Very confusing indeed.
The fucker looked and sounded fine when Sky News was interviewing him when he was just a possible witness as the last person to see the girls before they were abducted. Him and the wife/girlfriend/wagon talked at length to the press about how desperate the situation was :mad:
As for the other half Maxine Carr remanded in custody and from that link
The last English case I can recall which received a similar amount of media attention here was the abduction and murder of Jamie Bulger.
It takes something pretty exceptional for a missing child case to become “high profile”. In this case, the “pretty exceptional” factors were small community in which “everyone knows everyone else”, a million pound reward offered by the media, police expressing optimism that the girls were still alive a full week after their disappearance. All of this came on the back of a series of US abductions some of which attracted considerable attention in their own right, but which more importantly were beginning to be reported as a “trend” or a “spate”.
Even our own media has been running “child experts tell how to protect your children” features - although the abductions which have caused parents to be anxious about their children’s vulnerability have occured overseas.
There’ve been some very interesting reports (and not a few complaints) related to the factors which determine media interest in abduction cases (these were linked on the major US news sites last week, but will be archived by now so I’ll search for them tomorrow). A child being abducted in itself simply doesn’t attract much coverage outside its own nation - or even significant ongoing coverage within its own nation - unless there’s some kind of “hook” the media can use to keep the public wanting more news.
The hook can be the age of the perpetrators and the cruelty involved (the Bulger case), the highly doubtful or unusual circumstances surrounding the case (Jon-Benet, Azaria Chamberlain), or other factors such as the fame of the parents or a series of similar crimes seeming to indicate that a particular type of crime is on the rise (whether - in fact - it’s on the rise is irrevelant, people’s fear of crime sells newspapers/gets viewers and features on such “trends” are guaranteed to attract audiences).
It would be interesting to get the Brits to check how many times over the last few years 2 children have been abducted together (not counting domestic abductions). I suspect it’s happened quite a few times without us hearing about it in Australia; it’s certainly happened in the US without it being reported here (I was kind of surprised to read some of the “currently missing” pages online the other day and see how many of those abductions have involved more than one child - quite often with both children being well over 5).
I need sleep now, but I’ll dig up some of the reports for you in the morning cazzle.
Odd as it may seem jjimm, the majority of people who commit these and other crimes are NOT found to be suffering from any identifiable mental illness (there’s more information in the “profiling” section of The Crime Library page I linked to earlier ).
Well, what I read into that is that they have insufficient evidence against Maxine Carr.: Allegedly perverting the course of justice* – could be construed as a ‘provisional’ charge (to which others may later be added). Means they can keep her in custody is about all – if he’s in the frame for the killings, they can’t really let her go. Especially as the police are still searching for evidence.
As for the Psychiatric Hospital,. I did read he was seen by five doctors in total, although only two need to agree. My understanding is that *they determined he’s just unfit to be questioned for now *and that they have, initially, 28 days to form a fuller judgement on his state of mind.
Can’t see any value in getting emotional about how the law works – he’s entitled to this course of action. He may be guilty, he may not. We haven’t seen any evidence (as far as I know – if we did, that would jeopardise the trial) and it’s all speculation. The killer could, in theory still be loose.
It’s long way from going anywhere just now but given the options of being detained indefinably in a mental hospital and ditto in prison (assuming guilt), I’m not sure what I’d plump for. What matters though, IMHO, is that the families, friends, etc are given justice and ‘closure’ – that can’t happen without a trial.
Just posting a really quick link for cazzle.
If you check out the sidebar links and the links underneath this Yahoo report, you’ll get some idea of what I mean about the media using or creating “hooks” (Invasion of the Baby-Snatchers is the title of one of the features listed on the sidebar!).
A small report - which essentially says the police don’t know anything more in one case - almost drowning in a sea of links to reports on anything on anything with an even remotely similar theme.
reprise, I was thinking of Sarah Payne when I posted. I remembered that story as recieving a similar amount of coverage here in 2000, but perhaps I’m mistaken.
Yes although this link is certainly close enough to home to cause parental anxiety to rise, particularly so close on the heels of the English girls abduction.
I am curious as to how much coverage this abduction has received in the southern media.
It’s probably a product of most non-European media organisations having their European media centre’s in London, IMHO.
Also, it’s a big and unfolding ‘interest’ story – the media knows people like to follow developing stories. It’s a perfect story for them, cynically speaking.
‘They’ make the agenda, the public just readwatch it.
I guess my point is that I don’t remember a million pound reward for the safe return of Milly Dowler, who’s body is still not found.
As it stands, this person could in theory be out of the mental institution in three years and never face a murder charge in court.
This is unlikely but possible, if he is deemed to be mentally unfit to take the responsibility for his offence, and subsequently his mental health improves this could happen.
It has been done before on less high profile crimes, Donald Nielson attempted this, as have others but it rarely succeeds.
I posted a link to a story on this case a couple of days ago in the other Pit thread.
As you’d probably expect, it ran as a common story in other News Corporation papers. It was also run as a news item on the Today show, so it got national coverage.
The speed with which the case was resolved pretty much killed it as a news item though - by the time most people had any awareness that the victim was missing, she’d already been found.
cazzle, you could be right about the Sarah Payne case having received comparable coverage.
My news consuming habits have changed radically since we got internet access, and whereas once I watched most TV news bulletins during the day, listened to the radio in between times and read at least one newspaper each day, I now watch the 6am news and check the major international news services directly for more information on any stories of interest - which inevitably links me to other stories I’d heard nothing about.
