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Almanac of Murder
Feb. 10th, 2006 01:05 pmOne of my favourite books to flick through is "An Almanac of Murder" by Fenton Bresler. It has murders for every day of the year! Today's murder happened in 1918. Nellie Trew, 16, was raped and strangled. Near her body were an imitation army badge and a bone button with wire through it. This made huge news; someone else's suffering in contrast to a life of rations and war.
One poor fella, David Greenwood, just 21, showed up at a police station and said that the badge was his. That was enough for a judge and jury to convict him a few months later, even though Greenwood had been invalided out of the army and was deemed physically incapable of the act itself. The judge claimed that circumstantial evidence could not be argued with, whereas the evidence of people could be mistaken.
Most of the murders in the book are of another era, a time before mass media and murder-saturation. Before unlimited crime shows on TV which show gruesome murders solved in an hour, the facts neatly tied up. A murder gets a paragraph in today's newspapers. In the past, the nation would stop as the investigation progressed. I'm not sure if we've become immune to caring about murder victims, or if we've lost our outrage about it, or if there are so many people dying violently that it is hard to single out one to be interested in. Anita Cobby had our interest, still does. The couple burnt in barrels got front page news for a day or two.
If you'd like to know the murder for your birthday, let me know. July 3rd, my birthday, talks about Dr Sam Sheppard, who, in 1954, 'allegedly' murdered his four-month's pregnant wife. He got away with it, married twice more and became a professional wrestler. Don't you love it?
Kaaron
One poor fella, David Greenwood, just 21, showed up at a police station and said that the badge was his. That was enough for a judge and jury to convict him a few months later, even though Greenwood had been invalided out of the army and was deemed physically incapable of the act itself. The judge claimed that circumstantial evidence could not be argued with, whereas the evidence of people could be mistaken.
Most of the murders in the book are of another era, a time before mass media and murder-saturation. Before unlimited crime shows on TV which show gruesome murders solved in an hour, the facts neatly tied up. A murder gets a paragraph in today's newspapers. In the past, the nation would stop as the investigation progressed. I'm not sure if we've become immune to caring about murder victims, or if we've lost our outrage about it, or if there are so many people dying violently that it is hard to single out one to be interested in. Anita Cobby had our interest, still does. The couple burnt in barrels got front page news for a day or two.
If you'd like to know the murder for your birthday, let me know. July 3rd, my birthday, talks about Dr Sam Sheppard, who, in 1954, 'allegedly' murdered his four-month's pregnant wife. He got away with it, married twice more and became a professional wrestler. Don't you love it?
Kaaron