Serial Murder

Modern Scientific Perspectives

Elliott Leyton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138716957
• eBook ISBN: 9781351767996
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Teoría y práctica del derecho

This title was first published in 2000:  Few areas of criminal activity have sustained such widely held attention as serial murder. This volume charts the complete progress of academic work in this field, detailing the development from the early domination of psychiatric enquiries to the later proliferation of criminal justice studies into the darkest of human behaviours.

Part I
Cultural Overview

[1]
Herostratus

by Jean-Paul Sartre

PEOPLE should be seen from above. I used to put out the light and stand at the window: they didn’t even suspect that they could be observed from on top. They take pains with the front, sometimes with the rear, but all their effects are designed for an audience five feet eight. Who ever thought about the shape of a bowler hat seen from the sixth floor ? They fail to protect their shoulders and their skulls with bright colors and gaudy materials, they don’t know how to combat that great enemy of the Human: the downward perspective. I would lean out, and begin to laugh: where was their famous “upright carriage” that they were so proud of: they were squashed against the sidewalk and two long half-crawling legs came out from under their shoulders.

A sixth floor balcony: that’s where I should have spent my whole life. Moral advantages have to be bolstered up with material symbols, or they collapse. Now what is, precisely, my advantage over people ? An advantage of position, nothing else: I have raised myself above the human element in me, and I contemplate it. It’s why I used to love the towers of Notre-Dame, the platforms of the Eiffel Tower, Sacré-Coeur, my sixth floor place on the Rue Delambre. They are fine symbols.

Sometimes I had to go down into the streets. To go to the office, for instance. I was smothered. When you are on a level with people it is much harder to think of them as ants: they touch. Once I saw a dead man in the street. They turned him over, he was bleeding. I saw his eyes open and his crooked look and all that blood. I said to myself: “It's nothing, it’s no more moving than a fresh picture. They have daubed his nose with red, that’s all.” But I felt a nasty softness coming over my legs and the back of my neck, I fainted. They took me into a drugstore, clapped me on the shoulders and made me drink alcohol. I could have killed them.

I knew they were my enemies but they didn’t know. They were full of mutual love, they pressed against one another; they would have liked to give me a punch here and there too, because they thought I was their fellow-being. But if they had been able to guess the tiniest particle of the truth they would have beaten me. As, later, they did. When they had got hold of me and knew who I was, they let me have it, they played on me for two hours, in the police station, slapped me and struck me, twisted my arms, tore off my trousers, and to finish off they threw my glasses on the ground and while I looked for them on all fours they kicked me from behind, laughing. I always knew they would end up by beating me: ] am not strong and I can’t defend myself. Some of them had been lying in wait for me for a long time: the big ones. They jostled me in the street, for a laugh, just to see what I would do. I said nothing. I pretended not to understand. And still they got me. I was afraid of them: it was a presentiment. But naturally there were more serious reasons for my hate.

From that point of view, everything went much better irom the day when I bought a revolver. It makes you feel strong to carry so diligently on your person one of those things that can explode and make noise. I used to take it on Sundays, simply put it in my trousers pocket and go for a walk— usually on the Boulevards. I would feel it pulling at my trousers like a crab, I felt the cold of it against my thigh. But gradually it got warm from rubbing my body. I slipped my liand into my pocket and I felt the thing. Once in a while I went into a urinal—even there I was careful because one often has neighbors—I took out my revolver, weighed it, looked at its black checkered butt and its black trigger like a half closed eyelid. The others, the ones outside who saw my spread legs and the bottoms of my trousers, thought I was urinating. But I never do that in urinals.

One evening it occurred to me to fire at people. It was a Saturday night, I had gone out to look for Lea, a blonde who keeps watch in front of a hotel on the Rue Montparnasse. I have never had intimate relations with a woman: I would have felt robbed. I ask nothing from anyone, but I don’t want to give anything either. Or else I would have needed a cold and pious woman who would have submitted to me with disgust. The first Saturday of every month I went with Lea to a room in the Hotel Duquesne. She undressed and 1 watched without touching her: sometimes I had time to get home for the effect. That evening I didn’t find her at her post. I waited a minute, and as she didn’t show up I gathered she must have the grippe. It was the beginning of January and very cold. I was broken-hearted: I have imagination, and I had worked up a vivid picture of the pleasure I meant to get from that evening. There was still of course, in the Rue d’Odessa, the dark-haired one that I had often noticed, somewhat past her prime but firm and plump: I don’t mind aging women: with their clothes off they look more naked than the others. But she wasn’t up on my conventions, and I was a little shy of exposing that to her out of the blue. And then I distrust new acquaintances: that sort of woman is quite capable of hiding a ruffian behind the door, and when it’s over the guy jumps out and takes your money. Lucky if he doesn’t beat you up. Nevertheless, I felt peculiarly bold that evening, I decided to go back to my place for the revolver and try my luck.

