1. Unlawful
2. killing
3. of a human
4. by another human
5. with malice aforethought.

The law was designed to define the various degrees and circumstances of murder in order to provide and achieve justice for all. Even though Blackstone did his best to dissect and define murder, in today’s society, the definition is not so clear-cut. Murder is committed and discussed daily across the United States; however, the unique situations and circumstances of each murder can ignite chaos within courtrooms. In order to ensure that justice is achieved, it is not only important to examine the circumstances under which the murder was committed, but it is key to study the state of mind of the accused.

In the United States we typically classify murder in terms of degrees. The phrase “degrees of murder” refers to the intent or severity of a particular murder charge. The most common degrees of murder are first-degree and second- degree.

The degree in which a murder is classified is highly dependent on the state in which the case is set. Specific criteria for each degree of murder are established by statute in each state and by the United States Code in federal prosecutions. In both first-degree and second-degree murder, the result is the death of another person. The main differentiating factor in the two is determining the mental state of the perpetrator at the time of the killing.

First-degree
Although it varies from state to state, first- degree murder is generally a killing which is deliberate and premeditated. First-degree murder involves premeditated killing, such as lying in wait for someone with a gun. State laws include a list of felonies that qualify a homicide as first degree murder. Some of these felonies include: burglary, home-invasion robbery, kidnapping, and sexual battery.

A recent example of a first degree murder case is that of Jodi Arias, who was charged in the murder of Travis Alexander. The prosecution argued that Alexander’s murder was premeditated based on the fact that before arriving at Alexander’s house, Arias rented a car, dyed her hair, turned off her cell phone—apparently to make her harder to identify, her movements harder to track. Prosecutors believed her mission was murder. Alexander ended their relationship and started dating other women. Prosecutors argued that Arias became jealous and this jealousy led to Alexander’s murder. Arias admitted to killing Alexander. She shot him in the face, stabbed him more than 20 times, and slit his throat, claiming it was in self-defense. The jury, however, found her guilty of first-degree murder.

Second-degree
Second degree murder is defined as a non-premeditated or unplanned killing, resulting from an assault in which the death of the victim was a distinct possibility. Second-degree murder usually involves killing on the spur of the moment, or where the offender intends to inflict serious harm but also realizes it may cause death. Second degree murder may be caused by dangerous or reckless conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life.

A recent example of a second-degree murder conviction is that of George Huguely V. Huguely was found guilty of second-degree murder and grand larceny involving the death of his on-again off-again girlfriend, Yeardley Love. Both Huguely and Love were college seniors who played on the nationally-ranked lacrosse teams at the University of Virginia. In 2010 Love was found dead face down on her bloody pillow by a roommate. Police answered a call of an alcohol overdose but after officers saw a hole punched in her bedroom door they treated Love’s bedroom as a crime scene. Huguely told interrogators that he went to Love’s apartment that night to talk to her. He said she freaked out and they wrestled on the floor. He said he tossed her in bed and left her apartment with her computer. The medical examiner ruled she died of blunt force trauma. Huguely’s defense attorney depicted his client as a stupid, drunk “boy athlete” who was incapable of murder, though he conceded that Huguely “contributed” to Love’s death.

In addition to first and second-degree murder, we often need to examine other crimes in which a life is taken, but the circumstances do not constitute murder. These are cases of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Manslaughter
A murder charge may be reduced to manslaughter, usually based on four conditions that must be fulfilled to warrant the reduction: (1) the provocation must cause rage or fear in a reasonable person; (2) the defendant must have actually been provoked; (3) there should not be a time period between the provocation and the killing within which a reasonable person would cool off; and (4) the defendant should not have cooled off during that period.

Manslaughter is defined as the unjustifiable, inexcusable, and intentional killing of a human being without deliberation, premeditation, and malice. The essential distinction between murder and manslaughter is that malice aforethought must be present for murder, whereas it must be absent for manslaughter. Taking it one step further, there are two types of manslaughter- voluntary and involuntary.

Voluntary manslaughter is intentional killing that is accompanied by additional circumstances that mitigate, but do not excuse, the killing. It is a separate concept from involuntary manslaughter and has several definitions depending on what state the crime occurs in. Federal law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. Generally the term “heat of passion” refers to an irresistible emotion that an ordinarily reasonable person would explore under the same facts and circumstances.

