So if the trial were in the US and you were a juror, and his lawyer did a good job you might have reasonable doubt. And if the prosecution were pushing for murder you might find him innocent. He could still be found guilty on some lesser charges – whatever the law is over corpse mutilation and concealing evidence – but he’d walk on the big charge.
You are all giving this guy a LOT of benefit of the doubt. I am guessing this guy is a psychopath and has been murdering people like this for a decade and getting away with it. This has a lot of earmarks of someone with practice doing it, but getting sloppy from arrogance.
My favorite (well, “favorite”) theory: journalist was actually following up on a hunch she had about his murderous past, got too close to the truth, and he killed her to keep it all quiet.
No. if you read the rest of my post I say that that scenario is no longer plausible.
Jesus, this is in the middle of the ocean right? So the guy pulls a Dexter and they actually find the bag? That is incredible.
So, on a particular episode of Forensic Files quite a few years ago, I head a detective talk about how periods of very high adrenaline, extreme anxiety and life or death, the effects on the mind are that of narrowing of situational awareness. It is why so many murderers miss one, two, or even a dozen items when committing a crime, some being completely obvious. They do the same thing to a smaller degree when faced with questions from authority, typically in interviews. The detective jokingly called it the, “full tilt boogie,” and his meaning was when you’re so hyped up that you kill someone, your body is going so fast it can’t slow down to check the details. When you later recount that scene, you fill in blanks with intentional or unintentionally false information.
It was actually in Øresund, a fairly narrow strait between Sweden and Denmark. It’s approximately as big as the San Fransisco bay.
That’s still huge. There has to be a ton of crap on the ocean floor there.
Yeah, I don’t mean to downplay the achievement of finding the bag, but it’s arguably easier than the middle of the ocean. I think they had a pretty good idea of the path the sub travelled as well.
Maybe it was super close to where he scuttled the sub.
Or come to think of it, not far off from where the rest of her body washed ashore. Basically a path from what they knew of the subs movement to where her body washed up.
Okay, this is weird to me. It seems like there would be more made of this if these were videos of crimes he’d committed. That’s, like, whole separate headlines level of new information! However, it’s my understanding that snuff films are an urban legend, so how does he supposedly have videos of women being executed?
Which leads to a third possibility that maybe they’re just horror movies? Which makes that statement misleading because it sounds like they’ve videos of actual events. Creepy stuff whatever the case, but I can’t suss out what’s being described there.
-Tom
Good questions. I too thought snuff films were urban legend, but maybe they’re real? I don’t know. Just having them would be a crime wouldn’t it?
Haven’t public executions by terrorists or whoever been filmed?
Eww, now you made it gross(er). But good point. I wonder if that’s what it is.
-Tom
Plenty of countries (and non-state actors) execute plenty of women in plenty of horrible ways, in public.
That’s the quote from the movie but it is false unless I guess you’re only counting films sold as published art, not grotesque bits of true crime.
Not long ago, in fact, there were pics and a video leaked of a killing, though not sold per-se as a film. So at that point, where do you define snuff vs just a video of a killing?
I’m not going to click on those links, since I’m pretty squeamish about this stuff, but the whole issue of snuff films being an urban legends doesn’t mean no one has ever videotaped a murder. It just means there’s no market for trafficking in this stuff.
-Tom
Oops, sorry Tom. I linked to the news articles, not the actual content. I should have stated that.
A working definition for “snuff film” is a video where death would have been delayed or averted if the camera had suddenly malfunctioned. AFAIK those don’t exist.
But there are lots of videos of people being killed, who would have been killed even without video documentation. And most likely there is some market for them.
Ah, okay, I should have assumed as much. Ironically, I love silly horror movies, and I have no compunction about movie violence, but even a hint of someone getting hurt in real life gets to me on a gut level.
You’re right that it’s a much murkier situation with social media and the internet. And, of course, public executions. But I’m thinking more along the lines of that old trope about cabals of rich white men gathering to watch staged killings of hapless young women. That’s an urban legend. The idea that murders are committed specifically in the service of making videos to sell to people. Joe Lansdale wrote a short story called Night They Missed The Horror Show. On a dare, I believe. It’s really grim stuff and it plays on the whole idea of snuff films that I’m talking about. That never existed.
-Tom