Serial Killing 101

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

So, as we were saying, here, here and here ...

Thank you Rosie. You get it. You really really get it. You wrote the column I would have written.

In distressing ways, it’s The Balcony Rapist all over again, nearly a quarter-century after that repeat offender attacked a string of women in downtown Toronto, 12 years after Jane Doe won her civil suit against Toronto police, with a judge finding the force guilty of negligence and gender discrimination for failure to inform the public about ongoing sexual attacks in a defined area, the victims all of a physical resemblance.

Williams appears to have had no preferred type. He was all over the map in his 82 fetish break-ins in terms of females targeted, from pubescent girls to middle-aged moms.

His creeping was not all over the map geographically, however, the home invasions clustered around a specific Ottawa neighbourhood and the small eastern Ontario town of Tweed.

“Not related” is the disclaimer that appears constantly in comments from police officials following Williams’ arrest last February and the subsequent media sifting of events: They had no reason to believe a link existed between what was happening in communities more than 200 kilometres apart.

But to hear at least some cops tell it, they weren’t even seeing a connection in the serial burglary of underwear in Tweed, a town with a population of less than 6,000. In retrospect, alarm bells should have been blaring. Yet at least one officer characterized the thieving of undergarments as not particularly uncommon, thus not noteworthy.

Unless sleepy Tweed just happens to be Planet Central for underwear-snatching, it should damn well have been apparent that something peculiar and disturbing was going on.

Incidentally, I would like to draw your attention to Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, page 53.

Yes. Well.

H/T to Facebook friend Nadine Lumley who pointed out the book.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE:

But officers investigating the Ottawa and Tweed fetish burglaries also had little reason to assume the two crime sprees were connected, a source close to the investigation told the Star.

I bet that source was real close to the investigation.

“These fetish burglaries are pretty widespread,” the source said. “It’s not that unique a behaviour.”

You know. Just panty raids.

SPEAKING OF WHICH DATE: Rick Barnes has more.

 Did the Police look at these break-ins of underwear as a pranks, or minor because they did not involve something of significance like a big screen TV or a wallet full of cash?

What the person did in the break-ins was intimidate and humiliate the women and girls whose privacy and space he invaded.  He made these girls and women feel very vulnerable and I expect scared.  Some did not report the break-ins because they felt so humiliated.

 

UP YOURS DATE: Nice. Not.

Stephen Harper has spoken. And not a soul has the guts to take him to task. Read this:

"The Canadian Forces are the victim here, [pause] as are the direct victims of these terrible events."

So says Stephen Harper. I didn't insert that "pause" for no reason. On the tape it exists and it suggests, to Harper, that the direct victims of Williams' crimes were secondary to the effect on the Canadian Forces as a whole.

Which shows what Harper knows about the Canadian Forces. And could care less for the actual victims.

Nothing.

Dave has more on this here.

(Via Dammit Janet!)

CLEAN UP DATE: Some weird formatting happened there for a while.. Sorry.

Caught flat-footed

Okay, so killer Russell Williams has had his days in court and has been sent up the river, or down it if he's headed to the Kingston pen, probably forever.

Don't slam the door on your way in.

 
Nothing can bring back his brutally murdered victims, Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd, nor repair the broken families he tore apart.

Tweed sex assault victims Jane Doe, who was a very young mother of a weeks-old infant when Williams attacked her, and Laurie Massicotte will have nightmares forever. It's hard to imagine the trauma they suffered, and will continue to suffer.

Hopefully, the other victims, whose most intimate spaces and places were invaded and violated by Williams can find peace. But I suspect they may be lying in bed right now thinking, there but for the grace of God ...

Which is why, despite how the Ontario Provincial Police thinks it has neatly wrapped up this case, I keep tripping over the loose ends.

I have already covered off the way the media have been handling Williams predilection for photographing himself in little girls' panties. In any case, Elizabeth Pickett and Bina Becker have done a much more thorough job of analyzing that angle. Have a read here, here and here. (Elizabeth also considers military culture in the wake of the trial here.)

So what's left?

How about what strikes me as police ineptitude and insensitivity?

First of all, I highly recommend you take 45 minutes to watch an edition of CBC's the fifth estate from last month. It's available online here. Titled ''Above Suspicion,'' it reveals a lot about Williams' invasions -- dozens of invasions -- of women's homes, bedrooms and drawers (and no, that's not a pun.)