Involuntary manslaughter is defined as unintentional killing, without intent, that is the result of recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony such as a DUI. The difference between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter is the absence of the intent element. To establish involuntary manslaughter, the prosecutor must show that the defendant acted with “culpable negligence.” Typically, involuntary manslaughter does not result from a “heat of passion” but from an improper use, reasonable care, or skill while in the commission of a lawful act or while in the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony.

Negligent Manslaughter: One form of involuntary manslaughter is criminally negligent manslaughter, often referred to as criminally negligent homicide. It occurs when death results from serious negligence, or serious recklessness. Negligent manslaughter or homicide is a lesser offense than first and second degree murder, in that the sentence will be comparable to manslaughter. U.S. states all define negligent manslaughter by statute. In some states, the offense includes the killing of another while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

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1. Antisocial Behavior
Psychopaths have a strong tendency towards antisocial behavior, so watch for extremely antisocial children. That being said, some children develop more slowly, and this is not a definitive sign. Pay attention if a child regresses from being extremely social to extremely anti-social.
Ed Gein, the inspiration for Psycho’s Norman Bates and Silence of the Lamb’s Buffalo Bill, had no social connections besides his extremely religious and abusive mother, who punished him whenever he tried to make friends. After she died in 1945, Gein began to murder and dig up graves, collecting body parts of women who looked like his mother and trying to make a “woman suit.”

2. Arson
Many serial killers start as arsonists. Arson is psychologically attractive because it involves manipulating power and control, something that serial killing also offers.
David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” killer, was infatuated with pyromania as a child, to the point that other children called him “Pyro.” After being arrested, he took responsibility for dozens of New York arsons. Some sources indicate that he might have been responsible for up to 1,400 fires.

3. Torturing Small Animals
This is one of the strongest warning signs. Children who torture or kill small animals like squirrels, birds, cats, and dogs without showing remorse are highly likely to be sociopaths. Many serial killers kill to control others’ lives, and as children, small animals are the only lives they have the power to control.
Cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer would bike around the woods as a child, collecting dead animals to dissect. Dahmer even killed and dismembered his own puppy, mounting its head on a stake when he was done.

4. Poor Family Life
Many serial killers come from unstable families with criminal, psychiatric, or alcoholic histories. These killers often have terrible relationships with their families, and often use them as their first victims.
When he was only fifteen, Ed Kemper, “the Co-ed Killer,” killed his grandparents. After being released at age twenty-one, Kemper killed six female college students. The police finally caught him when Kemper killed his violent, alcoholic mother. He treated his mother’s corpse particularly brutally, decapitating her, using her head as a dart board, and throwing her vocal cords down the garbage disposal.

5. Childhood Abuse
Many serial killers are abused – physically, psychologically, sexually – as children by a close family member. This behavior instills in the child feelings of humiliation and helpless, feelings which they will later seek to instill in their victims.
Aileen Wuornos, the prostitute serial killer portrayed by Charlize Theron in Monster, was abandoned by her mother when she was four and never met her father, who was serving time in prison for raping a seven-year-old girl when Aileen was born. Aileen’s grandfather, who took over care of Aileen when her mother left, physically and sexually abused her until she ran away at age fifteen.

6. Substance abuse
Many serial killers struggle with drug and alcohol abuse.
Jeffrey Dahmer began drinking in his teens and was an alcoholic by his high school graduation. His alcoholism resulted in both his expulsion from college and his discharge from the military.

7. Voyeurism
From a young age, many serial killers are interested in voyeurism, sado-masochistic pornography, and fetishism.
Ted Bundy claimed that, as an adolescent, he would get drunk and stalk around his community at night, looking for undressing women or other titillating sights.

8. Intelligence
Many serial killers have IQs in the “bright normal” range. Organized serial killers who kill methodically, like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy, have an average I.Q. of 113, while disorganized serial killers have an average I.Q. of 93.
Ed Kemper had an I.Q. of 136 (140 is often used as the genius mark in I.Q. tests). He used his intelligence to convince psychiatrists to release him after serving only five years for his grandparents’ murders, claiming to have reformed. He hadn’t, and he killed eight more women before being caught again.

