A Short Essay on Killing

There seems to be a massive overload of stories concerning death, destruction, and doom today. Every item seems to be laden with reminders of mortality; the prosecution making their closing speech in the Jill Dando case, the parole hearing of Robert Thompson, the start of an enquiry into Dr. Harold Shipman and his undoubtedly many victims, and the extradition of the bastard who murdered Caroline Dickinson in France 5 years ago. The list seems endless doesn't it? And me being me, it just wouldn't be polite to not pick over the bones (if you'll pardon the expression) of this morbid cluster of soggy horror.

The Jill Dando case is taking up a huge amount of column inches in the media at the moment, and by heaven it holds all the interest and fascination of a damp horsefart. As far as I can gather, the whole matter seems to be revolving around the discovery of a quarter of a particle of gunpowder residing on the clothing of the accused, Barry George (a.k.a. Bulsara). That and the fact that he's a bit of a sad and lonely man who lives his life through the life of celebrities (in other words, he almost certainly had a subscription to Hello! magazine...). Throughout the trial we've also been informed of a number of other possible assassins, ranging from Serbs sent by Arkan (a now deceased warlord) to the criminal underworld (who were presumably sick of Crimewatch UK and couldn't get to Nick Ross).

Unfortunately, no one in the country gives a shit about whether he did it or not. Seeing as how we have the collective attention span of an elderly and rather arthritic care home resident, Jill Dando is old news. We have a whole range of other unpleasant events to distract us now. And besides, it's not as if she was an A list celebrity. We've got plenty of mid 30's blonde female presenters with little or no personality to speak of, so losing one isn't exactly a major televisual tragedy. By the same token, the trial of her supposed murderer is not a major event by any means. Who among you has genuinely missed her from your TV screen? No-one; not whilst we've got vapid Carol Smiley to fill the role anyway...Of course the murder of anyone is a tragic thing, but the media seem to failed to have noticed that, with the exception of the over 60's, the trial of her murderer is no more meritorious and newsworthy than the trial of a murderer of a local man or woman. Oh how cruel and fickle celebrity can be...

As I've already went on about the Bulger killers at some length previously, I shall try and be brief concerning Robert Thompson's parole hearing. Needless to say there are protests the length and breadth of the land, some fully understandable (Jamie Bulger's mother has appealed for anyone who comes into contact with the 2 boys once released to make their identities public), others less so (mass protests outside parole board offices).
Due to the nature of the original crime, these latter set of do-gooders really do serve to cause me the same level of irritation as an unwiped smear of shit around one's ringpiece. If you'll recall, Jamie was led to his death from a crowded shopping mall and led through the streets of Liverpool. He was crying according to those who saw him, and was visibly distressed and upset.

Where the fuck were all of these placard-bearing do-gooders when Jamie was being dragged to his early grave? We have any amount of people screaming for so called justice now, why didn't they want to get involved then? Probably because they don't want to admit to the fact that a society so messed up that bystanders will casually allow this sort of thing to happen may just have a few serious problems, and it's much easier to assuage collective guilt by demonising the killers and venting hatred (either for them or for themselves) in a noisy and public manner. Maybe they just don't want to admit that we're all as much to blame for failing James (and the countless other victims of abuse) as those who commit the crimes themselves by continually being bystanders and turning a blind eye.

One could make a link between the public turning a blind eye and the damage it causes, and a professional body not being sufficiently responsible for monitoring it's members. Certainly, that is one of the factors involved in allowing Dr. Harold Shipman to top the league for all-time UK serial killers. Because of the amount of self-regulation within the British Medical Association where GP's are concerned, a psychopath such as Shipman was allowed to kill as he desired (and he desired a lot if the figures concerning his final tally are accurate; numbers in the mid 300's are being bandied about as conservative estimates).

But the point is, he is a psychopath and one cannot expect to be able to regulate for people such as him. Although his case has demonstrated that GP regulations do need tightening, I hope that this will not be taken as a reason to introduce mountains of red tape and paperwork in the name of ensuring that a one off situation is guarded against in the future. The phrase "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" is a one that springs to mind...

And finally we have the extradition of a Mr. Francisco Arce Montes from Miami to France in order to face trial for the rape and murder of Caroline Dickinson, a schoolgirl who met her awful fate whilst on a school trip to Brittany. It would appear that Montes, a Spaniard, is a prolific and worldwide pervert, thought to be responsible for a string of rapes in Swansea, the murder in France, and sex crimes in the USA. I find it frightening that one man can go on a worldwide orgy of rape and murder and entirely escape detection for so long. It was only coincidence that he was even caught (a US immigration officer recognised his name in an immigration service bulletin; he only recognised the name because he had been on holiday in Britain and had seen Montes' name in a newspaper as a possible suspect).

The fact that law enforcement is still almost wholly limited to nation states allows such a thing to happen. In America, a gentleman named Henry Lee Lucas took advantage of the fact that individual states in the US did not compare or swap records of unsolved crimes. Had they done so they would have found that a number of unsolved crimes in their various states fit into the same pattern. Lucas killed over 30 before he was caught, and the US authorities learned their lesson and co-operation has markedly increased between police in different states. That was in just one (albeit a large) country. The worldwide potential for murder and mayhem by one reasonably cunning man or woman is, I would suggest, even more worrying. But still the police of each individual country will regard one another with suspicion and contempt, and more people like Montes will continue to kill and rape undetected. I think we owe ourselves more than to allow this.

So then, 4 different murders and 4 different problems with society in each individual case. It would seem that be it apathy at the trial of a murderer, people doing nothing to help because "they don't want to get involved", professional incompetence, or failure of organisations to co-operate, we as a whole are not actually doing very much to safeguard against the horror of finding out that your friend, your husband or wife, your parents etc. has been cruelly taken from us. Though it is the murderer who does the deed, to a certain extent it is us who allow it to happen.