I tend to go looking for reports in the Australian media only when I want to provide links or let people know that there’s an interesting article in the paper which is not available online.
I’m posting this from my PDA as I am away from home on holiday; the little village where we are staying with the in-laws is just a few miles away from Soham and there’s a very strange atmosphere over the whole region.
The police have been decidedly(but I suppose understandably) tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the girls’ bodies, but it seems unlikely that their failure to absolutely identify the remains can be attributed solely to the forces of nature in only 10 days.
The local newspaper, presumably having run short of relevant information, today dedicated a quarter page to the full details of how the accused’s wife left him and married his brother; right down to a description of the dress she wore, the name of the photographer, the meal served at the reception plus a copy of the marriage certificate. Why is this news? I want to go home.
Reports on this morning’s news said the bodies have now been conclusively identified - also that they were discovered in an advanced state of decomposition (suggesting the girls were murdered shortly after their abduction). I heard the reports on the TV news, but they’ll have come of the major news wires so I’ll go hunt up some links.
BBC story reporting the confirmation of identities.
The jury has brought in a guilty verdict in the van Dam case.
Penalty phase begins next week and I’d be surprised if the prosecution doesn’t seek the death penalty.
weird story this one.
Huntley has now been sent to a secure unit for the mentally insane in order to ascertain his mental state.
I heard an interview with the former manager of Broadmoor (another secure unit) who said Huntley will be monitored 24/7. At first he will be confined to his room but then later he will be allowed into the communal area to see how he interacts with the other patients.
How will this help us ascertain his mental state?
Watching how he reacts to a bunch of homicidal maniacs will not tell us much.
Either he’ll talk to them or he won’t, so what? I’m not sure how I’d react if you put me in a room with that bunch. I may try to talk to them or I may just try to keep well away from them.
Either way, you couldn’t form a judgement on my mental state based on this.
And it’s weird how his mental state seems to have deteriorated so rapidly all of a sudden. He was, by all accounts, perfectly normal until he got arrested. No one in Soham has said he was of dubious mentality before his arrest.
At the moment, he is innocent. Even if he is insane, he’s still innocent until he’s proven guilty in court. Even if he’s unfit to stand trial, there will still be a trial of fact to determine whether or not he did it.
Being insane is worse than being guilty of murder because if you are guilty of murder you are given a fixed life sentence. If you are insane you are detained “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” which could mean forever.
I just find this sudden deterioration in his mental state a bit odd.
Would this deterioration have happened if he hadn’t been caught? Does he have a history of mental problems? We haven’t heard anything to suggest this is so.
Oh and Twisty, Milly is, sadly, listed as a missing person rather than as a murder victim. There’s no evidence she’s dead. It’s still possible she ran off with someone (possibly someone she met on the internet). I know it seems unlikely but lots of people go missing every year and some turn up again years later.
People gathered around the entrance to the court where whatsername was arraigned, screaming insults and threats. Not that I blame them one bit; not that I object to their feeling the way they do…but I hope the police, and any security guards at the court, are more on their game than the LAPD and the LA Municipal Court security were ten years ago.
Here I go with my Ruth Rendell analogies again. But one of the most recent Wexfords had a subplot about a convicted child molester being released from prison and moving back into his daughter’s house. The community was outraged just by his being there, and immediately started harassing him, with no provocation. After several skirmishes, a mob converged on the police station. Someone threw what Americans call a Molotov cocktail and Brits call a petrol bomb. The only person killed was an officer from another precinct who was there on unrelated business.
I understand the sentiment. But it’s so easy for an action like this to get out of control. People get triangled into it, and when it becomes a brawl, no one is safe. Some of the people outside the courthouse were mothers, yelling and cursing while their children cried. I don’t like to think of children being subjected to this any more that I like to think about what probably happened to Holly and Jessica.
The chilling thing about the legally insane - as opposed to those who claim diminished responsibility on the grounds of demonstrable mental illness - is that they rarely present as disturbed individuals.
We expect these people to show outward signs of their distorted thinking, while the fact that they present as “just like you and me” renders them invisible to us. What surprises people who come into contact with them is just how “normal” (and very often personable and charming) they seem to be - it’s that very appearance of “normality” which makes them so dangerous. We are suspicious of the obviously disturbed or “people not like us”, but we rarely give a thought to what might be going through the minds of those we find enchanting, articulate, or amusing.
Following on from reprise immediately above:
Having seen the footage of the mob outside the Court yesterday as Maxine Carr was driven too and from prison, I found myself pondering her circumstances. Is this unreasonable:
Someone you love and adore – who you can’t imagine living without – commits a heinous, evil crime and you become aware of that after the event. Your partner confides and even asks that you to contribute to, say, their alibi. You do.
Why do you do that; out of misguided love, out of your own needs, out of a subjective and temporarily clouded lack of judgement, because you’re buying time (from the decision of whether to inform the police) and hope police will discover the truth so you’ll be excused having to decide for yourself what to ?
I’m not an excuser or apologist for this woman, I’m trying to think how normal people (an assumption) react in the panic of the hours and days immediately following the extreme circumstances just imposed upon them by beloved partners.
Do you comply with the alibi request, buy time and hope the police will intervene so you don’t make the decision …I don’t think I can imagine the pressure or potential delusion/conflict of a subjective mind-set in those circumstances. I wonder, in that period, if I’d feel it was all too unreal. Anyone ?
No. If my very own mother whom I adore committed a senseless crime such as this, I would turn her in.
Does England have capital punishment?