A New Jack the Ripper?

Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes in 1888 London, may have a 21st century protégé.

Rocky Mount, North Carolina, has been restless due to the unexplained disappearances of nine women since 2005.  These woman happen to be prostitutes who use this income to either support their children or drug habits.  So far, six bodies have been recovered without any evidence, raising suspicion that the killer is a meticulous professional.

But why kill prostitutes?  It is believed that in this case, it’s because they are perceived as useless wastes that “won’t be missed”.

Vivian Lord, chairwoman of the criminal justice department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that if one killer is responsible, he is likely trying to cleanse the world of prostitutes or deliberately picking victims he knows won’t be missed.

These women do indeed have families that care for them even if their profession isn’t terribly desirable.

Juray Tucker, the mother of 37-year-old Yolanda Lancaster, missing since February, said she wants to help with fundraising but doesn’t get much time now that she has to care for her daughter’s children.

The worst part is that only since this past June, when the latest decomposing body was found, has the FBI gotten involved.

Read the entire story here (Fox News).

Only someone who is so careless towards human life would have no problem with over four years of killing.  Even though these women “jump in and out of cars”, they’re still human beings struggling for a decent life.  They’re women stuck in a degrading career, trying to take care of their families.  Why do they “deserve” to die?

What makes you or me a more important soul and thus deserving life more so than one of these nine women?

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An Inconvenient Reality

Bob Herbert, a columnist from the New York Times, recently published a thought-provoking yet ultimately unsettling article regarding accepted misogyny in the US.

We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment.

While some might consider his views to be a bit on the pessimistic side, Herbert highlights a striking point in today’s society:

One of the striking things about mass killings in the U.S. is how consistently we find that the killers were riddled with shame and sexual humiliation, which they inevitably blamed on women and girls. The answer to their feelings of inadequacy was to get their hands on a gun (or guns) and begin blowing people away.

Read Bob Herbert’s article here (New York Times).

The sad part is, this has nothing to do with “today’s society” or “today’s media”; women have been victims of horrid abuse for centuries.  What do you think happened when Ghengis Khan and his fellow merciless warriors pillaged villages in Iraq in the 13th Century?   How about how in certain societies in the Middle Ages, prostitution was regulated and organized in order to keep “rape under control”, so that men wouldn’t basically lose their minds from sexless lives.  Who can forget the Rape of Nanjing (caution: link is graphic), where between 20-80,000 women were raped by the Imperial Japanese Army?  The disgusting misogyny that we see today has always existed in time; with the invention of fast-paced media including the internet and 24-hour news televison, we just become more exposed to and aware of it.

On that note, with the widespread utilization of the internet, we can more easily spread the word about domestic violence than ever before.  With blogging and embedded videos, we can spread the word about abuse as soon as it occurs.  While the reality of life is brutal and oftentimes unforgiving, we may live in the best time period for women’s activism.

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Unfit for Reason

With some crimes, you truly wonder if the criminal is indeed a human being — or simply an animal with a gun.

At 8:15 PM on an ordinary summer Tuesday in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, a man entered an LA Fitness’ aerobics class with a duffel bag, shut off the lights, and fired bullets into the room of trainees.  George Sodini, a 48-year-old systems analyst, didn’t open fire in a random spur of violence — he was specifically targeting women.

“He targeted this aerobics class,” said Allegheny County police Superintendent Charles Moffatt. “He had this class circled on a schedule in his home.”

Sodini killed three women, wounded five others, and finished by killing himself.  One of the victims, the class’ instructor, had just announced her pregnancy.

Like angry people tend to do, Sodini placed blame on others for the troubles in his life.  The troubles from his perspective were caused by women and how they’ve rejected him over the years.  With a blog in his name, Sodini made very clear his infuriation with women, stating openly that he hadn’t had sex in nearly 20 years.

Read the rest of the story here (Fox News).

There is no correlation between lack of sex and murder.  What we have here, is a man who had no real reason for what he did.  Hating women was simply an illusion Sodini had, which masked the deep-rooted problem he had: lack of benevolence toward humanity.

This is a godless man who floated in a disconnect between humanity and digital noise.  His most intimate interaction (that is publicly known) was with his blog.  His targeting of women and the blank, indiscriminate killings show he long ago burned his bridges with humankind.  At the end of his actions, Sodini took his own life — the surest way to avoid the courts and jailtime, thereby eliminating the particular closure some need to cope with the death of a loved one. Instead of committing a crime and being arrested, Sodini likened himself to a tornado: a natural force that cannot be reasoned with, destroying lives, and then disappearing into air without explanation. A suicide at the scene of the crime is not the same as jailtime or state execution; it was all part of his plan, which indeed came to fruition.  Sodini successfully escaped justice.

What he left behind is an unquantifiable mess of horror and grief.  Because Sodini indiscriminately declared war on a gender, he created unforgettable memories that will haunt the people of that gym, especially the women, who know that this man came for their blood.

It is difficult to stop society’s outliers especially when they do, in fact, hold a stable job and don’t physically appear to be threatening.  If more people would flag blogs like his — ones that actually outline his precise plans and intent — then hopefully we can prevent crimes such as this.  It is maddening that Sodini targeted women in his vicious shooting spree, but it is also sickening how someone can degrade into a defunct shell of a human.

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