The problem with the story of the hideous shooting spree in Maryland hitting around the same time as “Red Dragon” is that I read the news story and start looking at it with Hannibal Lecter analysis. Five shootings within a fourteen hour period. “Doesn’t that seem desperately random, Clarice?” echoes in my head.
And I find myself looking at the time involved. James D. Martin, shot in the parking lot of a grocery store at 6:04 PM, followed twelve hours later by four shootings between 7:41 am and 9:58 am in various random locations.
Why twelve hours? Why such a long wait?
There’s various explanations. An assortment of possibilities.
But me…if I’m the police…I’m treating it like one homicide. I’m focusing all my attention on the murder of Martin. Follow: Someone wants to kill him. I don’t know who, but it’s someone who knew Martin and tailed him from his government job when he left for the day. The shooter waited outside the grocery store when Martin went it to pick up some groceries. When Martin emerged, he shot him. He left the scene. He figures he got away with it. But then he starts to worry, to get nervous. He spends the whole night sleepless, convinced a trail will lead directly to him. So he gets an idea. First thing next morning, he drives around and shoots four innocent, unconnected people. Now it’s not a single murder. Now it’s a pattern. A deranged serial killer. Maybe even terrorism. Now his tracks are covered because the police aren’t looking for one murderer who had it out for James Martin. They’re looking for a random serial killer.
Desperately random.
Food for thought.
PAD
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I hate to admit it, but I had much the same thought. Many of my friends suffered lockdowns at work because of this yesterday; one of them feared for his wife and children’s safety because the shootings occurred so close to his home; and all I could think was, “I wonder which of the murders was the intended one, and which were decoys?”
I wrote it off as having read way too much crime fiction and comic books, though. And my first reference point wasn’t “Red Dragon” but the “Infernal Devices” storyline from STARMAN.
The thought that this spree was part of a plan to cover up a single mureder hadn’t occurred to me. How heinous.
What did come to my mind was thank Heavens that the shooter didn’t stick around and try to kill people coming to the aid of his victims. That is terror.
Mark B.
I live in Rockville, MD, and one of the victims was killed a few blocks from my new apartment.
This area is NOT known for things like this happening. I was stunned when I heard about it, and I have got to say it’s been making me paranoid. I live in a construction area (anyone local knows that King Farm is always under development) and there were SIX of those “box trucks” there last night. Mind you, they all had the orange “INSPECTED” stickers, but it’s scary to be feeling this paranoid.
I think “terrorism” is a good term for it. No terms have been laid down; no demands made. Yet, it’s having the same effect as a “conventional” terrorist attack.
Sick, sick people.
I had the same thought, Peter. Then I spun into variations of “what if James D. Martin wasn’t the intended target; what if he was a decoy and somebody else on the list was the target?”
The dilemma here is that it may be a mistake to treat this as a serial case AND it may be a mistake to look at Martin as the true target. It may in fact be best to treat them all as separate murder cases — look at who had motive and opportunity to murder each of them as individuals and then see if a connection can be made.
The horrible part in all of this is that we could be looking at a killer on a random spree. Usually, serial killers have a deep seeded psychological motive that reveals itself in the way he or she chooses victims (blonde women with short hair revealing a killer who has a fetish because his mother was a hairdresser, for example).
Wouldn’t it be scarier if this is a random killer who’s only deep seeded motive is the joy of killing and watching everybody else squirm? How do you catch somebody like that if they don’t kill again and get caught in the act?
This could end up being an unsolved case that creates psychological terror on top of the tragic loss of life.
How do we find peace of mind and justice then?
Hmmm, that’s a way to think about it… would make sense too…
or it’s just a nut job.
PAD:
Tsk, you’re forgetting classic adages again. Truth is always stranger than fiction, fiction has to make sense.
The local cops seem to think it was pre-meditated, and the shooter (clearly un-medicated) had been casing the area for a while.
Disclaimer: I live in Bethesda, so if the nitwit’s gone to DC (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42216-2002Oct4.html) then he’s driven past where I live. Somehow, I doubt proximity to the dork gives the value of my opinions an extra penny to the pound, but I’ll insult him in public anyway.
The slightly cliched theory offered on the news last night sounded good to me. The jáçkášš did this as a power play — maximizing his options for publicity and press coverage. He probably spent last night drooling in front of the news.
