O poor Mary Bellows

They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed
With a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head
O poor Mary Bellows

It only seems fitting that I begin this new blog with a Nick Cave quote. As the ultimate singer of murder ballads, Nick and his ability to bring out the beauty and the horror and the inevitability of killing epitomize what pulls me to this subject. I am working on a book about murder, about the popularity of murder and the reasons behind it, among other things. Somewhere in my dissertation research I remember stumbling upon a quote by someone that stated people shouldn't be surprised that we have so many murders in our society, but that there are so few.

I've been thinking about this quote, and the implication that human beings need an outlet for violence. While murders have always been a part of society, the rise in crime and its coincidence with the industrial revolution and the resulting leisure time and sedentary lifestyle cannot be ignored. Professor Bonnefis pointed out to me the interesting correlation between the decline of public executions and the increase of aesthetic representations of murder in the form of stories and plays about the guillotine, something that seems to indicate that society needs this outlet, this vicarious living out of a violent fantasy.

On the other side of the coin is the desire to kill in the form of the actual murderer. I recently ran across some audio clips of Ted Bundy talking about various murders he committed. The obvious coldness of the psychopath and his ability to recount his activities as if her were discussing a baseball game -- I did this, I felt this way, I did that, she reacted in this way -- implies that for him, this IS the same as a baseball game. In Bundy's world, the brutality and horror of abducting, torturing and killing strangers is simply the way he deals with his needs and desires. Far from showing evidence of brutal outrage, his voice, demeanor and words reflect a calm mundanity that is chilling.

But what if we move past this chill? Is it possibly to see the act of killing as a necessity for some individuals? And if we can imagine such a scenario, will it change our view of the role of the killer in society? Put another, and slightly frightening, way, in our society, is the killer in some way necessary for our own collective sanity?

In this blog I plan to examine a series of well-known murders, to analyze their crimes in a variety of ways. I will also look at the popularity of murder as tabloid fodder, especially as it concerns unsolved crimes that remain in the public eye for years after their occurence. I will examine the implications of gender in the crime of murder, and the assumptions that are associated with each possible scenario, i.e. male killer/female victim, female killer/male victim, etc.

I want to close with the words of housemaid Christine Papin, who with her sister, Léa, slaughtered their employers one February night in 1933:

When Madame returned home, I let her know that the iron had broken down again and that hadn't been able to finish the ironing. When I told her that, she wanted to attack me...we were at that time, my sister and I and our two mistresses, on the landing of the second floor. Seeing that Mme Lancelin was about to attack me, I jumped towards her face and ripped out her eyes with my fingers. When I say that I jumped on Mme Lancelin, I am mistaken; it was Mademoiselle Lancelin I jumped and her eyes that I ripped out. During this time, my sister Léa jumped on Mme Lancelin and also ripped out her eyes. When we had done this, they were lying or crouching on the floor. Then I went downstairs to the kitchen to find a hammer and a kitchen knife.

Happy reading.