Jill Dando

Jill Dando, the well known and loved television presenter Jill Dando was murdered on her own doorstep. "Jill became known as the 'Golden Gorl of Television' due to her blonde hair and good looks." (Press 147) She presented news and was popular among both men and women. Many men were attracted by her good looks while women respected her for her achievements, grace, and beauty. After her death on April 26, 1999, the murderer and the cause for the murder were not found. One of the theories was that an obsessive fan killed her. This leads me to my connection with that of a mind of a killer. Clearly, Jill Dando was an easy target since she was beautfiul, recently engaged, in the eye of the public, and desirable in every sense. Being that, it was simple for her to be the target of an over obsessive fan or person who could not deal with her engagement; in general commitment to another. Obession over something or someone like in many of the previous blogs i have posted have lead to an extreme action. Such as in "A Tale of Two Sisters", Leone had become completely obsessed with Emile, and after neglecting her she had been driven to the extreme and killed him. I see a similar pattern in the case of Jill Dando and the case of "A Tale of Two Sisters" where obsession got the best of a person and resulted in murder.

The Deadly Aperitif

On the morning of Friday, August 1973, Renata, the wife of Tranquillo Allevi received a bottle of aperitif by a well known Italian liquor manufacturer along with an invitation to represent new sales campaign. It was addressed to her husband. Since Allevi was a prosperous dairy farmer, it was not uncommon for him to receive such invitations. When Allevi received the bottle from his wife, he placed it in the refrigerator at his office. One day, after dinner with Renata, he went to his office along with a salesman and another friend to clear up some business. The three rejoiced and indulged themselves with the chilled appetizer that awaited them in the refrigerator. As the other two gentlemen took sips of the beverage, and Allevi quickly finished his drink, “…Allevi crumpled to the floor. He was racked with spasms and gasping for breath.” (Press 254) Allevi died soon after, and his friends survived. All fingers pointed to Renata who was said to have lovers and admirers outside of her marriage. Suspected was a veterinary surgeon called Dr. Renzo Ferrari. Police discovered those 6 days previous to the incident, Ferrari had purchased 6 grams of strychnine.
According to wikipedia.com, strychnine is: a very toxic colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion.
After proving that Ferari used a typewriter accesible to him in the town hall to write a false invitation and send it to Allevi. It was quite evident that Ferrari had poisioned Ferrari with the paraphanielia that was accesible to him. “The poision, according to the prosecution, had been inserted by syringe through the vork of the intact bottle. And the final, damning evidence was supplied by a represnetative of the drinks firm. He stated that although no bottle had been sent from the company to Mr. Allevi, one had been dispatched-with an invitation-to Dr. Renzo Ferrari.” (Press 256)

Oh, God, I am Not Guilty!

Percy and Edith Thompson married in February 1915; everyone believed they were the picture perfect couple. Frederick Bywaters, a young lad met the couple at an August Bank Holiday on the Isle of Wight. There, Edith and Bywaters became mutually attracted to one another, and Percy grew suspicious. Bywaters suggested a divorce between Percy and Edith, but Percy refused to grant it. Since Bywaters was in the S.S. Morea, he was only in England between voyages. During their separation, Edith would write him love letters. In the 62 love letters mailed to Bywaters Edith mentioned how she put poison or ground glass in his food. Edith also sent her lover snippets of cases concerning death by poisoning. On the afternoon of October 3, Bywaters and Edith had a meeting in a London teashop. Afterwards, Edith went to the theatre with her husband when Bywaters suddenly sprung out. There was a quarrel between Bywaters and Percy and finally, Bywaters stabbed Percy eventually leading to his death. Edith, happier to see Bywaters then pained by her husband’s death did not tame the killer but eventually Bywaters did fall under suspicion. “Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters was charged with murder and Edith Jessie Thompson with incitement of the crime.” (Press 250) At this point, we see that even though the killer, Bywaters acted alone, Edith Thompson was also accounted for the murder. She instigated the crime and convinced Bywaters to aid in her attempt to kill Percy. Unfortunately for Edith, she was sentenced to death along with Bywaters and was said to have last stated, “Oh, God, I am Not Guilty!” (Press 253)

