Book Review: Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer

Rape is one of the most destructive, soul-destroying and contentious crimes of this or any other period in human history. No other crime elicits such a wide range of emotions, nor is there any other crime that is so burdened with myths, stereotypes and the views of a large percentage of the population who either genuinely don't feel rape is a serious crime, or are themselves rapists. This is all compounded by the rise of the internet and the ease with which multitudes of low-life pieces of human garbage can congregate online and validate each other's sick fantasies. In addition, an entire generation of ignoramuses weaned on the internet has acquired incredibly warped views about sex and intimacy.

The notion persists that rape is only "real" if committed by a stranger and only if it involves knives, guns or other weapons and repeated threats of harm (beyond the sexual assault itself). Also, most people have in their minds an idea of what "normal" and acceptable responses are to rape and other types of sexual assault. For example, many people believe that if a woman does not scream or violently resist her attacker, then it could not possibly be rape. In fact, researchers have found that reactions are often, if not usually, counter-intuitive to the collection of Hollywood-influenced stereotypes about how a victim should respond. Many victims freeze and are unable to do anything but wait until the horror of their assault is over. Many victims blame themselves in an attempt to push away reality and convince themselves the attack didn't occur or to lessen the psychological damage. And, yes, as hard as it may be to believe, many victims will maintain contact with their attackers (the likelihood of this is increased by the fact that most victims know their attackers).

In Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer describes five sexual assaults against female university students that take place in Missoula, Montana and the horrible effects suffered by the victims. Krakauer also details the actions taken by the university administration in each case, as well as the shockingly inadequate response of the local police and justice system. Because all the rapists are college football players, the crimes become a rallying cry for many of the local pieces of filth who have helped construct a subculture for the roided-up piece of shit athletes who think that they do not have to suffer any consequences for their criminal behaviour. Sadly, they are often correct in such thinking. It is instructive that out of all five cases, only one perpetrator was imprisoned, and that was mainly because he confessed on two separate occasions and both times his confessions were recorded.

The county attorney's office in Missoula at the time was staffed by some class-A bags of shit whose main concern was keeping their conviction rate as high as possible. To maintain the high conviction rate, they would only prosecute cases in which it was very likely they would get a guilty verdict. Because sexual assault cases are notoriously difficult to win, the county attorney's office simply refused to take on any but the most black and white cases (such as the one where there were two recorded confessions). The following passage indicates just how shameless and inept the Missoula Country Attorney's Office was in prosecuting rape crimes:

In one case described in the DOJ [Department of Justice] report, the Missoula police obtained a confession from a man who admitted raping a woman while she was unconscious. The Missoula police referred the case to the county attorney's office with a recommendation that the prosecutor charge the suspect with rape, but the country attorney's office declined to file any charges, citing "insufficient evidence."

The DOJ report mentioned in the above passage was the result of an investigation launched by the federal Department of Justice in response to a number of high-profile rape cases in Missoula (some of which are discussed in the book) and the perceived general ineptness of the Missoula County Attorney's Office in dealing with rape cases.

In a further example of what absolute filth staffed the county attorney's office, one fleck of shit resigned so she could defend the rapist who was initially charged when she was a prosecutor! In a town where most people metaphorically eat the shit out of the assholes of all the local college football players and anyone else associated with the team, it's hard not to feel that most people involved in maintaining law and order are more concerned about remaining popular and are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that they have the best shot at remaining in or attaining highly-paid, elected positions.

Krakauer is in top form in Missoula, equaling or surpassing his other great books such as Into Thin Air, Into the Wild, and Under the Banner of Heaven. I hesitate to call Missoula a true crime book because of the connotations that go along with that genre. In his crisp, engaging prose, Krakauer provides detailed narratives of the crimes and their fallout, and those passages are without doubt the most riveting parts of the book. But he also includes research that has been conducted about the trauma suffered by rape victims, the counter-intuitive behaviour of victims, the laws surrounding consent, the subculture of university athletics, and the criminal justice system and how the odds are stacked against victims of sexual assault. Of course, often the discussion, while not explicitly stated, is simply about ignorance, herd-mentality behaviour and most people's lack of critical thinking skills.

The most harrowing, despair-inducing, difficult passages to read involve the trauma suffered by rape victims. In this passage, Krakauer writes about a woman's self-destructive behaviour after being raped, which unfortunately validated many people's confirmation bias about what is an acceptable way for a victim to behave:

Laura suffered intensely for many years from being sexually assaulted. And her misery she said, was magnified by the stigma attached to the unhealthy compulsions that tyrannized her existence after the assaults. In this regard she was like many other rape victims. Their self-destructive behavior is often held up as "proof" that they are unreliable and morally compromised, or that they deserved to be raped.

Later in the book, Krakauer further discusses the research about rape victims and the fallout they experience:

When I mentioned this to Trisha Dittrik, the therapist who supervised our group, she told me she wasn't surprised. Rape and war, she explained, are among the most common causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, and survivors of sexual assault frequently exhibit many of the same symptoms and behavior as survivors of combat: Flashbacks, insomnia, nightmares, hypervigilance, isolation, depression, suicidal thoughts, outbursts of anger, unrelenting anxiety, and an inability to shake the feeling that the world is spinning out of control. 

If you're looking for just-the-facts reportage from Krakauer, you likely haven't read any of his books. He doesn't shy away from editorializing, or more accurately, he makes it clear exactly where he stands on the issues. That's not to suggest that Krakauer doesn't provide nuanced, balanced narratives of the events and people involved. He includes both sides of every account, interviews alleged rapists when they are willing, and delves into the topic of false accusations of rape. Yes, it does occur, although statistics and research indicate that it is a very small percentage of the vast number of sexual assaults that take place. Of course, that doesn't stop apologists from advancing the lie that false accusations are just as common as rapes. Strangely, the handful of high-profile cases in the past few years in which innocent men have been locked up for rapes that never happened, somehow resonate with most people in a more fundamental way than even the most brutal of sexual assaults in which the rapists are proven guilty beyond any doubt.

It's interesting that when trying to elicit understanding from the segment of the population who live confidently with the belief that they will never be victimized and who perpetuate the litany of myths about rape, it is often necessary to appeal to an imaginary situation in which their sisters, daughters or mothers are assaulted. Instead of direct empathy with victims, it's necessary to frame the issue in terms of loss of face, honour and a vague sense of male ownership regarding the people who suffer. Sure enough, in Missoula, a character witness who goes to bat for Beau Donaldson (the rapist depicted in the book who actually went to prison) only stops to ponder the seriousness of the crime he is essentially defending when a lawyer asks him if he would feel differently if his daughter had been the one who had been raped. When comparing the words of rape victims and rape apologists, it's also interesting to note that victims essentially focus on details of what happened while apologists use generalizations, cliches, logical fallacies and constant references to the invisible sky daddy.

Implicit in any discussion about rape is power, and Krakauer's book is no different. Rape is a crime of power. Unfortunately, the institutions tasked with providing assistance to rape victims and making rapists pay for their crimes, are part of the power structure in society. It's fair to ask: Is there some kind of affinity for rape (and all sorts of other crimes) within many of our institutions? Well, in any institution in society, a certain number of people with power seem to be rapists. Think of the Catholic church, residential schools, the military, police forces, university sports programs, and professional sports teams, to name a few. At the very least, institutions never do anything that will undermine themselves or reduce their power, and that often means a subculture in which predators can get away with their crimes without any concern for repercussions.

For example, in Canada, the federal police force, the RCMP, is currently facing a number of class-action lawsuits by current and former female officers who faced years of harassment and sometimes sexual assaults. A recent report bizarrely indicated that nudity is common in many RCMP offices. This is is some wackworld stuff. Until you consider the fact that the RCMP is an organization largely staffed with grade-12 educated individuals who carry guns and believe that they are above the law. The point is, how can we rely on corrupt, out-of-control, often extremely ignorant people who apparently embrace the misogynistic, sneering-at-rape-victim culture, to do an effective job of taking rape victims seriously and locking up rapists?

Whether people are attracted to power because of the impunity they know it will provide them, or whether power has an effect on some people in such a way that corrupts their character, is not completely clear. What is clear is that as human beings we have not come far enough in our understanding of power and how to more effectively monitor, regulate and sanction powerful people and institutions when necessary. What is also eminently clear is that few people adequately understand rape and the horrible effects suffered by its victims. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is not only extremely well-written and engaging, but is also a very important book that should be read by anyone who believes in justice, empathy and the importance of doing all we can to help victims of sexual assault.

People Who Eat Darkness: Book Review

Your child is missing: those are the most frightening words a family can hear. In many ways those words are more terrible than news that a child has been killed. When someone disappears, there is still hope of course, but imagining the horror that a missing loved one may be experiencing has got to be too much to bear. On the other hand, reading about people who have experienced the trauma of a missing child is fascinating and emotionally wrenching in its own way. The very word "disappeared" elicits so many dark and exquisitely terrifying emotions that stories of missing people are instantly appealing and morbidly engaging.

