Red Jack And The Autumn Of Terror

[molly bloom]

London

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe,

In every city of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning church appals;
And the hapless soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful barlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

William Blake


Inspired by both the new exhibition at Tate Britain and the time of year, I thought I'd pose a question of Apolyton's cosmopolitan members relating to murders that took place not far away, and over a hundred years ago.

I'm referring to that concatenation of urban myth, Victorian melodrama, historical squalor and degradation known as the Jack the Ripper murders.

It seems to exercise a fascination for people beyond the realm of the ordinary curiosity excited by other serial killings- perhaps because of the identities of the victims, all women, all prostitutes; the location, the turbulent political climate of the time, with Fenian scares and large scale Eastern European immigration in the East End and working class agitation, anarchist or nihilist assassinations, the world of the sexual underground with male and female brothels catering to all and sundry, including members of the Royal family, and record numbers of prostitutes servicing the needs of an outwardly respectable upwardly mobile population.

Somehow the murders that began and ended in a ten week period from August 31st to November 9th have proved a source of fascination and inspiration for doggerel, novels and short stories, films, plays and comics, even reaching into outer space with the first series of Star Trek.

So what I'd like to know from other Apolyton members, especially from the non-English speaking countries, is whether or not they know of a murderer or series of murders that occupies a similar place in the urban folklore of their country ?

[Tattila the Hun]

Recently in Finland, there has been this one murder case...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders

The killer was never found, but the case has now been re-opened, and the sole survivor is now the defendant.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Recently in Finland, there has been this one murder case...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders

The killer was never found, but the case has now been re-opened, and the sole survivor is now the defendant.

I've never heard of those killings- it sounds just like a plot for an American slasher film, right down to the rural setting.

How tasteful of a band to choose the name 'Children of Bodom'... reminds me of the public house off Brick Lane in Whitechapel that decided to call itself Jack The Ripper.

An American author goes bonkers:

The American crime novelist Patricia Cornwell was last night accused of "monstrous stupidity" for ripping up a canvas to prove that the Victorian painter Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.
Even in the context of the crackpot conspiracy theories, elaborate frauds and career-destroying obsessions that London's most grisly whodunnit has spawned, Cornwell's investigation is extreme. Not only did she have one canvas cut up in the vain hope of finding a clue to link Sickert to the murder and mutilation of five prostitutes, she spent £2m buying up 31 more of his paintings, some of his letters and even his writing desk.

.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,615413,00.html