The aesthetics of murder

This morning I am looking at a crime scene that fascinates me more than any other before. The crime of Elizabeth Short has never been solved but….photographs of her mutilated body are all over the internet (probably because the police hoped to find the murderer)

Some information about Elizabeth Short you can find here 

And the pictures of her body you can find here


I might reveal my sick mind to the world when I write about what fascinates me so much about those pictures…but it is more a step towards understanding murder, understanding the people who do such things, understand their minds.

Move your perspective from the victim (as sad as this may be) to the person who usually never is understood by anyone.

First of all, the body was cut in half. A very strange thing, don’t you find? Ah well, strange it is because normally you would naturally go the easy way to dispose of her body (if you want to dispose of her, more about that later): you would cut the arms off, then the legs and then you would cut the rest in pieces. But our murderer has cut her in two; he hasn’t gone the easy way. When looking at the pictures closer you can see that she was cut very carefully…she was almost sliced above the pelvis…only machines can do that….a butcher knife however sharp it is, just cannot cut such a straight line.


The mutilations hmmmm it is very obvious that they are sexually orientated…one piece of breast was cut (or bitten) off, one piece of her leg was cut off and stuffed into her uterus. When you look at the picture where she was photographed from her toes to her head, you can see that there is an imaginary line running from her left leg, to the middle (her uterus) to her right breast. 


To some it may be apparent already that the murderer must have planned this very carefully.

Sexual mutilation is not a random idea of a killer; then have a look at how she is positioned at the place where she was found…her body halves….not  in one line….
No, she was carefully positioned, her arms in a 45 degrees angle to her shoulders and her upper body shifted to the side.

Why? What is he telling you? 

You know, there is a certain pattern in all of us but everyone has his own microcosm. The pattern is with all certainty that he wanted to present her..everything in and on her body tells us (well, at least me) that she must have been kept for a while and he carefully planned before what to do and how to do it. 
Even her mutilations shout out: Look at her. Look at her sexual organs. Look at this woman.

Do you really believe that someone who is so meticulous, so focused on aesthetics 
(and Yes, believe it or not, this murderer has a rather fine eye for beauty, beauty of the body….he forced his idea of beauty upon this poor woman) and so in need for attention has committed murder for the first time?

Oh, no, such an artist needs practice.
 Most murderers need practice and only the unsatisfiable ones seek to perfectionize their art.

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