9. Shiftlessness
Despite higher than normal intelligence, many serial killers have trouble keeping jobs or work in unskilled labor.
After leaving the military, David Berkowitz, who reportedly was of “above-average intelligence,” held several blue-collar jobs before he was captured, including his last one as a postman.

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January 30, 2014
Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty by an Italian appeals court for the 2007 murder of Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher.

They were first convicted of the murder in 2009 and each served four years in Italian prison; however, in 2011, an appeals court acquitted them of these charges due to a lack of evidence, and Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle.

In 2013, Italy’s Supreme Court dismissed the 2011 acquittal believing that during the appeal the court did not “consider all the evidence and discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered.” Italy’s Supreme Court designated a Florence appeals panel to further examine and reopen the case.

The retrial began on September 30th, 2013 in Florence, Italy. However, neither Knox nor Sollecito, were present at the start of the trial. Knox remained at home in Seattle throughout the entire trial, while Sollecito returned to Italy in November to defend his innocence.

After 12 hours of deliberations, the jury reinstated the original guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito that were given to them in the 2009 trial. The judge has sentenced Knox to 28 ½ years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years.

Knox watched the verdict live on television from her home in the U.S. and when the guilty verdict was read she said that she was “frightened and saddened” by the verdict, further commenting that “Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system… There has always been a marked lack of evidence. My family and I have suffered greatly from this wrongful persecution. This has gotten out of hand.”

So what happens next? The presiding judge has 90 days to write his arguments behind the jury’s guilty verdict and then the lawyers of Knox and Sollecito will have 90 days to appeal. Ted Simon, Knox’s attorney, said there will definitely be an appeal and that Knox’s extradition should not even be discussed at this time.

November 5, 2012
The past year of Amanda Knox’s life may have been better than the previous four years, but it was still far from normal.

Freed from Italian prison for now a little over a year, Amanda Knox is currently living in Seattle, lying low in a “seedy” part of town, and working on her memoir. She is dating a former boyfriend, James Terrano, a classical guitarist, and spends most of her time alone.

In September, her previous boyfriend and supposed-accomplice, Raffaele Sollecito, just completed his memoir, Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox. While Knox still hasn’t given her first formal interview, considered “one of the most coveted ‘gets’ being fought over by the American networks,” Sollecito has commented on his experience extensively, even admitting to being jealous of the attention that she got. Sollecito and Knox recently met up at Knox’s grandmother’s birthday party, which helped him come to terms with the girl he once dated. Says Sollecito, he realized almost immediately after seeing her after their release that she was not the she-devil that the media played her out to be, but instead “the Amanda that [he] loved for one week.”

Knox’s book is expected to come out in spring of 2013 and will supposedly net $4 million, most of which will go towards Knox’s staggering legal fees. Until then, Knox seems content to pass unnoticed through the ethnic neighborhood of Seattle in which she lives. Not surprising, considering her nightmarish four years spent in an Italian prison. As Sollecito explained, after getting out of prison, “everything was new…[it makes you] feel like a kid inside, just discovering.”

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The remains of Becky Marrero, Ridgway’s 49^th known victim, were found in December of 2010 in a steep ravine in King County, Washington.  Marrero, a 20-year-old mother, disappeared more than 28 years ago.  On December, 3, 1982, Marrero left her 3-year-old daughter with her aunt and departed for the Seattle airport.  She was never seen alive again.

Given the plea deal arrangement made in November of 2003 following his arrest in 2001, Ridgway pleaded guilty to Marrero’s murder, was given a 49^th life sentence, and was returned to his cell at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.  The terms of the original plea deal were simple.  According to King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, prosecutors would not seek the death penalty if Ridgway agreed to “plead guilty to any and all future cases (in King County) where his confession could be corroborated by reliable evidence.”  This deal was made in an attempt to resolve more cold cases.  However, should any other victims of the Green River Killer surface outside of King County, there is no limit to what prosecutors can seek in terms of punishment.

With Ridgway’s 49^th conviction, Satterberg hoped that Marrero’s family would finally be given the answers they had searched for, with some degree of justice.

