long time when one considers what a high profile killer he was… dare I mention the bright orange fluorescent jacket that it was his habit to wear during his crime spree, and the fact that he was continually covered in blood and taking pot-shots at people with his gun; actually arriving in such a condition to buy rabbits and puppies from people, and not one of them mentioned this to the police who were actively hunting him.
Chase had been in continuous contact with the authorities for most of his adult life, the police, the medical services, institutions and the judicial system, but somehow he slipped through the net and was allowed to prosper his obvious illness until it broke out and innocent people died as a result.
The net was pretty big in his age, but in Jack’s age it was in its infancy, so I could see an obvious lunatic like Chase being free to walk the streets of Whitechapel in much the same manner - but with less interference - as Chase did so many years later in Sacramento when the net should have caught him, but it did not.
If Chase hadn’t killed people I suppose I would find his delusions quite funny, much like old Elvis’ s really.
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Erin Sigler
Inspector
Username: Rapunzel676

Post Number: 187
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 2:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Indeed he did, A.P., and one wonders why he wasn't apprehended after the first murder if his behavior was as "out there" as it appears to have been. There are plenty of lunatics wandering around most towns; who really takes much notice of them? Chase was apprehended partly because a former high school classmate happened to encounter him bloody and disoriented in a supermarket parking lot and was shocked by both his disheveled appearance and bizarre behavior. I suppose if you'd asked most people in the neighborhood about him Chase would have been dismissed as the "local wacko" or something to that effect--strange but harmless. It was someone who had actually known him in his previous "life" that sounded the alarm, not one of the people he encountered every day.

A.P., I would highly recommend you check out Ressler's book for a very informative and revealing look at one of the few known examples of a disorganized killer. Ed Gein is another. John Douglas devotes a few paragraphs to Gein in his Obsession, and Harold Schechter has written an entire book (Deviant) on Gein's strange life and crimes.
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 476
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 3:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi AP

It would seem to me that in Jacks day a man such as Chase would have been the first suspect the police would have brought in for questioning. The belief, as I understand it, was that an obvious lunatic was at work and that that was who the police had their sights set on. Recall that any man who was stopped on suspicion was allowed to go if he could provide a reasonable account, whatever that means, of himself. Anyone displaying obvious signs of lunacy came under much greater suspicion. I would posit that the reason the Ripper was not caught was that, like most serial killers, he presented a normal facade to the police. Only upon digging deeper does the abnormal nature of the serial killer become apparent.

I can't explain why people chose to ignore Chase and his obvious and overt lunacy. I would say however that Chase is much more the exception rather than the rule. As I recall Chase was active in the mid to late seventies when we were not as tuned into the phenomena of the serial killer as we are today.

As for crazy Eddy Gein, he liked to murder his victims, skim them and run about his property in the moonlight dressed in the skins of his victims. If I remember correctly he was caught when a woman went missing and a headless female corpse was found hanging in his garage dressed out like a hunter would dress a deer.

He also liked to stick sewing needles and other larger sharp objects into his torso. He managed to find a wife who came along with a female child. The child saw Gein sticking needles into his body while flagellating himself with a paddle. When the child reported the sighting to her mother the older woman explained that perhaps we are countrified and don't know the ways of city folk as yet.

I guess the point is that the those who do behave in a truly abnormal fashion do wind up getting caught sooner or later. It may be that JTRs ability to present a normal facade was the reason he was never captured.

All The Best
Gary
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw

Post Number: 477
Registered: 5-2003
Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2004 - 3:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

P.S. I forgot to mention that I have never seen Silence Of The Lambs because I don't believe a work of fiction could properly portray crazy Eddie Gein in all his glory.

I'm off now as I'm due for a good paddling.

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