And to return this forum to issues of literary content, I recommend George Orwell’s “Decline of the Enlgish Murder” for tonight’s reading.
Sort of off the grisly topic….Did anyone in here see Red Dragon? I attended a preview screening last night and felt that it’s mediocrity was the only thing terrifying about the film. Ralph Fiennes and Philip Seymour Hoffman turn in solid performanes, but everything else had such great potential and fell flat. It made me very sad!
A thought that occured to me: what if the victims were indeed connected? Maybe they were part of a jury trial, and a slighted party thinks they’re responsible for someone’s misfortune, and wants to make them pay? Naaaah, too TV movie of the week, and besides, the police have probably thought about that.
Still, it was quite a shock when I learned about this. Poor people :-((
I just saw a beautiful Freudian slip on local news (Fox 20).
Police Chief Charles Moose was making the necessary point that the investigation had to be evidence driven. Then, he performed this blessing: “We want to avoid a television — er, tunnel vision — situation…”
If I’d been there in person, I’d have tried to lead a standing ovation.
A comment about Red Dragon: I’m sure it won’t be as good as Manhunter anyway.
PAD:
First I wanted to start off by saying that while this is my first time posting, I have been a fan of your work for over 10 years. I have read almpst every Star trek novel you have written, with the exception of “the Captain’s Daughter.” And I enjoyed your run on the Hulk. However, about this topic, when I was reading it, I was thinking about how in your second collaborative novel, “the Disinherited”, Kirk had provided the “ABC murders” theory. Now, I don’t know if that section was done by you, Michael Jan Friedman, or Bob Greenberger, but I did recognize the theory you mentioned above from that book.
Charles F. Waldo
I saw “Red Dragon” on Sept. 15, and I thought it was a vast improvement on “Manhunter,” not because the former is so dated, but because “Red Dragon” provides far more detail, depth and embellishment, even going so far as to include things that weren’t in the original novel.
I wrote a review for it at this link: http://64.33.77.146/discus/messages/8/20067.html?1033652321. Scroll down to my Sept. 16th post for it.
FYI: The ABC theory was originated by Ellery Queen (aka Fredric Dannay and Manfred B. Lee). If the idea is applicable in this case, the real target would be at least the third victim, if not later. But never the last one.
Of course another possiblity could be assassin try-outs like from Deadman’s origin.
BUT LET’S NOT FORGET THE M0RE IMPORTANT FACTS HERE PEOPLE!
There are victims! With friends and relations left behind to grieve and wonder why.
Plus, there is at least one more murderer out there that needs to be brought to justice.
hi, someone linked me to you. i just wanted to tell you that the first shooting occured at a Michael’s store. no one was hurt. then James Martin was hit. why was there a 12 hour lapse? maybe planning and rest on when and where to hit next? also.. after shooting 5 people dead, why would they go after another 2 today? i think this is all motivated by some philosophical motive myself. i think it’s scary for us think that this is all random people… but i think it is.
Lee, I think it was Agatha Christie who originated the ABC Theory. Of course, I could be wrong.
As for your other comment, I agree with you 100 %. However, consider this: these theory may be a way to deal with the horror of these events, and a way to make sense of the chaos. I certainly don’t intend any disrespect to the victims and their family, and there’s no doubt Peter, or any other poster of this board had no intention of dissing them either. We simply want to try putting some sense into those klllings. For instance, what prompted Richard Durn to shoot at the city council in Nanterre? I don’t know. But I would like to, if only because it could prevent other killings like that in the future.
>>FYI: The ABC theory was originated by Ellery Queen (aka Fredric Dannay and Manfred B. Lee). If the idea is applicable in this case, the real target would be at least the third victim, if not later.<<
I assume you’re referring to the Ellergy Queen book “Cat of Many Tails,” but that was written in the 1940s. Agatha Christie did indeed originate it in “The ABC Murders,” written in 1936.
The reason I wasn’t referencing that, however, was because that involved a premeditated murder with the first couple as decoys, as was noted. Just as I specified, I was thinking more along the lines of “Silence of the Lambs” wherein Hannibal Lecter correctly surmised that subsequent murders by a serial killer were committed partly to draw attention away from the first.
PAD
Sorry, that should read “Ellery Queen,” not Ellergy.
Stupid typos. Well, nothing like that will ever happen again, I can pormise you.
PAD