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In the late night of February 1970, investigators were met with a bloody crime scene. There was an overturned coffee table in the living room while other furniture appeared undisturbed. Walking through the hallway and into the master bedroom, they saw a woman covered in blood lying atop a “white rug”. Kimberly and Kristen Macdonald were found in the rooms apparently belonging to the children.

Controversy arises from these brutal murders because of contradicting testimonies from witnesses, characters ranging from long-time drug abusers to retired US Marshals. And on top of these opposing statements, followers insisting on MacDonald’s innocence say that the prosecution suppressed evidence casting doubt on him being suspect.

One witness that came forward in the beginning was Helena Swoekley, who was being counseled by MacDonald for her long-time drug abuse. She spoke with investigators confessing to being part of the murders. She changed her statement when she was put on stand claiming she does not remember what she did the night of the murder.

Another topic of controversy was the fact that Jeffrey MacDonald survived the crime with one stab wound, described by the investigators as minimal damage that did not threaten his life. But in medical reports, doctors describe multiple stab wounds and abrasions to his body along with multiple contusions to his head.

Defense attorney Bernard Segel claimed that he was never given detailed information regarding wool fibers found in all of the victim’s hands. These materials were considered ‘foreign’ because it did not match any of the fibers found within the homes. Furthermore, the hair fibers found in Colette’s hands were of blonder color and supposedly from a wig. According to Swoekley’s statement, she said she was wearing a blonde wig at the time of the murders.

The prosecution does not believe MacDonald’s account of the night and claims that the physical evidence proves a staging occurred. Much blood, type O, (confirmed by blood type because DNA was not an advanced tool used in court as it is now) was found in all bedrooms where the victims were found. All the members of the family had different blood type, so finding blood type O in all bedrooms implicated Jeffrey MacDonald. The prosecution also entered into the trial interview tapes of MacDonald after the murders. His indifferent responses to the killings characterized him as cold, unremorseful, and guilty. In the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) reports on  the evidence, investigators claims that bloodstains of Colette MacDonald were found on Jeffrey MacDonald’s pajama shirt before the shirt was torn which only narrowed their focus on Jeffrey MacDonald as their prime suspect.

In the interview transcripts, MacDonald asked why he would murder his family when he was perfectly happy with his life. In response to his demanding inquiries, they reminded him of his extramarital affairs. Prosecutors found that this would be the primary reason to the heinous murders of the family.

Helena Swoekley claimed to have been witness to the murder of the MacDonald family. Retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt said in a sworn statement that he overheard Jim Blackburn threaten Swoekley to not share her statement on the stand or she would be indicted for murder. Swoekley’s mother, also named Helena, came forward sharing that her daughter confided in her two separate events that she was present during the MacDonald family murder. Swoekley claimed that she was present in his house that night to intimidate MacDonald because, as a counsel, he was being “too hard” on drug users.

Although much of the evidence is primarily circumstantial, the opposing opinions on whether Jeffrey MacDonald is innocent or guilty keep increasing.

Jeffrey MacDonald was granted an appeal after compelling witness statements made by Retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt (now deceased), human DNA found in fingernail scrapings from one of the victims not belonging to anyone from the MacDonald family, and foreign wool fibers.

Because Jim Britt and Helena Swoekley are both deceased, prosecutors see it “improper” to admit it as evidence for a new trial.

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Testing of the recovered Tylenol bottles found that the capsules had been laced with approximately 65mg of the highly toxic compound potassium cyanide, nearly 10,000 times the amount to kill an average person. An investigation carried out by the FBI and local Chicago police department found that the tampered bottles came from different factories. Tampering in the initial production of the Tylenol capsules was ruled out since all of the deaths occurred in the Chicago area.

The original theory behind the crimes was a culprit who took the Tylenol bottles from drug and grocery stores in the Chicago area over a period of weeks, opened the capsules and added potassium cyanide, after which the culprit would return the bottles to the stores to be purchased. Due to the capsule form of the Tylenol, one could not tell the pills had been tampered with. To this date, the crimes remain unsolved.

Recently, Scott Bartz wrote an expose titled The Tylenol Mafia: Marketing, Murder, and Johnson & Johnson which explores a very different story of the murders and why the case was never closed. Bartz, a former Johnson & Johnson employee, had another theory in which the tampered Tylenol capsules were introduced at the manufacturer warehouses rather than being tampered and replaced in stores. He goes on to state that Johnson & Johnson later learned about this information and intentionally hid the evidence.

