To my mind, as I have followed this situation, the greater crime is (and continues to be) the fact that no one did anything even after the people in the neighborhoods where he found his victims began to see what was happening and asked for help from the authorities. Just because many of the women were sex workers, or lived in poverty, or otherwise were not the "right" kind of people? It broke my heart to read the comments of a shelter employee who had known one of the missing women (who later was identified among the dead); this humanized that woman for me, and made me realize how great an oversight there had been by the police and other authorities in the situation.
In Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the early part of the 20th century or else in the latter 19th, someone was killing people and putting them into trunks which were then found near railroad yards. None of the dead were ever identified, and no killer was ever caught -- even though he sent at least one letter to the police, saying that he was doing it to show that the police ignored a certain segment of society and that these people were basically invisible to higher society. As none of them ever had names on their gravestones... he was quite right.
(And actually some have conjectured who this killer was, a specific individual whose other behavior was known, and have also guessed that he quit killing people in the railyards here because he moved to Los Angeles, and killed the "Black Dahlia." Just a thought. People strive mightily to solve upsetting mysteries, no?)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-14 02:51 am (UTC)In Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the early part of the 20th century or else in the latter 19th, someone was killing people and putting them into trunks which were then found near railroad yards. None of the dead were ever identified, and no killer was ever caught -- even though he sent at least one letter to the police, saying that he was doing it to show that the police ignored a certain segment of society and that these people were basically invisible to higher society. As none of them ever had names on their gravestones... he was quite right.
(And actually some have conjectured who this killer was, a specific individual whose other behavior was known, and have also guessed that he quit killing people in the railyards here because he moved to Los Angeles, and killed the "Black Dahlia." Just a thought. People strive mightily to solve upsetting mysteries, no?)