Those tales are doubly fascinating when the person goes missing abroad. Foreign lands are full of the mysterious and the unknown in the best of circumstances. The inscrutable cultural practices, incomprehensible languages and, often times, brazen discrimination or downright hatred of foreigners can combine to drag a family seeking answers about their missing child into a living nightmare.

People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman, by Richard Lloyd Parry, tells the story of Lucie Blackman, an eighteen year-old English woman who set off for Japan with her friend in May, 2000 and disappeared a few months later. Her family started a desperate search for their daughter shortly after she went missing, but their efforts would end in the worst way imaginable.

Parry goes into great detail regarding Lucie's life before Japan, reconstructs her two months in Tokyo, and then tells the story of the police work that led to Lucie's killer and eventually, the discovery of her body. The book also describes the efforts Lucie's family made to pressure police in Japan to find out what had happened to their daughter. It's a gripping, heart-breaking and utterly absorbing story.

As soon as Lucie's friends reported her missing, Lucie's already-divorced parents put their differences aside and quickly initiated a proactive media campaign and travelled to Japan to ensure that their daughter's disappearance received as much attention as possible. Based on what I have read about similar cases in various Asian countries, I believe it is a course of action anyone in a similar situation should seriously consider. While you obviously wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of the people whose assistance you would need in order to find a missing person and then, hopefully, to see justice done, you also wouldn't want to allow bumbling, shameless or corrupt police to operate without any pressure.

Lucie's father, Tim Blackman has a natural flair for organizing and motivating people and for interacting with the media. Some readers might consider some of his actions strangely out of place considering the situation at the time. But I think far more people will see his response for what it is: the desperate attempts of a distraught father to do whatever is necessary to find his daughter. Much later, after Lucie's body had been found, her suspected murderer arrested, locked up and sentenced to many years in prison for other rapes and assaults (though amazingly, he evaded a guilty verdict in Lucie's killing), Tim Blackman accepted a huge payout from one of the suspected murderer's close friends.

It's a tradition in Japan: the criminal or his family or close friends make a payment to the victim's family as a way of making amends. Some people call it "blood money." But as Tim Blackman would later say in interviews (not contained in the book), is it really any different than people who receive settlements after suing criminals in civil court? Of course, the Japanese blood money payouts are contingent on the person who receives the money signing a statement which can cast the criminal in a more positive light (if that is possible). Lucie's mother was outraged after her former husband accepted the payment, but Tim Blackman claimed much of the money would be used to finance an organization set up in Lucie's name. But at the time of Lucie's disappearance, those events would be years in the future.

This is a lengthy, thoroughly-researched, very well-written book. Beyond the developments of the case, the efforts of Lucie's family, and the trial of the man accused of killing her, Joji Obara, readers also learn about the horrific fallout experienced by Lucie's family, and the strange criminal justice system in Japan. And at every turn of the story, Parry includes more than just superficial descriptions, such as in this passage in which he discusses the history of hostess bars in Japan and the neighbourhood where Lucie and her friend Louise worked:

The earliest foreign participants in the water trade were Korean and Chinese prostitutes, colonial subjects of the prewar Japanese empire. In 1945, Westerners appeared in large numbers, but as buyers rather than sellers, during the seven-year-long U.S. occupation. It was during this period, too, that Roppongi began to emerge as a place of recreation. Its name meant “six trees”; before the war, it had been a nondescript residential area dominated by a barracks of the Japanese Imperial Army. The U.S. military took over the barracks after the surrender, and around its entrance sprang up little bars catering to off-duty soldiers, with names such as Silk Hat, Green Spot, and the Cherry. It was at this time that Roppongi’s curious motto originated. Locals noticed that the American GIs would greet one another by slapping palms together above their heads. One could imagine the scene late at night, as a curious Japanese barman asked his customers about this, and the long, drunken attempt to explain the theory and practice of the high five. It was mistransliterated into Japanese as hai tacchi, or “high touch”—hence the slogan on the walls of the Roppongi expressway: “High Touch Town.”

Parry paints a darkly evocative world of life in Japan for foreigners. I've lived most of my adult life in foreign countries, and I find that Parry captures that experience very well. As an expat, a vaguely unsettling feeling is always hovering at the edge of your thoughts. It's not always an unpleasant feeling—together with the relative anonymity, a day-to-day life that is more stimulating than in most western countries and the enjoyable aspects of the local culture, life can be very good as an expat in Asia. If the darker side of life as a foreigner remains an unrealized abstraction, it can add flavour to the script a person is always writing about his or her own life. Of course, when nationalistic, racist nastiness rears its head, that background music in the autobiographical noir film you're living can become quite frightening.

The outsider theme runs throughout People Who Eat Darkness. Lucie and her friend enter the world of foreigners working as hostesses in Tokyo bars, where they have few rights and willingly subject themselves to the advances of the creeps who have a fetish for young foreign women. The man accused of murdering Lucie, Joji Obara, is also an outsider of sorts in Japan. His parents emigrated to Japan from Korea and suffered all sorts of discrimination as they raised their son in a society which likes to claim it is the most ethnically homogeneous in the world. The author, who lived in Japan at the time of Lucie's disappearance, describes his own experiences as an outsider. Throughout the period when Lucie was missing, and then during the lengthy trials, Parry wrote numerous articles about the case and was eventually sued (unsuccessfully) by Joji Obara. He also became the focus of some nationalistic scumbags who threatened him through the post and confronted him in the street at least once.

I rank People Who Eat Darkness as one of the best true crime books of the past five years. Perhaps that's partly because I can relate strongly to the sentiments about living as a foreigner in Asia, but mainly, I simply feel it's an exceptionally well-written book. It certainly enjoyed a fair amount of success, but I'm kind of surprised it wasn't more popular. Of course, all books, no matter how good, are worthy of criticism. As I thought about what aspect of the book could have been better, I decided to take a look at the most common gripes other readers have made. Nowadays it's hard not to look at, and often be influenced by, reviews that appear on Amazon. Although the book generally receives favourable reviews on Amazon, I was surprised at the number of people who moaned about the overabundance of detail. Call me strange, but in an engaging, multi-layered, haunting tale that evokes such a powerful sense of place, I want all the detail the author can throw at me. In fact, it was one of those books that elicited a feeling of disappointment as the ending approached. I just didn't want the book to end.

Although it's not directly related to the writing, I found the cover art (there are at least three different covers I believe) oddly lacking. And for some reason, there have been at least three different subtitles for the book. Those are obviously very minor criticisms that take away nothing from the reading experience, but maybe are an indication that the publishers didn't give this book the publicity it deserved. Perhaps it doesn't quite rise to the level of the all-time greats in the genre such as Helter Skelter or The Executioner's Song, but People Who Eat Darkness is a book that most fans of true crime (save for those who apparently can't handle too much of a good thing) will find well worth their time.

Jeffrey Dahmer: Confessions of a Serial Killer

Time flies. One minute you're looking ahead to the turn of the century like it's some far off, mystical event. And then suddenly, it's more than 20 years since Jeffery Dahmer was locked up for eating people. I recently watched an interview of Dahmer that was conducted by Stone Phillips for Dateline NBC more than 20 years ago (but only aired for the first time about ten years ago). The interview lasted 90 minutes and was entitled Jeffrey Dahmer: Confessions of a Serial Killer. Dahmer's father (Lionel Dahmer) and mother (Joyce Flint) were also interviewed. It's a very compelling, insightful, and downright creepy viewing experience.

Most people carry around a storyline about themselves that nicely explains their circumstances and their place in the world. A not-so-secret wish for many is to have others accept this storyline. Serial killers attract a lot of attention  and almost inevitably are given the chance to explain themselves and their actions. And so, Dahmer offers up his own narrative on his twisted desires and what he believes contributed to his motivations to kill.

Dahmer's bland, shameless explanation for his crimes together with his claim that he won't try to put the blame on anyone but himself, will go a long way to convincing people that he is telling the truth. But I don't quite buy everything that he says. First of all, Dahmer knows that his blunt admissions and refusal to blame others contribute to a profile that screams: I have nothing left to hide; I am going to share all the horrific details of my crimes and accept my punishment. In other words, many people will assume that with nothing to gain, he probably is telling the truth.

Of course, he knows this. And perhaps some of what he says is true. But then he can slip in other details to craft the public image he leaves behind. Granted, it's pretty difficult to rehabilitate such a horrific legacy. But someone like him probably wanted to sculpt and refine the nastier details so as to increase his infamy.

I also have trouble believing him because he contradicts himself. Mere minutes after proudly declaring that he won't blame anything or anyone else for his actions, he does just that. Like many prisoners who have nothing but time on their hands, Dahmer decides that proclaiming a belief in the invisible sky daddy will give him numerous dupes in the outside world to manipulate for the remainder of his days. And so he blames his slaughtering and cannibalism spree on the fact that he wasn't, at that time, a believer in the nappy-haired little Jewish carpenter who lived 2000 years ago. Which means he is shifting blame for his nasty crimes onto the big, bad, horrible society in which he was born and lived.