The expose compiles numerous sources of information, including the interviews of the victim’s families, FBI, local law enforcement, and prime suspects as well as undisclosed documentation that give rise to why the murders were never solved. Some problems that Bartz encounters include lack of evidence to support a culprit tampering with bottles in stores, the closely guarded distribution system by the makers of Tylenol, and the manipulation of facts by investigators. The inconsistencies that occurred with the production & distribution of the Tylenol capsules are believed to be due to the relationships of the company executives and their political motivations.

Update

In the years following the Tylenol murders, a number of copycat attacks occurred (ie. The 1986 Excedrin Tampering Murders). This led to tamper-resistant packaging and improved quality control of drug manufacturing through packaging reforms and the development of federal anti-tampering laws.

With new advances in forensic technology, the case is being re-investigated. A prime suspect at the time of the crimes was James W. Lewis, but police could not link him to the actual crimes.  In January 2009, Lewis’s home was searched for evidence and in 2010, he submitted DNA and fingerprints. The connection between Lewis and the murders is still being investigated.

On May 19, 2011, DNA samples were requested from Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber) by the FBI. At the time of the crimes, Kaczynski’s parents lived in a Chicago suburb where he occasionally stayed. Kaczynski denies any connection to the murders.

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He was born in 1869, to an Indian official and very religious mother. She exposed her son to a morally rigorous Indian religion, Jainism, which advocated nonviolence. He took an opportunity to study law in England in 1888 and shortly following he accepted a one-year contract in South Africa in 1893. This opened his eyes to racism and South African laws that restricted the rights of Indians. In this instance, he decided he needed to fight for justice and defend his rights as an Indian man. After the contract expired, he remained in South Africa and began a campaign against the legislation that denied Indians the right to vote. It was here that he formed the Natal Indian Congress and organized his first mass civil disobedience, called satyagraha. He was able to negotiate a compromise with the South African government after seven years.

Gandhi then returned to India in 1914 and began to live out his life spiritually.  He first supported Britain during the First World War; however, he launched a new satyagraha in response to the mandatory order that required all Indians to be drafted into the military. In 1920, he became known as the leader to the Indian movement for independence. When he reorganized the Indian National Congress, he created a boycott of all British goods. This was a problem once violence occurred and the satyahraha was called off. He was then arrested in 1922, found guilty of sedition, and imprisoned.

He was released in 1924 and began protesting against the Hindu-Muslim violence by leading an extended fast. He returned to his position in national politics in 1928 and launched a protest against the British salt tax in 1930. His most famous campaign included the march to the Arabian Sea, where people made their own salt from evaporating sea water. However, he was once again arrested with about 60,000 others.

He led another fast while in prison against the British government’s treatment of the “untouchables”– Indians in the lowest tier of the caste system, who were the impoverished and degraded.  However, in 1934 he left the Indian Congress Party to aid in India’s poor population.

Shortly following, World War II broke out. Gandhi got back into politics and asked for Indian cooperation with the British war effort, but in exchange for independence. The request was denied and the wish was to divide India into Hindu and Muslim groups. Gandhi chose to launch “Quit India”, a movement in 1942 that wanted complete British withdrawal. He was again imprisoned in 1944.

After 1945, a new government was put into place in Britain. Gandhi hoped for a unified India. During the war, the Muslim League grew in influence, and they disagreed with this unification. Following discussion, two separate states were created, India and Pakistan. This separation occurred on August 15, 1947. Soon bloody violence broke out between the Muslims and Hindus of India. Only a year later, he was fatally shot by a Hindu extremist while on a visit to a troubled area in New Delhi. He has been known as Mahatma or “the great soul” and has influenced many great characters, one in particular being Martin Luther King Jr.

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Tales From The French Quarter by Kalila Smith

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.
-Alfred Hitchcock

Zachary Bowen was a war hero. While serving as a military policeman in Kosovo and Iraq, he earned numerous awards for his bravery. Bowen had moved to New Orleans in the mid-nineties, leaving only to go to Iraq and returning after completing his tour of duty. During the turbulent winds of Hurricane Katrina he met and fell in love with Addie Hall. Hall offered Bowen shelter in her apartment on Governor Nicholls Street. While the two knew each other before Katrina, the exact details of their relationship are vague.

