By Beauty Damned

Psycho Killer Qu'est Que C'est

This is my favorite headline so far today: To Psychopathic Murderers, Violence Is Not So Bad. Hmm, yes, I guess that's why they ENJOY killing people...

So it looks like dude in Baton Rouge is going to da bigga housa for a very longa timea. He was a regular churchlady, according to those who "knew" him. You know, it really amazes me that, despite the fact that almost every killer who has ever been caught didn't "seem like the type to do it," people continue to repeat that phrase ad nauseum. I remember when my mom said that about O.J. Simpson and I shit a brick. I never for a second thought my mother was even remotely naive, until just then. Not to mention that my mother is passionately vocal about violence towards women and men who oppress...go figure, she asserts his innocence - perhaps just to see me get heated.

Was it George Carlin who said: "I'm so sick of hearing people say 'it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for...it's the quiet ones...well while you're watching out for the quiet ones some noisy fucker comes from behind and fucking kills you!" Well, regardless of whether or not you need to "watch out for the quiet ones" I think it's patently naive for people to still stand around scratching their heads wondering how such a "normal" person could be a psychopathic murderer.

You know what I love about psycho killers? They are so interesting. Even if it makes you sick to learn about, it's a riveting subject and there are an endless supply of them to read about. Know what I hate about them? They're horrible. I will never truly understand the phenomenon, and at the same time, it is and always has been something that we have had to live with. Predators of our same species. It's bizarre. One of the scariest guys ever was Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian man who committed an unbelievable number of murders, cannibalistic, sexual, horrifying acts...he was a true animal. The only funny thing about it was that the Russian government was in complete denial, claiming that serial murder was a western phenomenon and that such a thing did not occur in Russia. For this reason and a number of others, despite having several opportunities to capture Chikatilo, the authorities overlooked him and he continued to kill freely.

When I was a little girl living in Los Angeles student housing on Sawtelle Blvd., The Nightstalker, Richard Ramirez, was on his insane killing spree in our neck of the woods. I will never forget the fear that struck everyone, including me. The way that my already "overprotective" (as I perceived it) mother would never take her eyes off me, not even for a second and how she was religious about making sure the door was locked AT ALL TIMES. I remember going asleep at night and being afraid that the nightstalker would come for us. The scariest thing about him was that he had no real criteria for his victims. He would kill anyone and he would do it with relish. Now that was a guy nobody said "he didn't seem like the type to do it" because he was uglier than sin, dissheveled and smelly and just all around a repulsive person. The relief was huge when he was captured.

Serial murder is definately NOT a western phenomenon. It is a human phenomenon that cannot truly be explained except to say that this is a part of our nature, our existence on this earth as human beings. It is inevitable. I don't know why. It just is. I guess it is because we are animals, but unlike other animals, we are acutely aware of our existence and pathologically curious about our own individual significance. We have such a strong sense of identity that other animals lack. That in itself makes us prone to all kinds of bizarre behavior, as evidenced by humanity and the very way that we conduct ourselves. Murder is just one more thing that we do. It's terrible, but it's true...like rhyming accidentally...

Posted by Maria at May 29, 2003 11:14 AM | TrackBack