As the interview goes on, Dahmer continues  spinning and crafting the image he hopes people will accept. Did he try to stop the insanity? Why yes, he says. But after the second time he killed, it was pointless, he claims. But right at the moment he says this, he offers up one of those classic, body-language "tells." The nose-touch. I am fully down with the idea people do get itchy noses, and a scratch is not always a sign that they are lying. But it is interesting how often that gesture comes right at the moment when a person is trying to sculpt their own story or are otherwise commenting in a way that shines a light on their character.

Dahmer describes some of the usual background behaviour associated with serial killers. For example, he killed young animals when he was a child and says that he was obsessed with examining their innards. Just as all people want to know their fellow humans, this bit of childhood nastiness by many sociopathic murderers apparently is their literal attempt to understand life.

Father-Son Freakshow

Dahmer's father sits alongside him during parts of the interview and offers his own take on his piece-of-filth offspring. Both father and son exude the same bland, weirdly  unsettling matter-of-factness as they discuss the sick actions committed by Dahmer. I suppose there really is nothing else they can do as they have decided to discuss such macabre and repellent crimes. But the presentation of the supposed facts and their feelings comes across as weirdly unaffected and blasé.

I've often felt that people who are involved in any kind of traumatic events can benefit from writing books and getting caught up in the potential publicity of interviews and other public interactions where they are able to discuss their experiences. It all casts a surreal haze over everything and elevates their horrible, dreary lives into something worth discussing. And, in a weird way, while they are writing about and reliving their involvement in any number of terrible situations, it somehow makes it all seem easier to deal with.

And so, Dahmer's father felt it necessary to write a book after his son ate a bunch of people. I haven't read this book, but Philips references some passages and the overall types of musings from it during the interview with Dahmer and his father. Many of the half-baked possible causes that Dahmer's father discusses in the book regarding why his son slaughtered people are raised in the interview. All of the questions Dahmer's father apparently discusses in the book have the vague feeling of being interesting thought experiments on abstract ideas. Yet they are actually related to the murdering scum he fathered and who calmly sits next to him pontificating on his crimes and motives in his flat, monotone voice.

The parts of the interview where Dahmer and his father riff off each other and discuss their belief in god and dismiss evolution are some of the most revolting. The self-righteousness that comes through as Dahmer pukes up the standard jail-house horseshit of criminal filth converted at the last minute is truly pathetic.

Destroyed Lives

The calm, navel-gazing, oddly disconnected responses Dahmer and his father provide are in contrast to the interview with Dahmer's mother. It's impossible to know how people are affected by events based strictly on what they say and their manner (and Dahmer's father does mention this, noting that his outward appearance can make people think that he is somewhat cold and unfeeling), but you can only really listen to what they have to say. What people say, and how they say it, tend to indicate how much importance they attach to those words. And Dahmer's mother expresses what appears to be real pain for what her son inflicted on others. She comes across as being truly and irrevocably damaged by what took place, as opposed to the strange, sterile interview with Dahmer and his father, both of who seemed, at times, pleased that their bizarre story warrants such attention. Of course, in her words and rationalizations, there is still plenty to criticize about Dhamer's mother as well.

The interview continues on. Dahmer's father is also interviewed alone, Dahmer answers questions alone, and Dahmer's mother appears alone and with a co-author of a book she had planned on writing (but which was never published). Dahmer's mother never appears next to her son during the interview. In fact, the parts of the interview where Dahmer and his father sit next to each other, of course, took place in prison, while the interview with Dahmer's mother was conducted elsewhere.

I can't really see any reason why the people involved consented to these interviews. Aside from money (I have no idea if they were paid), or the aforementioned desire for attention, I can't see the benefit. However, Dahmer's father apparently encouraged his son to do the interview, as the book Dahmer's father had written was released just prior to that time. Stone Philips briefly mentions this as a motivating factor. As for Dahmer's mother, she likely wanted to ensure that her side of the story was heard. She divorced Dahmer's father years ago, and apparently didn't like some of the suggestions or outright claims he made in his book.

But if part of the motivation was to help people understand Dahmer, or even to paint him as a sympathetic figure, then it was a complete failure. No matter how rational or convincing you may sound, it's simply too hard to reach people when your offspring does what Dahmer did. The nastiness is bound to cloud most people's judgement of anyone related to such a perpetrator of evil.

Only nine months after the interviews were conducted, a fellow inmate bludgeoned Dahmer to death in prison. I wonder what was going through Dahmer's mind as the life was being hammered out of him? Relief? A dull sense of interest at this final experience before he ceased for all eternity? Hard to say. But something tells me no real remorse ever troubled the mind of this vile fleck of human excrement, either in the years following his crimes, or during those last, well-deserved moments of brutal justice.

Book Review: On the Farm by Stevie Cameron

On the Farm: Robert William Pickton and the Tragic Story of Vancouver's Missing Women by Stevie Cameron, is a difficult book to read. Difficult because of the horrific crimes perpetrated by Robert Pickton, the suffering of the women and their families, and the failure of the police to adequately investigate the crimes early on in a case that was clearly the work of a serial killer. So much pain to wade through, and so much human filth.

White Trash Wonderland

The farm on which Pickton lived and slaughtered was a veritable magnet for the lowest scum on the face of the earth. With white trash royalty (Hells Angels) near-by to provide dead-enders with role models to look up to, you had a nearly endless supply of the kind of people who, to paraphrase Yves Lavigne, walk around with chunks of shit clinging to the hairs around their assholes. Low-bred criminals, drug addicts, and other assorted filth.

And while this very kind of rankism resulted in Pickton getting away with his crimes for so long, it absolutely has to be mentioned that many of the women who were lured to their deaths on his farm were also nasty pieces of work.

To take this rankism even further, filth can be sorted according to degrees of nastiness. At least two lowlifes procured women for Pickton. They would make an irresistible pitch to poor Downtown Eastside prostitutes, promising drugs and money if they came to Pickton's farm. And while it appears that the women doing the procuring did not know that Pickton was a murderer, they are certifiable scum for preying on such easy targets.

Because Pickton was surrounded by filth, it is inevitable that many of the people who relayed information to Stevie Cameron as she wrote this book were unreliable to some degree. Also, they maybe were conscious of the fact that they could paint a positive picture of themselves in their one shot at white trash immortality. As a result, you sense revisionist history coming through in some of the statements that are made. I lost track of the number of times that someone indicated that despite the fact that they spent countless hours on the farm, something they can't quite exactly pinpoint prevented them from ever eating the meat that Pickton produced. Right.

Cameron senses the unreliability of some of her sources of information and mentions when she feels their accounts may be less that truthful. But in a case where so many incomprehensible things took place, you may find yourself even questioning facts that have been confirmed beyond any doubt.

Weirder Than Fiction

You simply could not make up some of the weirdness that played out over the years on the Pickton farm—and here I am talking about events that predated the murders. For example, many years ago a number of insane asylums were in the direct vicinity of the Pickton farm and it is clear that poor old freak-boy grew up an emotionally damaged individual. Reeking of pig shit and shunned by other kids in the neighbourhood, the seeds of his murderous hatred no doubt were sown in those early years.

Cameron interviews countless people who knew Pickton, and she paints a picture of a truly freakish environment. Strange incidents were the norm for Pickton growing up, and there is little doubt that he is, in some ways, a very deranged person. This is not to imply that he is not completely culpable for his actions. And there was never any attempt by his lawyers to claim that he was criminally insane. Later in the book when readers are presented with verbatim exchanges between Pickton and a cell plant, and interviews with police interrogators, the utter strangeness of this freak of nature comes through in spades. His weird rambling speech patterns peppered with skewed aphorisms, non-sequiturs, and bizarre descriptions of how he views himself, really highlight him as an exceptionally weird creature.

But those early tales of his twisted upbringing will not lessen any of the loathing you will feel for this most repulsive and repugnant of individuals who does not truly belong to the human race. However, aside from likely wishing that he could be quickly exterminated and his existence erased from the records for all time, you may also find your hatred for Pickton has a strangely limited shelf life. As if you just can't waste the mind space necessary for such a low, sick animal.

However, you will almost inevitably feel a great deal of anger towards those whose job it is to solve crimes and protect the most vulnerable in society.

The Vancouver Police Department

After reading this book, you may be left with this impression: the degree of incompetence, ineptitude, and arrogance as demonstrated by the Vancouver police department (VPD) in this case, ranks them as one of the worst and most shameful police forces to ever exist. Their sneering arrogance and willful decision not to attach priority to a group of missing people may have indirectly cost countless women their lives.

To read the details of this incompetence and to know that these people are paid with tax dollars to protect us will quite possibly make you physically ill. The police forces in every society should care first and foremost for the weakest and least able to protect themselves.

But based on the facts in On the Farm, the VPD didn't. Their colossal, monumental and historical failure to adequately address the reports of missing women is difficult to comprehend. It is hard not to feel enraged when reading about the years when they disregarded and, according to the book, outright lied to the families of the missing women who literally begged them for assistance.

