It is in the public interest to get to the bottom of what happened during the investigation and trial. In a country who's government has declared it wants to be the "best country in the world for children to grow up," we appear to have easily forgotten who is a child, when their rights don't fit the narrative we have chosen, before all the evidence is in.
Genre cross-overs in most entertainment can work incredibly well, such as horror comedy. The reason that this works so well is that is that horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin, they both rely on the unexpected for their big pay off, and so mould well together. Not so much true crime and romance. Sure there are couples in true crime, Bonnie and Clyde, Starkweath and Fugate who Natural Born Killer's Micky and Mallory was based on, and later Iain Brady and Myra Hindley. While there are a few big names, couples where both are active in a crime tend to be the exception rather than the rule, but even more rare are couples where one is a criminal, and the other is a serving police officer.
It is unfortunately a story that we are familure with, from crime fiction and true crime. A body is found, an investigation is started, and then it goes... nowhere. It is one of the most poingant of all crime narratives because nobody wants to be in the horrible limbo of waiting to find out if …
Continue reading The Forgotten Dead: A True Crime Podcast about Nameless Victims
In Relentless Persuit Edwards shows us that one person with enough tenacity can work against forces much larger and more powerful than himself. However it is not in everybodies gift to do that kind of work, and not every victim will be lucky enough to have Edwards, or a lawyer of his caliber, on their side.
There is no where else in the world quite like Glasgow, and no people quite like Glasgow people. The best illustration of this is the fact that when interviewed about Fred West's connection with Glasgow the so-far only funny joke I've heard about a serial killer is told. "People ask me if the Gorbals was …
We Need To Talk About Crosby, has now been released on BBC I-player. This four part documentary takes a deep dive into the career and crimes of Bill Cosby, comedian, trail blazer and serial rapists. The documentary delicately deals with not just those who Crosby raped, but also those who had at one point held …
Continue reading Crime in Culture: Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville
Most teenage girls who dream in their bedrooms of becoming famous think they may be pop stars, perhaps actors or models, a few of them like Malala and Greta Thunberg do it through activism. Very few teenage girls dream of becoming a terrorist. However this is what happened to Shamima Begum, a 15 year old …
Continue reading Essay: The Crime and Punishment of Shamima Begum
It is here we get to the truth that underlies and pulses through the story of 112 Ocean Avenue. Not the truth about if DeFeo Jr was possessed by an evil force that compelled him to kill his family, not the truth about if the Lutz's really experienced a haunting by the same spirit.
We do women no favours if we discount their violence, their crimes or the great damage we can do and only see them as victims. More importantly we compound the damage they have done to their victims. We, however also do wrong if we don't take into account the fact that we live in a society where it is all to easy for impressionable, vulnerable women to be manipulated by older, more powerful men. My answer to the question that we should never be asking, if these women are victims or villian, is instead to let go of the pervasive "perfect victim," fallacy and accept that a great deal of the time, people can be both.
Marks manages to not just tell the story of Rikki's murder, but delves further into what lay behind the police and press's insistence that it must have been Ruth who was behind the murder. Reports of her harsh punishment of her children, as well as Rikki having to steal from local shops because he was starving was probably enough to make up most people's minds. It is hard to feel sympathy for someone who is willing to so mistreat children, however the laser like focus on Ruth meant that other suspects were ignored.