The Headless Wife Case

Michael Telling, a 34 year old man who was part of the vastly rich Vestey family was indulged in millions of dollars worth of money. Growing up from a miserable childhood, Telling was emotionally disturbed. He was constantly bullied at school mercilessly. He was twice expelled from school and “only nine years old he was drinking sherry and smoking heavily. He kept carving knives in his room and once threatened his mother with a blade.” (Press 212) Entering his adult life in such a manner, Telling married Monika Zumsteg. Monika claimed several times that she had no intention of making a life with her husband, but only wanted his money. In other words, she was a gold digger only looking to only pilfer from the wealth he acquired from the Vestey family. After much disrespect, abuse, and failure of a relationship with Telling, the relationship was bound to explode and terminate. After Monika continuously taunted Telling to no extent, Telling picked up picked up a Marlin 30-30 hunting rifle and shot her. He left the body in a summer house where it remained for 5 months. Telling would tell others that he believed she moved back to America. Telling even hired private detectives to look for her, posing as completely innocent to his crime, “In September 1983, Telling hired a van and drove to Devon with the body. On Telegraph Hill outside Exeter he cut off Monika’s head with an axe. He dumped the headless body there but could not bear to part with the head itself. Instead, he brought it home and hid it in the locked boot of his Mini in the garage. It was kept there wrapped in plastic.” (Press 215) The headless body was discovered a few days later and detectives discovered it belonged to Monika Zumsteg.
Like many others, Telling did what most criminals do today; conceal the crime.
Telling used Monika’s credit card and continuously used it to give the impression that she was still alive and using it to make purchases. Telling also hired private detectives to give the impression that he truly did not know what occurred with his wife and was in desperate need of finding her. He told people he was going camping when in reality he was traveling to Devon to dump the body. He decapitated Monika and kept her head in his house not for remembrance like he claimed, but to avoid identification of the corpse.
The mind of this killer was completely sane, Telling knew what he was doing and the actions he was taking. His plan was to hide any suspicions of his doing the crime, but in the end, he was arrested and found guilty.

A Tale of Two Sisters

The title of my blog pertains to both sisters even though one sister, Gerogette, was barely effected by the corruption of the Bouvier family while the other, Leone, was effected greatly.

Leone Bouvier, a young French girl dealt with the corruption of her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s irresponsibility and lack of heart. Aside she was her sister Georgette who luckily managed to escape to a covenant at Angers, becoming a disciplined nun. As Leone was left alone to tend to her family, she dealt with her mother showing no gratitude towards her. She was rejected by all those around her; in response, Leone looked for love elsewhere in particular towards men.
As Leon directed her attention towards men, she fell in love with a 22-year-old garage mechanic, Emile-Clenet. As they convened on a weekly basis (every Sunday) Leon learned to love Emile and appreciate the attention he gave her which she so lacked from her childhood. As time progressed and Leon discovered that Emile’s “so called love” for her was more of a false emotion she became restless and distraught. “Emile could be cruel, too. Once, snapped by a street photographer, the couple went to pick up the picture. Emile took one look and said he didn’t want it. When Leone asked why, he said: “Just look at that face and you’ll understand.” She hurried off to cry alone…It took her all night to cycle the 30-odd miles to Nantes where Emile worked. But when she got there in the morning, Emile was annoyed. Their arrangement was only for Sundays, he said. It was a weekday. She must leave.” (Press 177-178) As Emile began to neglect Leone, she took her anger out by purchasing a .22 automatic pistol and shooting him in the neck after kissing his cheek and saying goodbye.
After reading this, I realized that many characters throughout the novel such as Leone have been driven to commit murder because of people like Emile. After dealing with neglect from her family, she was looking for a person to love her and care for her. After being betrayed by the one person she depended on and made her happy, she was driven to insanity. Leone's betrayl by her loved ones throughout her life led her to murder the one person she loved most.

Pomeroy, the 14 year old Psychopath

Despite the fact that many killers are generally characterized as middle aged men, there are few that defy this stereotype. For example, the story of Jesse Pomeroy, a young 14 year old boy from the Dorchester Bay, Boston area. Pomeroy who was connected to the murder of four year old Horace Millen in April 1874 had been previously reprimanded and sent to a special reform school two years earlier. The question is what exactly drives a young boy like Pomeroy to commit such crimes? According to http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/psychopath/1.html, “These children have a character disturbance. They devalue others and lack a sense of morality... In the research, these children are regarded as "fledgling psychopaths" who will become increasingly more dangerous as they get older. They might not become killers but they will learn how to manipulate, deceive and exploit others for their own gain. It is generally believed that they have failed to develop affectional bonds that allow them to empathize with another's pain. What they have developed are traits of arrogance, dishonesty, narcissism, shamelessness, and callousness… traits like fearlessness, aggressiveness, and sensation seeking, all of which contribute to antisocial behavior...” It is clear that children that lack affectional relationships with people in general not only parents will develop into a world where they don’t love anyone and don’t feel loved at all. The fact that they develop into such an isolated atmosphere plays a significant role in their later actions of killing others and failing to empathize with their pain. As regarded by the article, Pomeroy displayed the characteristics of dishonesty after he “pleaded innocence by way of insanity.”(Press 116) Pomeroy, later admitting to the crimes he committed which he chronicled in an autobiography, denied being conscious of his actions. After pleading innocence he is convicted and sentenced to death Also, he displayed “aggressiveness”, another characteristic of a child “psychopath” in the killings themselves. In the murder of Horace Millen for example, Pomeroy cut Millen’s throat and stabbed him no fewer then 15 times. Five weeks previous he had also killed nine year old Katie Curran who was found buried in the cellar of a shop. Even though the book did not mention any relationship between Pomeroy and his parents, it can be assumed that since he did show signs a child psychopath, he may have been abused by his parents or neglected. In the end, Pomeroy was sentenced to solitary confinement until his was 54 then sentenced to prison till his death on September 29, 1932.