After Katrina, the two became inseparable. They gained local notoriety for refusing to leave the Quarter after the storm, choosing instead to stand by New Orleans.

Aside from his military honors, no one knew much about Bowen’s past. He had indicated to some that he had been married at one time and had two children. He worked in a local grocery store doing deliveries and bartending part-time.

Hall and Bowen’s relationship was anything but blissful. They fought endlessly, breaking up and reconciling often. They lived troubled, chaotic lives. In the year following Katrina, Bowen was arrested for possession of marijuana and Hall for aggravated assault after pulling a weapon on a man walking in the French Quarter. A friend of Bowen’s reported that he had talked of “getting rid of her.” Many who knew Bowen claim that he often talked negatively about her, yet mysteriously remained in the relationship.

As the city recovered, Bowen and Hall’s relationship began to disintegrate further. By the end of September 2006, the two had been evicted from the Gov. Nicholls apartment and had moved to another at 826 N. Rampart Street, above the New Orleans Voodoo Spiritual Temple. At first, things appeared normal to the landlord, but by October 5, Hall had visited him requesting to have Bowen thrown out. Hall had discovered that he had been cheating on her and she had decided to end the relationship. The landlord discussed the situation with Bowen and suggested the couple try to work things out and get back to him with their decision. When the landlord didn’t hear from them again, he assumed that they made up.

On the evening of October 16, 2006, Bowen had been out drinking with a friend. He appeared to those who encountered him to be in good spirits and talked about a much needed vacation. His friend even made a comment to him about “being in paradise” the following night. But the night of October 17 turned out to be anything but a trip to paradise for Bowen.

Around 8:30 PM on October 17th, a guest at the Omni Royal Orleans, sitting in an upper level lounge, noticed the body of a man atop the roof of the parking deck. Bowen had jumped to his death from a rooftop terrace with a suicide note tucked into his pocket. His badly mangled body was covered in cigarette burns. Surveillance camera footage shows Bowen walking to the ledge several times before following through with his fateful jump.

No doubt it took some time for him to summon up his courage knowing that this would be his final moment. His suicide note revealed that, riddled with grief and guilt, he realized he could not live with himself. He felt like a failure in every aspect of his life:

I didn’t contact any of my family, so that’ll explain the shock. This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took…Every last one of these [aspects] I failed at, hence the 28 cigarette burns, one for each year of my existence.

The note directed police to Bowen’s apartment, where Bowen had spray-painted his wife’s telephone number on the wall for her to be notified. Another spray-painted note directed police to a couple of large pots on top of the stove. Inside one they found the head of Addie Hall, in the other her hands and feet. A basting pan inside the oven contained her arms and legs—one had even been sprinkled with seasoning. There were chopped vegetables in a container on top of the stove.

Bowen had left details for the police in Addie’s journal:

Today is Monday 16 October, 2:00 AM. I killed her at 1:00 AM, Thursday, 5 October. I very calmly strangled her. It was very quick.

His note claimed that he had repeatedly had sex with the corpse, passing out drunk on the sofa alongside Addie’s body. The following day, he moved her body to the bathroom and began to dismember her with a handsaw and a knife. Police noted that he had attempted to clean up the bathroom. It took four days for Bowen to decide how to dispose of Addie’s chopped up remains.

He put the thermostat on 60 degrees and went about his normal routine.

Halfway through the task, I stopped and thought about what I was doing. The decision to halt the first idea and move to Plan B (the crime scene you are now in) came after awhile. I scared myself not only by the action of calmly strangling the woman I’ve loved for one and a half years, but by my entire lack of remorse. I’ve known forever how horrible a person I am (ask anyone).

An autopsy performed on Bowen showed no signs of cannibalism. No one knows what he had planned to do as he prepared Addie’s body parts to be cooked. Outside of his cryptic ranting that he left scribbled in the journal, he gave no indication to anyone that he was capable of such a heinous act.