When I went up to the woman, a quarter of an hour later, the weapon was in my pocket and I was over my fear. From close to me she seemed more wretched than anything else. She looked like my neighbor across the way, the adjutant’s wife, and I was glad because for a long time I had wanted to see that one stripped. She used to dress with the window open, when the adjutant was out, and I often stood behind my curtain to catch her. But she dressed at the other end of the room.

There was only one room left in the Hotel Stella, on the fourth floor. We went up. The woman was rather heavy and kept stopping to' puff. I was perfectly at ease: I have a hard body, in spite of my stomach, and it takes more than four flights to put me out of breath. On the landing of the fourth floor she stopped, breathing very hard, and put her right hand on her heart. In her left hand she held the key of the room.

“It’s a long way up,” she said with an attempt to smile. I took the key from her without answering and opened the door. I had the revolver in my left hand, pointed straight ahead of me through the pocket, and I didn’t let go of it until I had turned the switch. The room was empty. On the washstand they had put a little cake of green soap. I smiled: in my case bidets and little cakes of soap are aside from the point. The woman was still puffing behind me, and that excited me. I turned around; she stretched her lips toward me. I pushed her away.

“Take off your clothes,” I said.

I sat down comfortably in an upholstered chair. Those are the times when I’m sorry I don’t smoke. The woman took off her dress and then paused, giving me a suspicious look.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, settling back.

“Renée.”

“Well, Renée, hurry up, I’m waiting.”

“You’re not undressing.”

“Go on, go on,” I said, “don’t worry about me.”

She let her pants fall to her feet, then picked them up and laid them carefully on her dress with her brassiere.

“O, monkey business. Lazy, are you, honey?” she asked me.

At the same time she took a step toward me and leaning on the arm of my chair she tried clumsily to caress me, but I pushed her rudely away.

“None of that,” I said.

She looked at me, surprised.

“But what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. Walk, just walk up and down, that’s all.”

She began to walk around, awkwardly. Nothing annoys women more than walking naked. They are not used to putting their heels down flat. The tart arched her back and jet her arms hang. I was in heaven: there I was, seated quietly in an arm-chair, dressed to the neck, I had even kept on my gloves, and this full-blown lady was naked at my command and pivoting around me.

She turned her head toward me, and to keep up appearances, smiled coyly:

“Do you like my looks? Getting an eyeful?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“Listen,” she said in sudden indignation, “do you expect me to keep walking like this much longer?”

“Sit down.”

She sat down on the bed and we looked at each other silently. She had the flesh of a whore. The clatter of an alarm clock came from the other side of the wall. Suddenly I began to laugh until the tears came to my eyes. I said to her simply: “Do you realize?”

And I burst out laughing again.

She looked at me in amazement and then blushed violently. “Pig,” she said with her teeth clenched.

But I laughed even harder, and she jumped up and took her brassiere from the chair.

“Hey,” I said, “it’s not over. I’ll give you fifty francs later, but I want my money’s worth.”

She picked up her pants nervously.

“I’m tired of this, see? I don’t know what you want. And if you got me up here to make fun of me…”

Then I took out my revolver and showed it to her. She gave me a serious look and dropped her pants without a word.

“Move,” I said. “Walk around.”

She walked five more minutes. Then I had her perform with my cane. At last I got up and offered her a fifty franc note. She took it.

“Goodbye,” I added, “I haven’t tired you much for the price.”

I went out, leaving her naked in the middle of the room, her brassiere in one hand and the fifty franc note in the other. I didn’t regret the money: I had bewildered her, and it’s not so easy to startle a whore. I thought on my way downstairs: “That’s what I’d like, to startle them all.” I was as happy as a child. I had carried off the green soap and when I got home I rubbed it a long time under the hot water until it was only a slim pellet between my fingers, like a mint candy that had been sucked a long time.

