American Madness

Snatch is a great movie. There is a line in it about pig farms, something along the lines of “never trust a man who owns a pig farm…” Actually I think that is exactly what the line is.

Well, apparently Guy Ritchie knew what he was talking about when he wrote this. A Canadian pig farmer was convicted last week of killing 6 different people. This was his first trial, he was found guilty of second degree murder for all six folks and will have another trial for the murder of an addition 20 people he supposedly offed. And that’s not all. Although he is only on trial for 26 different murders, he claims to have killed 49 people and was hoping to make it to 50.

Most of his victims were prostitutes, junkies and other people of ill-repute. After killing them he would chop up their bodies and, you guessed it, feed them to his pigs. Investigators found severed skulls and feet on his property. But he thought he was still going to get off since the fact that the skulls and feet were on his property didn’t mean he had killed them. Oh the other hand he probably overlooked his confession to an under cover cop and the fact that his wife claims to have seen him chopping up some bodies.

The odd thing about this case (okay, one of the many odd things about it) is that the jury did not find him guilty of first degree murder, meaning they felt he had not planned to kill the victims ahead of time. It was just 26 spur of the moment decisions to kill these women. Man, even his picture is creepy.

(Originally titled American Psychos… but the new title just worked so much better)

So, would I sound crazy if I said I was drawn to articles about serial killers?

I thought American Psycho was well written, I am a fan of some horror movies, but my tastes tend to lean more toward 28 Days Later and Evil Dead then slasher and killer movies, but why is it that when I find an article about a real life honest-to-god nutcase serial killer I can’t help but want to read it?

I didn’t actually notice this as a trend until I saw this article from yesterday’s New York Times about Robert Charles Browne who claimed to have murdered 48 people in 9 different states. It brought me back to an article I had read back in September about everyones favorite “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz from New York Magazine (The Devil in the David Berkowitz).

I would have guessed it was just me and some really odd interest in the real life macabre, but the article on Browne is the 19th most emailed article today. For me I think it is an interest in the mind and looking to these articles to find out what actually made these people snap, essentially get a snap shot of crazy from some of the crazies still alive out there today. What is it about Helter Skelter that could inspire some one to kill?

Anyway, as the NY Times showed me, I am not the only one who likes reading about incarcerated psychos so I felt someone else out there reading this might be interested in these articles as well