Cameron discusses the group in top management positions with the VPD who were more concerned with acting like petulant school girls than working to direct resources and instruct their force to solve this case. They had a world-renowned geographic profiler in Kim Rossmo working for them, but they refused to let him do his work. Work that could have led to the capture of Pickton. In this passage, Cameron gives an example of the pettiness that Rossmo had to deal with:

It was October 16, 1995, when Kim Rossmo stepped into the elevator at police headquarters at 2120 Cambie Street on his first day as a senior officer. One of his colleagues joined him. There were no words of congratulations; he didn't even say good morning. Instead the other man turned his back on him and stared at the corner as the elevator ascended. Wordlessly the two men left the elevator on the sixth floor, where top management worked, and walked to their own offices.

As Rossmo travelled to different parts of the world to share his expertise, his ignorant overlords in the VPD worked to undermine him because, according to the book, they were small-minded, jealous individuals. As a number of people point out in On the Farm, perhaps it is the fact that the VPD—like many of our police forces—was rammed full of individuals with only grade 12 educations that they were collectively so ignorant.

As early as 1991, the VPD were told straight up that a serial killer was at work in their city. This information was given to them by a group of expert profilers (including Rossmo). What did the police do with this information? Literally, we are told in the book, at that time, NOTHING was done to address this claim. Imagine the horror, grief, pain, and loss that they could have prevented if they had acted with all the urgency that such a reality should have dictated.

However, the police are not the only ones to blame. A lack of urgency also existed because we allow it. Because we are an extremely self-centred and selfish society—we're satisfied as long as things are going well for us personally. That other people are being slaughtered is meaningless to most of us.

As much as you may want to give the police the benefit of the doubt, it is difficult with the information that is presented in On the Farm. Cameron writes about Bill Hiscox, someone who alerted the police to the crimes he felt were likely going on at the Pickon farm:

The way Hiscox remembers the Pickton farm is that after he and Yelds talked about Willie Pickton and all the women's clothing that was strewn around the place, he began to believe that Willie might just be the person responsible for abducting the missing women. It's a strange coincidence, he told Leng [Wayne Leng, owner of missingpeople.net], that the police charged Pickton with the attempted murder of Sandra Gail Ringwald in 1997. And that was because of "all the girls that are going missing, and all the purses and IDs that are out there in his trailer and stuff."

Yes, amazingly, years before Pickton was finally caught, information as brazen and straightforward as this was presented to the police. But for whatever reason, they weren't able to act on it to a degree that would allow them to catch the murderer much sooner. And so the slaughter continued.

Not only did they not follow up on leads as extensively as they should have, but passages in the book highlight the fact that the police continually insinuated, or even stated outright, that the missing women were not worth the effort involved because they were often drug users and prostitutes:

When Val went to the police to report that Kerry was missing, they weren't interested. Don't worry, she was told. "She is probably off partying." Val couldn't believe what she was hearing. Every time she spoke to someone at the Vancouver Police department the response was the same—dismissive and indifferent. One of the receptionists, Val said later, told her that the women were "just junkies and hookers; don't waste our time."

And when they couldn't be further bothered, apparently they outright lied:

Months later Allan [Elaine Allan, who worked in a downtown Eastside drop-in centre] nagged Dickson [constable Dave Dickson] once too often, and he said he needed to talk to her privately. When they were alone, he said this was a little awkward for him but he felt he had to tell her—Tiffany [Tiffany Drew, one of the missing women] was fine, she was in a safe place, a recovery centre, in fact, but she didn't want to talk to Aschu or to Allan. Tiffany was afraid, he said, that she might start using drugs again if she saw people from her old life. Neither Allan nor Aschu was buying his story. It didn't ring true; Allan knew it couldn't be true. Why would Dave Dickson make this up? She couldn't understand it.

and:

Soon after the women had reported Patty's disappearance to Cameron, a police officer, Ron Palta, joined the conversation. Marion was told that Patty had gone to Montreal. That couldn't be true, Marion thought in horror. In her whole life Patty had never left Vancouver except for a visit to Lake Cowichan, on Vancouver Island. The police had to be lying to her. She was sure her child was the victim of the serial killer who was taking women from the Downtown Eastside.

The Missing and Murdered Women

The most harrowing and intriguing passages of On the Farm contain the tales of the missing and murdered women. Cameron interviews countless family members and friends and the results are very moving and compassionate, but also free of the clichés that so easily could have been used. And in the pitiful and heart-wrenching stories of the women's lives and their descents into the hell of life on the Downtown Eastside, Cameron really pays tribute to them.

When reduced to generalizations it is easy for many people to dismiss the tragedy of these women's lives. Even the most sneering of the "everyone has a choice" crowd, who smugly assume that because they have a reasonable life, all others who have made bad decisions deserve scorn, ridicule and whatever comes their way—yes, even the most self-righteous of those individuals may be moved to see that everyone is worthy of respect and no one deserves what befell these women:

As always, the stories begin when the phone calls stop. The women who went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside called their families all the time. They called their children to wish them happy birthday. They called their mothers on Mother's Day and their sisters just to gossip. They phoned on Christmas and at New Year's if their families wouldn't let them come to visit. They kept in touch.

These tales are distressing and very tough to read. For example, the story of Cindy Beck:

In her teens Cindy became pregnant and decided to have the baby, a boy she called Tony. Unable to manage, she had to give up Tony for adoption, which must have seemed to her exactly what had to happen; after all, hadn't she been adopted too? She drifted west and fell into the company of people who used drugs; before long she was working as a prostitute to pay for her addictions. In the summer of 1996 her family travelled from Kitchener to Vancouver to look for her but couldn't find her. By the time Cindy disappeared none of her old friends would ever have recognized her; she was careworn, sick, destroyed. There was no hope left in her eyes, no tenderness in her smile. She had seen too much and lived too hard and there was no fight left in her.

Or the story of Janet Henry, who survived an attack by another one of Canada's vicious serial killers, only to have her life ended (quite likely) by Pickton:

His name was Clifford Olson. A vicious con artist and psychopath, he lived in a housing complex in Coquitlam during a killing spree that lasted eighteen months, from December 1980 until July 1981. A teenage girl he stalked and assaulted during this time was named Janet Henry; on at least one occasion he and another man dragged her into a car, fed her drugs—probably chloral hydrate, a knockout drug he used on children—and assaulted her. She was one of the few he attacked who survived, but in the late nineties, Janet Henry, who found herself working the Low Track in the Downtown Eastside, may heve met a different predator. She was reported missing on June 28, 1997, and is thought to have become another of Robert Pickton's victims, but he has not been formally charged with her murder.

A haunting sense of loss lingers in all these stories. Sometimes, you just can't believe what you are reading. One young woman named Diana Melnick disappeared only to become a millionaire months later after being named a beneficiary in her grandmother's will. But she never found out. Pickton was later charged with her murder.

Any Hope at All?

Amidst all the grief and horror, there is the occasional uplifting occurrence. In fact, Cameron weaves the story of Sandra Gail Ringwald throughout On the Farm. She survived an attack by Pickton at his farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Her story is perhaps the most uplifting and hopeful part of this whole sad saga.

And what she did to the scum Pickton will have you cheering:

Lisa Yelds was shocked by what had happened to her buddy [Robert Pickton] but thinks he was exaggerating the number of stitches. When she got there, she guessed he'd had about 150, many of them to repair two long stab wounds in one arm. As well as the stitches, the doctors had stapled the skin on his back to close a six-inch-long stab wound. The biggest job was repairing his throat and jaw. When Sandra Gail first slashed him [Robert Pickton] with the knife she found on the kitchen table, she cut him from ear to ear and then from his ear to his mouth. Not only had the knife entered his mouth, it had cut off the tops of some his teeth and part of his jawbone, so he had to have extensive dental work done, with bridges to connect the remaining teeth.

Cameron informs us at the end of the book that Sandra Gail Ringwald now leads a relatively happy and productive life and she is no longer addicted to drugs.

More Indignities

Cameron addresses head on the sick possibility of what Pickton may have done after he murdered his victims. Many people speculated that he may have fed the remains to the pigs on his farm. Well, that is not only possible, but after reading the details in this book, you would say very likely. The sicker realization is that he may have mixed ground human flesh in with the pork that he sold widely to butcher shops and to individuals throughout the area. The remains of a number of women were found in frozen packets of ground meat in freezers on his property.

Evil and monumentally bereft of anything decent that makes the rest of us human, Pickton almost assuredly dumped the remains of his victims at a rendering plant in Vancouver. And that means that the scope of this horror is even wider than anyone could have imagined. For rendering plants sell the oils derived from the fat of animals to be made into soap and cosmetics.

When you read information like this, the human mind truly cannot compute. It's as if you can feel something short-circuiting in your brain, as if all the qualities you hope are good about people are wiped out by such an incomprehensible thing. And then you think about the families of the murdered women who have to hear about this, who have to allow this enormous monstrosity to settle in to the corners of their minds for the rest of their lives. And then your rage against the Vancouver police department ratchets up another few degrees.