I happened to mention to a friend that I planned to include this story in my book and he told me that he had seen the actual crime scene photos. He described a photo in which portions of her disemboweled torso lay out on the kitchen table. He said she definitely had not been charred as the media suggested, but literally cooked! He also mentioned that despite the report disclaiming any cannibalism, her legs in the pan looked as if they had been eaten partially. He made an analogy to that of a ham that had been “picked over,” revealing underlying bone.

Many people who knew Zachary Bowen said that he had suffered severe trauma during his time served in the Army. He mentioned some horrific event happening to a child that he could not erase from his memory. Clearly another instance where a once normal person simply snapped in the French Quarter. One could attribute his descent into madness to compounded post-traumatic stress disorder…or maybe a dark and evil entity had entered and resided inside of him.

Aggression Cannibalism by Jaci Seelagy

Cannibalism may be the ultimate taboo, but it occurs far more often than most people realize, and for many different reasons. A number of serial killers have practiced cannibalism (see Albert Fish or Jeffrey Dahmer); for them, an urge to consume their victims is just a step away from murder in fulfilling their desire to exercise power over life and death, to possess their victims entirely. Some believe consuming another person allows them to take on certain powers, or take on the life force of that person (see clinical vampirism, or “Renfield’s Syndrome”). But why would someone like Zachary Bowen, who killed out of anger, take the time and effort to cook his victim, even after the immediate rage has faded?

One possible answer, of course, is that cooking and eating a victim is simply a bizarre attempt to dispose of the body. This may be its purpose in the case of the Sweeney Todd-style murder by a Russian chef a few weeks ago—he killed his father-in-law during an argument, then cooked the remains into meat pies to sell to unsuspecting customers. In cases like that of Omaima Aree Nelson, she supposedly killed her husband in response to systematic spousal abuse, and then cooked and ate parts of his body. She began trying to dispose of the rest of it by taking it to various ex-boyfriends for help. Did frying his hands or dipping his ribs in barbecue sauce make it significantly easier to get rid of the evidence? Probably not.

In cases of argument-related murder that end with cooking and/or eating of the body, the motive is more likely the same as the motive for the murder itself—anger. If someone’s rage is so extreme that mere murder doesn’t satisfy it, they may try to continue expressing control and revenge by consuming their victim. It may even simply be a way to draw out the murder over time, continuing it even after the victim’s death.

Of course, Zachary Bowen committed suicide after killing his girlfriend, not exactly a sign of someone wanting to draw out his aggression as long as possible, and the autopsy was said to show no signs of actual consumption of her remains. Cooking, however, shows a clear plan to eat, so it seems he simply changed his mind. This may just be a sign of his rage running out—that it lasted several days before he stopped what he was doing and killed himself instead.

Since most crimes of passion don’t end with a barbecue, something about these killers must separate them from the killers whose anger ends just after death. Omaima Aree Nelson, like Zachary Bowen, was said to have post traumatic stress disorder—could this hinder their ability to stop at murder alone? Or is some other, more sinister influence at work?

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While the capture of the Night Stalker was a credit to law enforcement’s use of the media, his identification as Ramirez was the result of another modern technique. The Night Stalker case was among the first major cases to use automated fingerprinting technology.

Today, television detectives run fingerprints from a crime scene through an automated database and get results in seconds—somewhat inaccurately. In reality, the database kicks back “likely” matches and a trained fingerprint examiner must compare them to find an actual match. Still, the technology we use today allows quick searches of a vast number of fingerprints, and if a criminal leaves a fingerprint behind we can see if he’s ever been booked and fingerprinted, or if we have the same print on file from another scene.

In 1985, this use of computers was brand new. Before automated systems, examiners would have to look through fingerprints on file by hand, using ten-print cards (on which a booked criminal has rolled all ten fingerprints in ink). It meant a great deal of time and effort, and was rarely useful without a suspect in mind. Some even admitted that the collection of fingerprints at the scene was frequently done for public relations purposes only—to appear to be doing something to solve the crime.

When computers were first applied to the task, the systems were extremely expensive, making it difficult to sell to agencies with low budgets. That’s why when the California Department of Justice used their brand new automated fingerprint indexing system to immediately identify Richard Ramirez as the Night Stalker, it put these systems on the map—it proved they worked, and that the cost was justified.

For a contemporary article on the use of automated fingerprint technology, go here. For more on the Night Stalker’s crimes, go here.

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