Personal Journal Entry
May 10
She’s been hunting. Offering up this one and that one and this completely unsatisfactory other one. Nothing. No one. They’re all imperfect. Too tall. Too short. Too brunette. Wrong height. Wrong hair. Wrong eyes.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Wrong!
She knows what she must do. I’ve known all along. Maybe, when I take HER, maybe when I kill HER, maybe I’ll leave her alone for a while. Like a little reward. Like a treat for my favorite pet. Maybe I’ll give her some peace again, at least for a short time. She’s always whining about wanting peace. She’s so weak.
SHE is too distracting. HER very existing offends me and she knows it. Maybe I’ll pretend to become a productive member of society and act normal again for more than a week at a time after I kill HER.
IT took her little time to put Lisa to bed. She went with almost no protest, too tired from her first day back at school after being so sick. Mitch was seated on the couch with Bobby when she walked back downstairs, and she poured everyone iced tea while they all waited for the phone to ring.
The men made small talk about baseball while Carol paced the room, waiting. It seemed like forever, but finally the phone rang, and everyone in the room jumped, then fell silent. Carol picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“It’s Jen. I’ve got your profile,” she said. Count on Jen Thorne to skip the pleasantries.
Carol set her glass down and reached for a pad and pencil on the table behind her. “Do you want to give it to me verbally, or fax it to me?” she asked. The two men in the room watched her, waiting.
“I’ll do both. Okay, here goes. What you have is an incredibly complex person. Someone who is charming and uses a form of hypnosis, kind of like a snake does to its victims. Someone who is likely at least two personalities, if not more. And the other personalities may not know what’s going on all the time. There is an incredible rage inside that is prevalent in the violence of the blows on the last victim, but despite the violence, your killer isn’t necessarily physically strong, or at least not exceptionally so. The rage is something your killer contains, or if you want to look at it this way, controls. When things don’t go as planned, the tight grip on the control is lost and the rage takes over. When the rage takes over, things can’t be completed - like the lighting of the candles or the arranging of the hair. Something was wrong, the killer lost control, so the ritual couldn’t be completed.
“Your killer is extremely methodical, detail oriented, and plans extensively with everything but the victims. The victims are random.”
Carol wrote as fast as she could. It was a few moments before she realized Jen had stopped speaking. “What else?” she asked.
“The killer is in love with the woman represented by the victims. There is great love and care taken with the women before they’re killed, and after. This is an act of love.
“The killer doesn’t want to be caught, which is odd in serial killers. Most of them are crying for help or daring law enforcement to catch them. They send manifestos to reporters or try to insert themselves into the investigation somehow. That sort of thing.
“This one doesn’t want help. This one feels there is a purpose, a higher calling for the killings, as if maybe being ordered to do it. Like I said, more than one personality. With at least a mild case of schizophrenia at work here, though I didn’t put that in the written report in case it’s used as a defense. I think one personality is protecting the other so they all don’t get caught. If and when you catch the killer, there will be a terrible rage, perhaps even a suicide attempt over the capture, because the carefully laid plans, or if you will, mission, will have failed.”
Jen paused, and Carol thought perhaps she was through. “Is that everything?” she asked.
“No. Just looking through my notes, making sure I cover everything. This is definitely not an occult killing. There are no symbols or relics at any of the crime scenes other than the candles, and they’re just a stereotype. Cult killings almost prescribe them. Also, the bodies are all intact. Cults usually like to mutilate the victims. The candles are more symbolic than anything but the context lacks iconography, like a pentagram or written incantations or other symbols.
“It means something else; something personal to the killer. The light of life snuffed out or the blood colored wax dripping out though the slayings are basically bloodless. They may hold some additional significance to the killer but it’s unlikely we will ever understand the rationale. Maybe just chalk it up to insanity.”
She heard Jen shuffling pages. “Let’s see. Your killer is between thirty and forty years old. Closer to thirty if you want my opinion. There was a trigger. A death, maybe exposure to the representative victim, a life stressor like losing a job. Something made this killer snap.”
“You mean…,” Carol started to say, seeking clarification on the stressor, but she was interrupted.
“Let me finish. That brings me to my final point. I know you have eyewitnesses. I know you’re looking for a man. But, I want this to be taken very seriously, some dominant personality in this killer is a female.”
“What?” Carol demanded, feeling her eyes widen.
“Carol, I know from personal experience, women can be just as violent as men. I believe the primary clue to the sex of your killer is the drugging of the victims. Women are far more apt to use poisons. Men use their strength. Strangulation and smothering are also more common in female perpetrators because cutting off the air supply fits common female acts of violence. As with poisons, there’s little or no blood, no mess, no fuss. Your killer drugs the victims. Then your killer always strangles them, whether they survive the drugging or not. The strangling is performed ritually.
“Also, each victim is representative. He is definitely killing someone, and he’s in love with that person – whether she’s alive right now or dead. I believe she’s alive. I’m almost certain there’s something personal on every body that belongs to the person he has fixated upon for all this. Either a piece of jewelry, some lipstick, some nail polish, or an article of clothing. Something like that.”
Carol’s mind was reeling. “Do you have anything else?”
“I think the other personality is male. Whether they’re working together or separately, you have all the drives that fit the classic male unsub pattern, especially when you consider the time in between kills. But all of the desired outcomes are highly consistent with female spree killers. Think Lizzie Borden. ”
How would they catch this guy?
“One other thing, Carol,” Jen said.
She had to clear her throat twice before she could speak. “What?”
“Have you had another murder since this one on the sixth?”
“No.”
“Then you need to prepare yourself for one. Tomorrow is five days, and he hasn’t deviated from his pattern since the first murder.”