The World's Worst Murders

What type of killers exists in the world we live in today?

In The Worlds Worst Murders by Alva Press, different stories contain varying methods and characters involved in killings. For example, the story the Sadistic Romeo Neville Heath the killer Neville George Clevely Heath, a suave and charming man who roamed the streets of London went on a sadistic streak. In the summer of 1946, his perversion turned him into a lady killer. In May 1946, Heath took advantage of the masochistic tendencies of 32 year old Ocelot Margie. Margie was looking for “men to satisfy her craving for bondage and flagellation.” (Press 54) After this brief meeting between Heath and Ocelot, Heath phoned Ocelot and arranged for another meeting on June 20th. At 6:00 PM the next day, a chambermaid entered Room 4 at the Pembridge Court Hotel where both had selected to meet and discovered a most gruesome scene. “The two single beds were bloodied and disordered. And in one of them lay the lifeless body of Ocelot Margie. She was naked, her ankles bound tightly together with a handkerchief. Her face and chin were bruised, as if someone had used intense force to hold her mouth closed. There were 17 criss-cross slash marks on her face, front and back. Her breasts had been badly bitten. And she had been bleeding profusely from the vagina.” (Press 54) This lady killer used his charm and wit to take advantage of many women, not only Ocelot Margie and kill them with his aggressive and violent manners.

On the other hand, The Heartless Husband Johann Hoch, the story of Johann Otto Hoch who had at least 24 wives in 15 years used another method to kill his victims. Born to the name Johann Schmidt in 1862, Hoch emigrated from Germany at 25 leaving his wife and three children behind. In April 1895, he married a woman from Wheeling, West Virginia using the name Jacob Huff and three months killed her. Unlike Neville Heath who used his charm and good looks to lure women in, Hoch used the desire of marriage. This can be seen when the “diabolical ‘Bluebeard’ even proposed to his sister-in-law over the deathbed of his wife, who was dying from a massive dose of arsenic.”(Press 60) Also we can see that Heath wanted to kill for his own perverted pleasures while Hoch on the other hand wanted to pilfer money from the dead “wives” he killed. Also, Hoch used arsenic to kill his victims which was discovered when the sister of one of his ex-wives had the body exhumed and medical examiners found enough arsenic to kill a dozen women. While Hoch used arsenic to kill his victims, Neville Heath used masochism to murder his women. As the New York Times says, "was hanged in the county jail at 1:34 o'clock this afternoon for poisoning his wife, Marie Welcker Hoch. His last utterance carried the assertion that he was innocent of the crime" and as the novel states, Hoch's last words were "you see, boys, I don't look like a monster, now do I?"(Press 61)

What drives a killer?

As I read through the book Murder in Amsterdam, I realized that the novel was more involved with the history of the Dutch then the actual killer, Mohammed Bouyeri himself. The novel seems to drift off from the topic of the mind of a killer but certain pages did have information of his feelings and actions during the crime.

What motivates a person to kill? What motivate a person to kill are emotions of hate, resentment, fear and greed. The motivation of hatred pertains to the novel Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma. Mohammed Bouyeri, a twenty six year old Moroccan-Dutchman murdered Theo van Gogh in November of 2004. After he violently killed Theo van Gogh, Bouyeri stabbed an “open letter” into his chest with a knife. Bouyeri’s letter was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali born Dutch politician. Ayaan Hirsi Alli and Theo joined to create a film called Submission dramatizing what Hirsi Alli saw as Islamic abuse. “Bouyeri’s letter was addressed to Hirsi Ali, as a heretic who had rebelled against her childhood faith and become a willing tool of “Zionists and crusaders.” She was called a “soldier of evil” who had “turned her back on the Truth.” She was “a liar” who would “smash herself to pieces on Islam.” (Buruma, 5) In this quote from the novel, Bouyeri’s intentions of killing Van Gogh, was out of hate for Hirsi Alli. Hirsi Ali was a Muslim of Africa. In her position, now being considered an ex-Muslim, Bouyeri found it offensive that she would betray her culture. He hated her for depicting the Koran as a source of violent abuse in her movie, Submission. Bouyeri’s hate for Hirsi Ali pushed him to kill Theo van Gogh who aided her spreading the truth is abuse within Islam. Basically, Theo was primary killed because of association. In the end, it was Bouyeris resentment an hate towards Hirsi Alli that motivated him to kill Theo van Gogh