Stick with it and you'll be asking yourself, how could the cops have blown this badly?

At least have a look at the fifth's map here. Notice anything?

Now look at another CBC map as well as a CTV map of the Ottawa neighbourhood where Williams' wife lived. Notice anything?

Like maybe a street map and some coloured pins on an OPP wall would have shown a pattern of invasions with similar characteristics?

  

Why did it take so long for the police to start cooperating?

Don't forget, in the wake of the Bernardo-Homolka case, the Campbell report was stinging in its criticism of how the cops handled the case.

Campbell, who conducted a public inquiry into the Bernardo probe, went on to conclude that there was an "astounding and dangerous lack of co-operation between police forces" and a litany of errors, miscalculations and disputes.

The failure to share information prevented police from identifying Bernardo as the terrorizing "Scarborough rapist," whose victims were spread across several police jurisdictions.

Elizabeth takes a run at the Campbell report and how it relates to this case here.

Every single one of Russell's crimes -- except for Comeau's murder in Brighton -- happened within the OPP's Eastern Region. And, while Belleville has its own police force, and Orleans is served by the Ottawa force, somebody should have put it together.

But it wasn't until Lloyd went missing, and the Belleville police under Chief Cory McMullan got involved, that all the boys started playing together.

It's true that many victims did not report break-ins because they did not know about them or they believed the police would laugh them off. After all, it's just another panty raid?

The very fact that some victims hesitated speaks to how women fear that their complains will be discounted.

And no wonder:

There’s a troubling number missing from the latest report from Statistics Canada on criminal victimization. I went looking for the figure because it was there in the last version of the report, in 2004 – it showed that just 8% of all sexual assaults in 2004 were reported to police, a puny 42,000 assaults reported among the total of 512,000 committed. Expressed another way, less than 1 out of every 10 sexual assaults committed was reported to police. It is a pitiful and shameful statistic, a reflection of the fact that despite decades of progress in dealing with sexual abuse and exploitation, authorities have done little to make the process of reporting abuse and confronting abusers less frightening and intimidating. The vast majority of victims still suffer in silence. Statistics Canada refuses to release the figure for 2009. What if things are getting worse? What if they are getting much worse? I’ve produced a disturbing statistic that suggests, if the number is valid, that far fewer sexual assault victims are reporting to police.

Considering how many news outlets treated Williams ''fetish,'' it's no big surprise to many that women will put up and shut up.

Again, this speaks to how the police discounted these violations: They issued no warning to Tweed citizens until after Massicotte was attacked.

Not surprisingly, they were very disrespectful, at least according to Massicotte who fled the court room this week, of what the two sexual assault survivors went through.

Today she emailed. Here's some of what she wrote (I added the boldface):

Out of the respect of the deceased,I will not even attempt to be heard @ this time, submit my impact statement, nor show my face or presence in that court in Belleville since my regretful appearance Monday A.M., when me & my family literally fled that court house @ 11:20, the 1st possible dignified break after hearing THE GUILTY PLEA on all counts with the sexual assaults being blended with the other less serious, none the less disturbing home invasions. I feel that there is a time & place for everything & it is my belief for the living DEAD and their families. Call me over sensitive but those are my true feelings on how this case is being conducted as a survivor of his Hanois (sic) violent acts. So be it! I once again feel used & disrespected by the Crown & the police.

I feel liked chopped liver & I can't even comprehend how the little one is feeling. Now if I could get a message out to the masses it would be-if you survive a violent act of sex don't report it, just run for cover & find your own protection minus the police & the system they represent.

As Massicotte has repeatedly said, she felt the police could have done a much better job on all levels, from plain old detective work to treating victims with more respect.

Maybe Lloyd and Comeau would still be alive if they had.

Meanwhile the media have gone gaga for interrogator Det. Sgt. Jim Smyth.

While there is no question that the skilfull Smyth showed incredible calm and patience in getting Williams to confess, it's not as if the police didn't have a  basement full of panties as evidence.

What's more, it seems obvious that the killer, considering how he would eventually transfer his assets to his wife, was anxious to avoid horrendous legal fees on what would be a losing case. He's a sociopath but he's not stupid.

