Africa' and 'Nepal'.
And in the end I didn't come up with much. More than nothing, but not much. Articles in British papers about Laura's death, telling me nothing I didn't know already. A reference to my own Thorn Tree article. And a massive pile of useless and irrelevant information. There were, however, two palpable hits, and one maybe.
First of all was an article from the South Africa Mail amp; Guardian:
Is there a spectre haunting the Baz Bus?
You've seen them everywhere since the end of apartheid: American and European backpackers lured here by the promise of beaches and safaris and cheap ganja. But lately the talk in the Baz Bus and the beachfront hostels has a taken a decidedly grim turn. A rumour, documented in the new edition of the Lonely Planet guidebook most use as their bible, suggests that a serial killer is preying on their ilk.
On May 22, Daniel Gendrault, 25, French, was found murdered in Cape Town. On May 31, the body of Michelle McLaughlin, 31, Scottish, was discovered in Kruger Park. On June 13, the remains of Oliver Jeremies, 19, German, were found in the ocean near Beira, Mozambique. On the night of June 14, Kristin Jones, 25, English, was killed in rural Malawi. While the Lonely Planet guidebook suggests that the quick succession of the last two dates meant that they could not be the work of one man, the Mail amp; Guardian has found that Oliver Jeremies was most likely killed several days before he was discovered.
The most salaciously grotesque element in the rumour is that the killer, invariably called 'The Bull' though no one knows why, carves out his victim's eyeballs and keeps them as a souvenir. The police have confirmed that the eyes of the Cape Town and Kruger Park victims were mutilated but will not provide details. The authorities in Mozambique and Malawi cannot provide any details on the murders there other than those found in the sketchy official reports.
There have been no more deaths in the six months since, but the rumour continues to spread, and even though it seems that 'The Bull' has left the region — if he ever existed — his mention in the Lonely Planet guide will certainly keep it alive for years until the next edition appears.
South Africa's hoped-for luxury tourist boom has never materialized, but since the end of apartheid we have at least managed to lure intrepid twentysomething backpackers by the thousand. They may not splash out dollars like the middle-aged Americans our tourist office seeks to attract, but a whole industry has grown up around them, and the reports they take back to Europe have a real effect on our overseas image. The crime crisis has already put a dent in their numbers during the last two years, and if the rumours of The Bull are taken seriously, we could soon see the Baz Bus running half-empty.
Still more intriguing was an old Usenet conversation from the DejaNews archive:
Date: 13 September 1995, 13:08:16 EDT
Newsgroups: alt. serial-killers, alt. perfect-crime
Subject: Killer on the road
From: anon@penet. fi (Anonymous Remailer Service)
Reply-To: dev@null. com
Two questions for you armchair psychos out there:
1. How would you commit the perfect murder?
It wouldn't have to be anyone you knew. The goal here is just to commit a murder of any random human being. The victim has to be healthy and strong, to keep it challenging. But it doesn't have to be anyone in particular. How would you do it so that the risks are eliminated or minimized?
2. How would you commit the perfect group of murders?
Note that this is very different from the first question. Here you have to kill an arbitrary number of people. Say 10–12 of them. Otherwise the same rules as above apply. But obviously you can't just keeping pushing people off the same cliff or someone's gonna get suspicious. You can be either a mass murderer or a serial killer. What do you do? I guess my Subject: line makes my opinion obvious, but I'd like to know what the rest of you think.
Taurus
Date: 13 September 1995, 23:01:08
Newsgroups: alt. serial-killers, alt. perfect-crime
Subject: Re: Killer on the road
From: gplaine@golden. net (George Plaine)
Reply-To: gplaine@golden. net anon@penet. fi (Anonymous Remailer Service) wrote:
›1. How would you commit the perfect murder?
It's a pretty good question but I think mystery novelists have beaten it to death over the years. There's basically 2 ways to commit the perfect murder:
— make sure nobody thinks its a murder (generally an accident)
— make sure somebody else takes the fall (generally by dressing things up as a murder-suicide, but there's tons o' variations out there.)
›2. How would you commit the perfect group of murders?
This is way more interesting… A big accident like a collapsed building or a bomb attributed to someone else sounds good. Serial killer, that sounds like a hard gig. Even if you're driving around picking people up and disappearing them, every crime and disappearance goes on record, and every little mistake you might make catches up with you. I think one big bang is the way to go.
–
Date: 14 September 1995, 14:51:56
Newsgroups: alt. serial-killers, alt. perfect-crime
Subject: Re: Killer on the road
From: solipsism@innocent. com
Reply-To: bgates@microsoft. com gplaine@golden. net (George Plaine) wrote:
›anon@penet. fi (Anonymous Remailer Service) wrote:
››2. How would you commit the perfect group of murders?
›
› […]Serial killer, that sounds like a hard gig.
› […] I think one big bang is the way to go.
People used to have a lot of success (if you can call it that) by hitching or by picking up hitchers, but that's a lot harder these days. Cell phones, car locators, cameras on highways and every ATM machine, DNA testing — it's not easy being a psychopath any more.
I think it's probably easier to kill a single random person in a rural setting, eg bumping them off a cliff, but easier to be a serial killer in a dense urban place like New York or LA or Chicago.
But what do I know, I haven't killed anyone yet.
–
Date: 14 September 1995, 13:08:16 EDT
Newsgroups: alt. serial-killers, alt. perfect-crime
Subject: Re: Killer on the road
From: anon@penet. fi (Anonymous Remailer Service)
Reply-To: dev@null. com solipsism@innocent. com wrote:
›gplaine@golden. net (George Plaine) wrote:
››anon@penet. fi (Anonymous Remailer Service) wrote:
›››2. How would you commit the perfect group of murders?
››
›› […]Serial killer, that sounds like a hard gig.
›
› Cell phones, car locators, cameras on highways and every ATM
› machine, DNA testing — it's not easy being a psychopath any more.
You're making the assumption that the killings take place in a First World country with a well-funded police force. Why think that? You could go off to Asia or Africa or pick some random tribesmen there and they'd fit the criteria. Or, better yet, go on a road trip through Central America or someplace like that, kill someone in every country, and just make each one look like one of those death-squad things. You could even pick off fellow travelers.