The Other Side

One of the only omissions in this book is the lack of police response to the criticisms against them for perpetrating what is depicted as one of the biggest failures in the history of modern policing. I assume that Cameron tried to get direct responses from representatives of the Vancouver police with regard to their actions. But aside from the public pronouncements the police made in which they came across as disingenuous and ridiculous, no one ever tries to provide a comprehensive and reasonable defense of police behaviour. Of course, this is probably because there isn't one.

Still, I would have liked to have read an interview conducted in which high ranking police were braced with blunt questions such as "How is it possible that your police force failed so monumentally and completely?" Or "How can people beg you for years to investigate their missing family members, and your only response is to be dismissive?"

All we get instead are the gutless deflections offered by police spokespersons:

He wasn't going to discuss the VPD's investigation of Pickton at this time, Driemel told them, but he did add, "I think there's a ton of misinformation out there. I wish I could sit you down, show you the entire timeline, every meeting and everything that was done, right from the inception of this whole process. I feel pretty good about it, but... it's tough, we just can't make it public. If you armchair it and quarterback it now, is there things we could have done or should have done or might have done more of? It's pretty hard to put today's judgment of an issue that was there yesterday. But from what I've seen, it looks like we were reasonably diligent as far as how we dealt with the resources that we had available and how it unfolded.

That a full inquiry will be conducted into the police investigation of Pickton is fantastic news.

Writing Style

On the Farm is an exceptionally well-written book. Like all the best non-fiction books, Cameron uses facts and interviews to present true-life characters so that they come to life on the pages. From the early days of Pickton's life, to the time when he started murdering women, you get a real sense for what pure, undiluted filth this person is. You can almost smell the rancid, repulsive smell of pig shit coming off him in waves as he stalks his prey and attracts other like-minded bags of absolute scum to his orbit.

While most readers will have at least a bare outline in their minds of what happened in this case, you will still find your self gripped by suspense as police finally wise up to Pickton and the investigation on the farm starts to take place. The amount of research that went into this book comes out in the details—in-depth interviews with families of the murdered women, descriptions of the crime scenes on the farm and the forensic work in the labs, and the court-room narrative that makes up the final chapters.

The book is almost flawlessly edited as well. Only a handful of sentences that don't have first-reading clarity appear throughout the entire 700-page book. I may have seen a single typo of note: "The retired mountie who had hunted down Clifford Olson in the 1960's..." Surely it was supposed to read "1980's."

Regardless of whether you followed the Pickton case as it was being covered in the mainstream media, you will likely be shocked by many of the things that you learn while reading this book. For example, as a final indignity to the families of the murdered and missing women, Pickton was shockingly found not guilty at his trial for first degree murder of six of the women. While he was found guilty of second degree murder and will never again know a day of freedom for the rest of his worthless life, the absence of a not-guilty verdict on the first degree murder charges is stunning.

It is easy to judge people while reading this book. Especially those who failed to realize a serial killer was at work and were unwilling or unable to put every resource possible towards stopping him. You may feel exhausted when you reach the final page because of such feelings. But in the same vein, the way a society treats its most vulnerable is a hallmark for judging that society. The lack of on an outcry by most of the rest of us while this was going on is also despicable.

The subject matter in On the Farm is handled with honour and grace that serve the memories and dignity of so many of the women who were murdered. A very engaging book that will pull you in and leave you emotionally hammered by the time you finish reading it, On the Farm instantly becomes one of the greats in the true crime genre.

Book Review: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

Occasionally in life, certain elements conspire, and individuals are cast into exceptional situations. With the glare of the spotlight, and the realization that their every move in a bizarre drama is being chronicled for posterity, the players often step up, and are so thrilled that they have the starring roles in their own real-time soap opera watched by millions, that something surreal happens. A strange hybrid of "reality" plays out that makes you question the motives, observations, and sanity of all those involved.

So it is with The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer. The book details two murders committed by Gary Gilmore in Utah in 1976 and the lead-up to his execution by firing squad less than a year later.

This is probably the best true crime book that I have ever read. While the actual crimes are not remotely as intriguing as the Manson murders detailed in Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, the stunning amount of information presented, and the writing of Norman Mailer, ranks it above that other true crime classic.

The book is split into two main parts: the details surrounding Gilmore's attempt to reintegrate into society and the ultimate failure to achieve that—the two murders he commits—and the period of Gilmore's incarceration leading up to his execution by firing squad in early 1977.

Nasty Piece of Work

In the early part of the book, Gilmore comes across as what I feel he truly was—a worthless white trash criminal who was violent, ignorant, and unable to fit into society in any way. The smallest slight would push Gilmore to the edge, and he was quick to look for ways to get revenge on those who did not give him the respect that he felt he deserved. Despite all his talk of jail-house honour codes, he was gutless in many ways. In one incident, he challenged a co-worker to a fight and then punched the man in the back of the head as they were heading outside to settle things.

Enjoyably, Gilmore still got his head literally ground into the concrete in that dust-up. Similarly pleasing to read about is another incident in which Gilmore finally does engage in the closest thing to a fair fight, and promptly gets his face split open as he is dropped to the ground with a single punch. While no doubt a fearsome individual, Gilmore is nothing more than a contemptible coward. In an anecdote Gilmore told numerous times, he walks up behind an inmate sitting on a chair, and drives a hammer into his head. In still another attempt at impressing people with his tough guy credentials, he brags about a two-on-one attack on an inmate using pipes. Whether these tales are true is irrelevant (how easy would it be for an inmate to get his hands on a hammer?): what a man wants to be admired for is very telling.

Gilmore suffered that singular trait that seems to afflict all small-time hoods: a complete inability to delay gratification. After being released from prison to start his life again in Utah with the help of his extended family, he quickly highlights himself as a petulant man-child as he demands the accoutrements of life that take most people many years to acquire. He does make an attempt to some limited degree after he gets assistance in finding work. But he quickly lets people down, becomes a serial shop-lifter, and develops a bizarre fixation for buying a used pick-up truck. When the frustration of trying to function in society becomes too much, Gilmore murders two people in as many days to, as he says, "relieve the pressure."

Throughout the entire book, Gilmore not once expresses remorse for the killings. Sure, he talks about wanting to be executed so that he can "pay the price," but that always comes across as a desire to escape the horrors of prison that he had come to know so well. Gilmore apparently even had an aversion to mentioning the victims' names. Once, when responding to written questions, he repeatedly misspells the name of one of the men he killed.

White Trash Romeo and Juliet?

A major part of the book focuses on Gilmore's brief affair with Nicole Baker Barrett, a single mother he meets shortly after arriving in Provo, Utah. Together, they are some of the lowest, seediest pieces of pure white trash you will ever read about. The essence of filth distilled into its purest essence. Barrett is presented as one of the most shameless sluts that you will ever encounter in either fiction or non-fiction. She essentially fucks whatever walks. For example, prior to meeting Gilmore, she sleeps with a man who picks her up while hitch-hiking, and then promptly marries him.

But that alone is not enough to engender contempt for a hard-done by young woman who had few opportunities in life, and was used and abused by many. In one episode, she tells a man that she will kill him if he brings charges against Gilmore for attacking him. All the while she demonstrates a sad, despicable neglect towards her children. This does not mean that she is not worthy of sympathy—she is. But it seems to be a sympathy far too easily doled out for the simple fact that she is a very attractive woman. Just imagine what kind of condemnation she would have received if she had been fat and haggard?

Her affair with Gilmore was incredibly short—it spanned a few months immediately before he slaughtered his victims. During that time, they fought, Gilmore beat her a few times, and then she turfed him out of the house they shared. It was only after he committed the murders and was sentenced to death that their supposed love for each other reached such mythical heights in both their minds.

The appeal of melodrama played out for the whole world, and some horrible, cringe-worthy love letters (when aren't other people's love letters cringe-worthy?) seemed to convince Barrett that the scum-of-the-earth Gilmore was the love of her life. I'm not buying it. This was a romance that only became so passionate under the glare of the media lights and the realization that a certain twisted kind of immortality beckoned if the roles were played to perfection. The ex post facto spin put on her feelings as they are detailed in the book just doesn't wash with me. Entertaining, yes. But anyone who is given the opportunity to be interviewed by one of the greatest writers of our era, and then to have her story presented to the world, cannot help but cast things in a romanticized light.

Locked-up and Sentenced to Death

Gilmore comes across much differently as the book shifts to his time in prison after the murders. Numerous people refer to him as intelligent, and he seems to have an inordinate amount of respect from guards in the prison. While he is very literate and can write fairly well as evidenced by his letters to Nicole, I can't agree with the intelligent label. The guts to push this situation to its conclusion by demanding that his death sentence be carried out is somewhat admirable, but then, his utterly senseless murdering spree negates any positive feelings you may have towards the creep.