Today, incredibly, the OPP put out a news release congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Well yes. After all, they had the media spotlight all this week on their dog and pony show. Williams is in the slammer. You can all go home now. Nothing to see here.

And yet, as the the fifth estate documentary reports, it took a few locals driving in a truck late at night to spot Williams' SUV parked in a field near Lloyd's house to put it all together.

I think an inquest is in order.

You?

Photos by The Star's Steve Russell.

A Woman's Intuition?

Further to this, some questions:

Am I wrong in observing that the first senior police officer (PDF) to connect the dots of Col. Russell William's crimes was a woman? That Cory McMullan had only been Belleville police chief for a few months when the Tweed break-ins ocurred? That it wasn't until the case  moved into her beat -- tragically with the murder of Jessica Lloyd -- that things started happening?

And isn't it interesting that she herself is a survivor of wife abuse? (Yes, I realize that she had her arm broken only after this case was cracked but, if you consider the excuses her husband gave for beating up on her, his retirement, her promotion, the move to Belleville etc., they were already in force when Chief McMullan was drawn into the case.)

Finally: Is it me or did the OPP-Eastern Region drop the ball on the investigation? Did it take a woman cop to make everybody work together to solve the case?

Just asking.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Tweeter @TommyCourneyea responds to this post:

@AntoniaZ I don't get it. What does intuition have to do anything about #colrw. You've done nothing but point out a coincidence.

Not just ''a coincidence.'' A lot of coincidences.

Forced entry

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

This is a steal from my friend Elizabeth Pickett's Facebook page. She wrote a note that I think nails today's court proceedings in the case of Col. Russell Williams.

He has pleaded guilty to dozens of charges, including sexual assault and murder. 

Today, the world was subjected to the grim details, including the fact that he videotaped the death of two of his victims -- Jessica Lloyd, 27, and his comrade-in-arms Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, right.

We all knew Williams was into stealing his victims' lingerie and then filing and cataloging all  his ''trophies.'' What we didn't know is that this decorated officer liked to wear the stuff and shoot himself masturbating into it. (The Star has a photo gallery. Keep the eye bleach handy.)

If Twitter is any indication, many are grossed out by the details, and are questioning why we need to hear them, especially since Williams has already admitted guilt.

But maybe there's a good reason to pay attention. That's because the media are referring to his "fetish" an awful lot. Elizabeth takes issue with that. Here's why (and I added the boldface):

1. Because we need to see and understand how impossible it is for the mainstream media in general to report these kinds of cases fairly, accurately and KNOWLEDGEABLY. 

For instance, I keep hearing that his fetish for underwear escalated into break-ins, photo sessions whilst modelling the undies and masturbation on camera, leaving the evidence of such behind.  Now that is not a women's underwear fetish.  Such fetishes are perfectly harmless. 

This is the escalation of PREDATORY behaviour! 

The point is not the underwear.  The point is that it belonged to a girl or woman who wore it and kept it in her dresser drawer. To break into the house, the bedroom, the dresser drawer of a girl or woman, try on her underwear and spend hours taking pictures of yourself wearing it while masturbating isn't a fetish, it's a VIOLATION of the personal space and the sexualized belongings of the girl or woman. To masturbate all over her bedroom is a VIOLATION. To tie her up and take pictures of her while masturbating and taking pictures is a VIOLATION. To do the same and then kill her is a VIOLATION.  This is escalating predatory behaviour, not fetishism.

2.  Because we need to know that if the cops were educated about such behaviour and able to categorize it properly and make predictions on the basis of that information, THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO STOP PEOPLE LIKE COL. WHAT'S IT.  And ought to have caught him before he sexually assaulted four women or, at the very least, before he killed two of them.

3. Because we need to know how easily predatory men get along in our misogynist culture and particularly in the most macho aspects of that culture which would certainly be THE MILITARY!  If I wanted to be a raping serial killer I would be in the military or I'd be a cop.  

Elizabeth links to this documentary by CBC's the fifth estate as well as a column of mine  
from back in February, when this whole story broke. I wrote it when I picked up how the police discounted the report of the first Tweed break-in and assault.

Here's a snippet:

According to Tweed resident Larry Jones, 62, who lives next door to Col. Russell   Williams, 46, now charged with two murders and the two sexual assaults, the police did not believe that first victim when she reported the attack.

Not until the second victim was attacked two weeks later.