But in the night I woke with a start and I saw her face, the eyes she made when I showed her my weapon, and her fat stomach jumping at every step. “What a fool I was,” I said to myself. And I felt bitter remorse: I should have shot while I was there, punctured that stomach like a cullender. That night and for three nights following I dreamed of six little red holes grouped in a circle around the navel.

After that I never went out without my revolver. I watched peoples’ backs and imagined, from the way they walked, how they would fall if I opened up on them. Sundays I took to going and standing outside the Chatelet at the close of the classical concerts. Around six o’clock I heard bells ringing and then the ushers came to hook back the glass doors. It was the beginning: the crowd came out slowly; people walked with a flowing step, eyes still dreamy, heart still full of gentle feelings. Many looked around with astonishment: the street must have seemed to them all blue. Then they smiled mysteriously: they were passing from one world to another. I was waiting for them in the other. I had slipped my right hand in my pocket and I was pressing the butt of my weapon with all my strength. After a minute I saw myself shooting at them. I toppled them over like pipes, they fell on top of each other and the survivors, panic-stricken, streamed back into the theatre breaking the panes of the doors. It was a very nerve-wracking game: my fingers trembled at the end and I had to go and drink a cognac at Dreher’s to recuperate.

I wouldn’t have killed the women. I would have shot at their loins. Or at their calves, to make them dance.

I had not yet come to any decision. But I determined to act as if it were all decided. I began by settling incidental details. I went to practice in a shooting gallery, at the fair at Denfert-Rochereau. I didn’t do any too well, but people offer a big target, especially at point-blank. Then I took care of the publicity. I chose a day when all my colleagues were together at the office. A Monday morning. I was very friendly with them, on principle, even though I couldn’t bear to shake their hands. They took off their gloves to say goodmorning, they had an obscene way of undressing their hand, pulling the glove down and letting it slip slowly the length of their fingers, exposing the fat and crumpled nakedness of the palm. I always kept my gloves on.

Nothing much happens Monday morning. The stenographer from the wholesale house had just brought us the receipts. Lemercier joked pleasantly with her and when she had left they had a bored and proficient discussion of her charms. Then they talked about Lindbergh. They were, very fond of Lindbergh. I said:

“What I like is black heroes.”

“Negroes?” Massé asked.

“No, black, the way you say Black Magic. Lindbergh is a white hero. He doesn’t interest me.”

“If you think it’s easy to cross the Atlantic,” Bouxin said sourly.

I explained to them my conception of the black hero.

“An anarchist,” Lemercier concluded.

“No,” I said softly, “anarchists love people in their way.”

“Then you mean a madman.”

But Massé who had done some reading interrupted at that point:

“I know your man,” he said to me. “ His name was Herostratus. He wanted to be famous, and all he could think of was to burn the Temple of Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world.”

“And what was the name of the architect of that temple?”

“I don’t remember,” he admitted. “I don’t believe his name is even known.”

“Really? And you remember the name of Herostratus? You see his figuring was pretty good.”

The conversation ended there, but my mind was at peace: they would remember when the time came. For me, who had never before heard of Herostratus, the story was heartening. He had been dead for over two thousand years, and his act was still shining, like a black diamond. I began to believe that my fate would be short and tragic. It frightened me at first but I got used to it. If you take it in a certain way it is ghastly, but from another angle it gives the passing moment considerable strength and beauty. When I went down into the street again I felt a strange power in my body. I had my revolver on me, that thing that bursts and makes a noise. But my assurance was now derived not from that but from myself: I was a being made of the stuff of revolvers, explosives and bombs. I too, some day, at the end of my gloomy life, I would explode and light up the world with a brief and violent flame like a magnesium flare. During that period I had the same dream several nights. I was an anarchist, I had planted myself on the Czar’s route with a grenade. At the appointed time the procession passed, the bomb exploded, and we popped into the air, I, the Czar and three officers bedecked with gold, before the eyes of the crowd.

I let whole weeks go by now without showing myself at the office. I took walks on the boulevards, in the midst of my future victims, or else I shut myself up in my room and made plans. I was fired at the beginning of October. After that I spent my time draughting the following letter, of which I made a hundred and two copies:

“Dear...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Series Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Cultural Overview
• Part II Origins of the Impulse
• Part III Crim Inological Analysis
• Part IV Psychiatric Diagnosis and The Law
• Part V Psychological Perspectives
• Part VI Gender Issues
• Part VII Policing Concerns
• Name Index