Though I question those claims by numerous people in the book that Gilmore was intelligent, he was indeed a master manipulator. After Gilmore is locked up, and there is some doubt that the execution will go ahead, he convinces Barrett that they both should commit suicide on a designated date. His life is wasted, and so he sets his mind to gaslighting Barrett in the hopes that she will off herself. They both make the attempt and both survive. And while it seems pretty clear that Barrett made a legitimate try, Gilmore's attempt seemed half-hearted. You are left with the sense that he had every intention of surviving and hoping that Baker succeeded, content that he could then be executed knowing she would never be with another man.

Plausible but Unprovable

Much of the second half of the book focuses on the machinations of acquiring interview deals, literary rights, and the court wrangling that took place as Gilmore fought for the right to have the state follow through with his death sentence. Specifically, the efforts of Larry Schiller take centre stage. Schiller is a writer and producer with a knack for getting on top of sensationalistic stories and gaining the trust of those involved (or at least convincing them that he will bring them the most money and publicity).

Together with all the legal battles, Gilmore's reactions and public pronouncements, and the effect of the murders on many of the book's supporting characters, the reader gets a pretty honest and in-depth look at how Schiller finagles and operates. We also learn about Schiller's feelings through the entire ordeal, how he is conflicted by various aspects, and how he tries to spin his image to the world-wide media.

Schiller employs the help of Barry Farrell, a professional writer, to assist in putting together interviews that could then be sold to various media outlets during the period of publicity before the execution. As someone trying to explore the issue in as much detail as possible, the reasoning that Farrell engages in to see something positive in Gilmore may grate on some. But at the same time, he offers the most intriguing and thought provoking musings on Gilmore.

Despite the numerous interviews with Gilmore (some by proxy through the lawyers that Gilmore had hired to ensure that the execution was carried out), he gave away very little information about his childhood. However, Farrell synthesizes an intriguing thesis that comes together regarding Gilmore and what he was all about.

Numerous facts may lead some to believe that Gilmore was more than just a small time punk and a ruthless murderer. First, Gilmore repeatedly refers to Barrett as his elf, and talks about her child-like features. Then, at one point, after he has been incarcerated for the murders, Gilmore asks for a book of photographs that could be construed as appealing to pedophiles. And while he was with Barrett, they started having a ménage à trois with an underage teenaged-girl. Finally, some second hand reports from those who had known Gilmore claim that he had once admitted to both being raped in reform school and also committing rapes against other young men while there. And then these observations from Barry Farrell:

Farrell passed it by and then came back. That little elucidative light one depended upon was flickering again. Yes. Could it be said that Gilmore's love for Nicole oft depended on how childlike she could seem? That elf with knee-length socks, so conveniently shorn—by Gilmore—of her pubic locks. Those hints in the letters of hanky panky with Rosebeth, the rumble with Pete Galovan [he had questioned Gilmore on his approach to the underage daughter of a friend]. Barry nodded. You could about say it added up. There was nobody in or out of prison whom hardcore convicts despised more than child molesters. The very bottom of the pecking order. What if Gilmore, so soon as he was deprived of Nicole, so soon as he had to live a week without her, began to feel impulses that were wholly unacceptable? What if his unendurable tension (of which he had given testimony to every psychiatrist who would listen) had had something to do with little urges? Nothing might have been more intolerable to Gilmore's idea of himself. Why, the man would have done anything, even murder, before he'd commit that other kind of transgression. God, it would even account for the awful air of warped nobility he seemed to extract from his homicides. Barry felt the woe of late discovery. He could not say a word about this now. It was too unsubstantial. In fact, it was sheer speculation. If Gilmore was willing to execute himself for such a vice, assuming it was his vice—beware of understanding the man too quickly!—then let him at least die with dignity of his choice. In fact, how much could a word like dignity conceal?

This speculation goes no further but it is highly compelling.

The significance of the Gilmore case can't be overstated. At that time, it marked the first execution in the US after a ten-year break. It also signaled the beginning of a wave of state-sanctioned killings that really has not abated to this day.

Bizarre Facts: A Murderer Named Fay

Aside from the legal importance of the case, and the prurient interest of the details, there are some strange facts that come out in this book. A nasty, sociopathic, cold-blooded killer, Gilmore's real name as it appears on his birth certificate was apparently "Fay." In some odd way, that makes Gilmore seem even more sinister.

Also, the claim is made on a few occasions that Gilmore may have been the grandson of Harry Houdini:

Fay [Gilmore's grandmother on his father's side] and Frank [Gilmore's father] talked about the man, however, like they knew him intimately. Listening to their conversation, Betty [Gilmore's mother, usually called Bessie] had to conclude that Houdini had given Fay the money to send Frank to private school. Then she remembered that Houdini was killed by a boy who hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat, and Frank had told her that his Jewish father, whose name was Weiss, had been killed by a blow to the belly. Then she learned that Houdini's original name was Weiss, and he was Jewish too.

This is referred to briefly a number of other times as well, but it is never confirmed by Mailer. Just another odd factoid in an extremely troubled and wasted life.

Mailer Was a Master

As far as the writing goes, this is a stunning piece of work. The labour that went into extracting the information was performed by Mailer through numerous in-person and telephone interviews, and by Larry Schiller, the producer and writer who acquired the literary rights to many of the key players in the whole twisted drama.

While Mailer engages in very little editorializing (though no doubt there is some in a 1000-page book), inevitably the interviews and commentary have to lead the reader somewhere. At times I felt that somehow the individuals in this seedy drama come off as more complex and sympathetic because of the simple eloquence of Mailer's writing.

Then there is the problem that afflicts every non-fiction book. How do we know how accurate the depiction of events really is? Mailer addresses this question directly in the afterword when he states that numerous discrepancies arose between different people's re-telling of events. And of course, every person has a subjective view of what took place—did Mailer latch on to the most believable presentations of "facts"? Or did he head into the project with a thesis that he was eager to see confirmed by the interviews he conducted? Impossible to say. These are inherent aspects of any reportage. But it is certain that the quality of writing lends plausibility to the book.

There are some flaws in The Executioner's Song if you look hard enough. For example, one lengthy passage that depicts the supposed thoughts of Nicole's younger sister comes off as incredibly contrived. But then, I've rarely, if ever, read an author who is able to convincingly depict the thoughts of someone who is mentally ill. As far as the length, some readers may feel that Mailer includes too much detail—this is really down to personal preference. I enjoyed every last passage, nuance, and angle that resulted in over 1000 pages. The writing is lean and straightforward, and like many of the greats who employ such an approach (though important to note that Mailer wrote much denser prose in some of his other works), there is so much more here than this kind of style might initially lead you to believe.

Shot in the Heart

It is perplexing that a man could throw his life away for such meaningless and horrible crimes. After finishing the book, you are no closer to understanding why Gilmore chose to randomly destroy so many lives. The only defense that Gilmore ever offers is this written response to a question from Schiller and Farrell submitted via Gilmore's lawyers:

I never felt so terrible as I did in that week before I was arrested. I had lost Nicole. It hurts so fucking bad that it was becoming physical—I mean I couldn't hardly walk, I couldn't sleep I didn't hardly eat, I couldn't drown it. Booze didnt' even dull it. A heavy hurt and loss. It got worse every day. I could feel it in my heart... I could feel the ache in my bones. I had to go on automatic to get thru the day.
And it grew into a calm rage.
And I opened the gate and let it out.
But it wasn't enough.
It would have gone on and on.
More Jenkins [his name was actually Jensen, but in this written answer to a question and in numerous other ones, Gilmore misspells it], more Bushnells.
Lord...
It didn't make any sense—

At least this is more than the "I don't know" Gilmore usually offered up. In essence, his version of a hissy fit was murdering innocent people. And so, regardless of whether you are for or against capital punishment, it's hard to feel any remorse as the bullets rip through Gilmore's heart and deliver him into eternity.

Though the conclusion of the book is no surprise, the impending execution of Gilmore as it plays out in the book is as full of tension as if it were taking place today. You will find it hard not to at least give credit to Gilmore for having the conviction to push his desire to the final self-destructive conclusion. For there is little doubt that, with a word, Gilmore could have set the appeal process in motion and had his sentence reduced to life in prison. The execution itself is surreal, a combination of sick, exhilarated spectators and apparently last-minute considerations that saw an old desk in which Gilmore was strapped to, and a seedy, rancid old mattress placed behind him to absorb the bullets that tore through his heart.

Regardless of how you feel about Gary Gilmore, once he has been executed, due to the power of this book, you feel that a strange force has left the world.

Mass Murder: 2010 and Beyond

Another mass murder that is briefly acknowledged and then forgotten. The coverage is muted because we have become so accustomed to the explosive and sudden slaughter of numerous human beings.

Newspaper reports about mass murders include the details of the slaughter and sometimes mention the apparent ho-hum response that such stories now seem to receive. It's only when a new record is set for deaths in a single episode that we take notice for any length of time.

To be clear, when I talk about mass murder here, I am generally referring to instances where someone (or a pair, or group of people) kill four or more people in one geographic location within a relatively short period of time. There is a categorical difference between a killer whose murders are spread out over a number of days and wider location—the proper term to describe these kinds of killers is actually "spree killer." At the same time, I won't include mass murder carried out for political reasons, either by the state or by a terrorist group.