"They said her boyfriend had broken into her house, to try to get back at her for leaving him or something,'' he told me Tuesday. "So two weeks went by. Not a word was said. Nothing in the media. Nothing in the news. And we had an animal running around.

"Then, (Victim B) down the road from me, she gets broken into and it's the same crime. They should have put the word out. They could have been looking for somebody.''

Interestingly, according to Victim B, Laurie Massicotte, with whom I have kept continuous contact, both she and Victim A, a young single mother, had what you might call "domestic problems." Massicotte was going through a bitter divorce while Victim A had had conflicts with the father of her baby. In the latter case, as I was told by Jones, police suggested that her boyfriend was ''playing tricks on her.''

Needless to say, I could never get a local cop to confim that. But I have no reason to doubt it either. And it does serve to back up what Elizabeth is saying.

Right now, thousands of people are going through the photos on the Star's website, maybe laughing, maybe feeling revulsion, maybe both.

But, as Elizabeth wants you to remember, Williams did not get that lingerie by ordering from Victoria's Secrets. He got it by raping the personal and private space of 82 women and girls -- and there's nothing titllating or amusing about that.

P.S. I refuse to post any of those underwear photos here.

P.P.S. I notice the mods are not posting some comments, even though they are great. Something about our policy regarding comments and ongoing court cases.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Sabina Becker, another Facebook friend, picks up this crucial thread:

A fetishist isn't generally interested in controlling a person; s/he is content to play with an object or collection of objects, and obtains sexual gratification that way. This activity usually doesn't escalate.

A predator collects human victims as trophies, rendering them into objects to be controlled. When he grows tired of taking easy, inanimate trophies--stolen jewelry, underwear or other personal effects--he begins to entertain the notion of taking humans themselves as his trophies. He escalates his violations over time, in both frequency and intensity, as an addict will increase his dose of drugs when he becomes habituated.

Fetishists are rarely violent. Many are quite odd, but this is beside the point; their oddity generally harms no one. They tend to respect the dignity of others.

Predators are increasingly violent. Often they do not stand out as odd on first glance; their cultivated façade of normality IS the point. It enables them to escalate their crimes until they die or are caught, whichever comes first.

So, we can see that a fetishist ≠ a predator. If anything, they are diametrically opposed.

This is why I get so angry when I see the media falling into the trap of fixating on Williams's alleged sexual fetishes, instead of understanding that he is a predator, one who sexualizes power-over. The media's job is to clear up our confusion, and instead, they are adding to it. And in so doing, they hang women and children--the persons most likely to become a predator's victims--out to dry.

(H/T Queer Thoughts)

UPPERMOST DATE: Note that, according to the agreed statement of facts, it appears that police did conduct a throrough investigation when Victim A in Tweed called them.

The Broken Arm of the Law

Belleville police chief Cory Mulligan's McMullan's husband David, a retired cop, today pleaded guilty to  beating his wife in a jealous rage because he thought she was having an affair.

In an agreed statement of fact, crown attorney Robin Flumerfelt told court the attack  on Cory McMullan two months ago was triggered by suspicions she was involved with Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis.

David McMullan later admitted his fears were “irrational and unfounded,” Flumerfelt said.

A retired police officer, McMullan became verbally abusive to his wife when he felt the demands of her job took her away from their home life.

On the evening of Aug. 6 he threw her to the ground and hit her several times on the roadside and again later in their garage.

On one of the times when he threw her to the garage floor her arm was broken.

<SNIP>

Outside court McMullan’s lawyer Dick Boriss said his client hopes to reconcile with his family.

“And indications are she feels the same way. He feels terrible about it, no question,” Boriss said.

As Flumerfelt read the statement McMullan, wearing a dark suit and white shirt and tie, wiped his eyes and blinked rapidly.

Boriss said McMullan was under a lot of stress struggling with retirement and having to move to a new community from Peterborough last year.

I can't tell you how many ways this kind of domestic tragedy happens.

Which is to say all the time.

Let's count the cliches shall we?

Jealous husband? Check?

Stressed and/or depressed? (PDF) Check.

Wife has greater prestige, success and/or salary? Check.

And, of course, we already went through all the victim-blaming as well as the scary incidence of domestic violence in police relationships, as I noted here. Lots of facts and figures to be found in that blogpost.

My advice to Chief McMullan?

Run.