Within the narrative that usually plays out, there are two main types of killings: those who target their victims, and those who are more random in the people they kill. Think of the killer who murdered 35 people at Virginia Tech a few years ago as falling into the latter category. While the most recent case in the US state of Virginia in January 2010 appears to be the targeted killing of people that the murderer knew. However, you could say that even the so-called "random" killings are somewhat targeted, as a particular group is usually the focus.

The current lack of public surprise caused by every subsequent mass murder is due to how familiar we now are with such acts of violence. Perhaps we even have an inkling of understanding of why people choose to end things this way. Because the reality is that every mass murderer had a reason for doing what he did. No matter how delusional, criminally murderous, and flat out wrong his rationale, he still had a reason.

Reasons

Why do people commit mass murder? Aside from the excellent information provided in this article, here are some possible societal reasons that contribute to mass murders.

First and foremost, a growing alienation in society brought on by globalization, the institutionalization of life, and fewer and fewer opportunities to take part in communal events, or in fact to have any sense of community whatsoever.

More and more people now work within large corporations and are meaningless cogs in the system. They have little or no control over their day-to-day lives. The fact that many mass murders take place in large, clinical organizations is no coincidence. The term "going postal" originates from the fact that so many mass murders have taken place in post offices or other sterile environments where individual workers have little say in their work lives. These institutions are a microcosm of society in general.

When there is sense of hopelessness, when a person is one of those cogs, and they feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have been treated badly, what easier—albeit warped—way to confirm in their minds that they can have an effect on things than to go on a murderous rampage and then commit suicide.

Another reason is the decline of religious beliefs. Don't get me wrong here—I am no proponent of organized religion or the beliefs it represents. (Or simply call it the increased isolation of many people, and the lack of collective morals and beliefs.)

Try to put yourself inside the mind of someone who has been pushed to the breaking point. If you have decided to check out of your miserable life, and you have been abused, belittled, or humiliated on a regular basis, why wouldn't you bring pain, misery and death down on those who made your life a living hell? If someone feels they are simply going to blink out of existence when it's all over, a lack of a belief in a fairy-tale afterlife where all accounts are settled is one less obstacle holding them back from evening the score.

Common decency, personal morals, a sense of right of wrong, and the realization that murder is a whole lot worse than betrayals, lies, and ridicule should be enough to prevent someone from committing mass murder. But what if someone has been cheated, used, or robbed of their life savings? At some point, any sense that a person can move on must get extinguished in certain individuals. And no doubt humiliation and mockery are often part of the mix. Being laughed at is often worse than the initial wrongdoing.

And let's discuss that abuse and humiliation that seems to be on the rise in the freakshow of a society in which we live. As people seem to be getting more self-absorbed and obsessed with themselves, casual disrespect of others is on the rise. This is anecdotal and very hard to quantify, but I feel that it is true. The word greed is rarely mentioned by the mainstream media anymore because any act of bettering yourself, or gaining more, is seen as a virtue. Short of ponzi schemes that bilk thousands of people out of billions, most acts of greed seem to be passed off as the work of shrewd individuals. Getting revenge and making people pay for what they have done is a huge part of everyday life, and is often praised— from sports to aggressive business tactics.

And, the question that no one dares to ask (at least not in any kind of public way) is "how many people feel an affinity with mass murderers?" Does the apparent increase in mass murders make it seem more socially acceptable for each subsequent person who decides to perpetrate a slaughter?

Are Mass Murders Really on the Increase?

The general belief is that mass murders are on the increase. Barely a month seems to go by without another crime scene littered with numerous corpses. However, that may be more perception than reality. From the same article linked to above:

For all the ink and airtime that follow an attack like the one at Virginia Tech, mass murder is an exceedingly rare crime. The rate of killings in the U.S. involving five or more victims — one generally accepted definition of a mass killing [others use four or more]— represented less than 1% of all homicides 25 years ago, and still does today. Among kids, the overall violence figures are actually plummeting, with the number of children under 17 who commit murder falling 65% between 1993 and 2004. Mass killing, says Diane Follingstad, a professor of clinical and forensic psychology at the University of South Carolina, "is a low baserate thing. It just does not happen very often."

This post will become a running list of all the mass murders that occur in the year 2010. Perhaps some patterns will emerge, and maybe a discussion will start about how to head off such horrible events before they occur.

Eight Murdered in Virginia, January 20, 2010

Where: Virgina, USA
When: January 20, 2010
Number of Victims: eight
Murderer: Christopher Speight

This mass murder appears to be of the targeted variety, i.e., all of the victims were known to the murderer.

More details here.

13 Murdered in Mexico, January 30th, 2010

Where: Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
When: January 30, 2010
Number of Victims: 13
Murderer: Numerous hitmen, currently unknown

While this doesn't fit into the pattern of mass murderers that was discussed at the beginning of the post, I have included it. This would seem to fit into the targeted variety, though it is quite possible the killers didn't know the victims. More details here.

3 Murdered in Huntsville, Alabama, February 12th, 2010

Where: University of Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A.
When: February 12th, 2010
Number of Victims: 3
Murderer: Dr. Amy Bishop

A rare female mass murderer (only three victims here, which, according to some definitions, does not qualify as a mass murder) goes on a rampage at a University, killing three, and wounding three others.

The woman was a faculty member at the University, which is a fairly common theme in mass murders. Numerous mass murders in the past have featured disgruntled university professors or other staff who start firing due to being passed over for promotion, academic rivalries, or other disputes with fellow colleagues. In this case, apparently she was angry that she was being passed over for tenure. Well, definitely no chance for that now.

Read the full story here.

8 Murdered in Fujian Province, Eastern China, March 23rd, 2010

This is a particularly sick and tragic incident. Eight children were stabbed to death by a mentally ill former medical worker as their parents were taking them to school in the morning.

Where: Fujian province, eastern China
When: March 23rd, 2010
Number of victims: 8
Murderer: Zheng Minsheng

Read the full story here.

12 Murdered in Cumbria County, England, UK

A rampage that went on longer, and over a wider geographical area than is common in mass murders. The killer slaughtered two people he knew (one was his brother), and then continued shooting random individuals across a number of small towns in England's Lake District. When he was finished killing, 12 people were dead.

Read some of the stories in the British press about what happened, and you will notice a common theme that crops up when mass murders have just been committed and people are weighing in on the killer and what type of personality he had. The word "loner" is almost always mentioned.

But even more interesting is the fact that the word "loner" seems to be a cliché that is offered up as a knee-jerk reaction. It often turns out that the killer was anything but a loner—as is the case here. Read these two stories on the tragic mass murder in the same newspaper and notice how the image that emerges is almost completely different in the two stories. Edit: the earlier story in which Bird was described as a loner is no longer available on the Guardian's website. However, it is very interesting how the media almost inevitably latches onto this stereotypical image of what a killer is supposedly like.

For the full story on the mass murder in England, click here.

Where: Village of Lamplugh, Cumbria county, England, UK
When: June 2nd, 2010
Number of Victims: 12
Murderer: Derrick Bird

8 Murdered in Manchester, Connecticut, USA

One of the most common narratives that plays out in mass murders: a killer goes on a rampage in the workplace, with a gun, in the United States.

In this case, the murderer, Omar Thornton, was a driver for a beer distributor. He was called in for a disciplinary hearing, but decided to dole out some sick, murderous discipline of his own. Reports are trickling in that Thornton was dealing with some nasty racism in the workplace. Of course, that will colour people's reactions to this mass murder.

Thornton finally turned the gun on himself, bringing the total dead in this butchering spree to 9.

Read the full story here.

Where: Manchester, Connecticut, USA
When: August 3rd, 2010
Number of Victims: 8
Murderer: Omar Thornton

4 People Murdered in Buffalo, New York, USA

This appears to be a case of someone snapping on the spur of the moment and murdering the people with whom he was having a dispute. Either that or just another garden variety freak who has seen too many gangster flicks and not only wants to end some lives, but wants to be seen ending those lives. A group of people shot as they left a restaurant. Killer quickly apprehended. His life for all intents and purposes over as well.

Where: Buffalo, New York, USA
When: August 14th, 2010
Number of victims: 4
Murderer: Keith Johnson

Read the full story here.

Book Review: The Pickton File by Stevie Cameron

When we hear about horrific events, we usually express immediate shock and outrage. But without looking further and seeking out the full story, any real opinions we have on the subject tend to be superficial, and fade into a few stock responses we offer up whenever the subject is raised.

For years I felt and expressed the usual sadness and disbelief about the holocaust and other events associated with WWII. But it was only when I visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem many years ago that the true horror sunk in. The devil, and the understanding, are always in the details.

That was the thought that I had when I started reading The Pickton File by Stevie Cameron. The book is about Robert Pickton, the women he murdered on his farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, and numerous related storylines.

I hoped that I would gain some insight into the mind-numbing events that took place. I wanted my loathing for Pickton to ratchet up several levels, and I wanted to feel more for the women who were killed than just the angry but ultimately hollow feelings a person has when hearing about terrible things that happen to strangers.

The Pickton File starts off well. However, ultimately the frustration that the author, Stevie Cameron, felt when she was writing the book will also be felt by the reader. No clear sense of which tale this book wants to tell ever fully emerges.

That lack of focus is partly due to the time frame in which the book was written. Cameron accumulated the information that went into the writing of this book starting after Robert Pickton was arrested in 2002. She followed the preliminary hearing that dragged on for six months, interviewed family members of many of the missing women, and then released the book shortly after Pickton's trial finally started in January 2007. Unfortunately, numerous publication bans prevented any information from the preliminary hearing from being included in the book. Of course, in such a huge case that affected so many people, there should have been plenty of other sources of information.

But nothing much was being said by anyone who could have provided valuable insight in the lead-up to the trial. The Vancouver police and local RCMP detachments were in defensive mode after being highlighted as some of the most shamelessly incompetent and insensitive police forces on the face of the earth. In the early pages of the book, the reader gets the sense that Cameron will explore this tale of incompetence in detail. What does appear on the topic is great, and is likely to stoke the anger of anyone who has followed this sad saga for any length of time.

For example, one of the most accomplished and educated members of the Vancouver police department was driven out of the force for, among other things, daring to suggest that there was likely a serial killer at work. However, while Cameron talks to the former police officer, Kim Rossmo, on numerous occasions, she does not, or is unable to, provide any other perspectives on this matter. The best and most thorough non-fiction books (and especially true crime) give credible perspectives from more than one side when warranted.

But the focus on police insensitivity to the missing women tails off. It is revisited incidentally throughout the book but is never fleshed out completely. As Cameron mentions, an entire book could be devoted to how the police refused to start looking into the issue until long after it was too late. As a lone writer working on a book, Cameron was simply overwhelmed at times by the amount of information, the numerous angles, and the spin that was being offered up by police:

All of this information was useful and interesting. It was good to know that so many qualified people were examining evidence on the farm. I was relieved that no expense was being spared, that nothing was too much trouble. But I began to feel as if I were being choked with numbers, statistics and little fact nuggets. I wouldn't say, exactly , that the information was spin, but it was so far from so many important issues that it began to worry me. All the public relations bustle, the steady torrent of numbers, couldn't stop people from asking how this had happened in the first place. Why had the police ignored, for years, the anguished efforts of family members and friends to have their loved ones listed as missing persons? Why didn't the police look for them? When Kim Rossmo told his colleagues in the Vancouver police in 1998 that he was convinced a serial killer was working in the Downtown Eastside, why was the official response a humiliating demotion—essentially a public dismissal? And if Pickton was taking women out of the Downtown Eastside to kill on his farm, why hadn't the RCMP, whose jurisdiction included the farm, picked up on the rumours that he might be involved? Especially when he was "known to the police," as the expression goes, a man who had once been caught by the RCMP running a chop shop (an illegal bit of entrepreneurial activity where he helped take apart stolen cars for their parts) on the farm for the Hells Angels.

One of the other very good sections of the book involves Cameron's investigating in Port Coquitlam, where Pickton's pig farm is located. A great atmospheric image of the town and its inhabitants emerges. This is where the writing is also at its best, with a real rhythm and purpose that makes you want to keep reading.

The Victims

Cameron interviews some of the family members of the dead and missing women, and this could have been one of the best and most riveting sections of the book. However, the interviews are generally brief and the picture of the women that comes through is often quite superficial. In the few cases where more details are given, you still get the sense that more could have been included.

Other women who lived the life and were friends of the dead women also have compelling stories to tell. For example, Cameron accompanies Maggy Gisle to the court during the preliminary trial. When she is first mentioned, she is making a good effort to change her life. Her story is one of constant struggle and setback, and like many of the women trapped in drugs and prostitution, you are never able to believe she will finally be all right. The shocking difference between Gisle when she was on the streets and when she got clean, as evidenced by two photos that appear in the book, is proof of what a nightmare life so many in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside live. When, a few chapters later, Cameron mentions almost as an aside that Gisle's life again spiraled out of control after their meeting, you wish that she would provide more details.

Most people aren't honest about the voyeuristic appeal provided by the broken lives of these women. Like stars in a real-life crime noir, there is not only tragedy in reading about these women but, if it hadn't been for the brutal deaths at the hands of the murderous freak Pickton, a kind of poetic beauty in the fact that so many of them chose a life of slow suicide.

As referenced by Cameron numerous times in the book, the website missingpeople.net contains the best collection of information on the missing women, and numerous interviews with the women's families. As much as you might think that the family members will white-wash the lives of the murdered women and provide a romanticized version of events, they often are forthcoming with honest anecdotes. Yet, the result is still hauntingly tragic in a way that makes our problems seem small and manageable. And like so many people who fall hard, they discovered too late that things can always get worse.

There is something almost naive and child-like in the images that are painted of these women by their surviving family members. That's probably because the families naturally reference the years before their lost daughters' descent into hell began—i.e., when they were little girls. But the fact that they did succumb to the pressures and dropped out is also an indication of their fragile, child-like state. Most drug users are of the functional variety and never fall as far as the women who end up on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A combination of early trauma in childhood (often sexual abuse), a family that was unable to support them (although that is not always the case), and a lack of self-esteem is the usual profile.

And gutless animals like Pickton prey on these weaknesses and know how to exploit them.

Beyond the Generalizations

Yet it is far more complex than the visceral responses of pity and guilt that most people have when they hear about the fate suffered by these women. If you had met any one of them before they were killed by Pickton, when they were at their worst on the streets, would you be able to summon the compassion to help them in any real way?

The honest answer for most would be no. Make no mistake, while many of the drug addicted prostitutes need our sympathy and help, when they are at their worst, some of them can be nasty pieces of work who do plenty of their own victimizing. In the most truthful accounts on missingpeople.net, families of the women who were killed admit that they did not have what it takes to rescue their daughters, sisters, and mothers. Sometimes, people simply are unreachable. But that doesn't alleviate the guilt. As Cameron mentions,

But the saddest family members were those who had seen their girls taken to foster homes by welfare officers because of neglect and addiction in the family. The regrets of these people had no limits and no answers, and most of the people I interviewed will never forgive themselves.

To go beyond the stereotypes and present this huge part of the Pickton story, there really needs to be an in-depth and thorough presentation. To avoid the normal divisions that this subject prompts, it has to go beyond the superficial. It has to let people know that all of these women have pasts, families (sometimes fractured, destructive, and the source of much of their pain, but families nonetheless), and, hopefully, futures.

For a grim and very difficult look at many people caught up in this life, the National Film Board's Through a Blue Lens is an excellent look at life on Vancouver's streets. No matter how far people have fallen, most still seem to have something worthwhile to offer, and, unbelievably, flashes of optimism and a sense of humour.

I mentioned in a previous post that the sick tale of Pickton offered no sense of humanity. But I was wrong. Brief glimpses of the people who devote their lives to helping the women trapped on skid row Vancouver provide a sense of hope. If we all had the compassion of these people, no doubt our society would be different in many ways. Perhaps there wouldn't be so many individuals who seem to experience a twisted schadenfreude at seeing others suffer, simply because they think "it's all about choices."

This takes us to about the half-way point of the book, and after that there isn't much more of interest related to the case.

Too Much Filler

Cameron writes in the first person and includes many of the obstacles she encountered when gathering information. The book is often more about her trying to come to grips with the enormity of the case, and find credible information, than it is about the case itself. This works quite well in the early part of the book. But the bland minutiae of her day-to-day interactions and travels becomes very tiresome after a while. Did she include these sections to contribute to a kind of general theme of confusion that is part of the Pickton case? Perhaps. However, it comes across as so much filler after a while.

The only really gripping part of the book appears in the closing chapter as we hear details from the opening arguments from both the lead Crown prosecutor and the lead defense lawyer.

This book is really only a primer. After so many years devoted to following this story, Cameron obviously wanted to get something out to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Pickton and his crimes. To be fair, Cameron doesn't claim this book is a comprehensive look at what happened. In the foreword, she states that she did her best with the restrictions in place and the constantly increasing scope of the case. Still, that bit of prolepsis doesn't insulate the book from criticism.

Cameron states that she is in the process of writing The Pig Farm, which will presumably be a longer, more structured, and better book. It will no doubt include the details that emerged during the preliminary hearing, the court case in which Pickton was found guilty, and will probably provide more details related to numerous killings. As far as it goes, The Pickton File is worth reading but doesn't provide much more than the experiences of Cameron as she researched the book.

There are numerous tales at work here, and I hope that Cameron does them justice in The Pig Farm, which is supposed to be released in early 2011. More than all the individual strands of the story—the women, the sicko Pickton, and the hell on earth he created on his farm, the monumental failure of the police—this is a story of how people can rationalize anything and look the other way as long as they aren't the ones who are being victimized. And I hope that Cameron seriously considers renaming her coming book to something more memorable and lyrical than The Pig Farm. While that may elicit all the horror of what happened, it doesn't do justice to the memories of the women who were killed.