The cult of Columbine is being realized anew. I've been getting media calls from Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, and other European countries asking whether I see any overlaps between this week's shooting in Finland and other school shootings. Of course, I do.
The previous Finland school shooter exhibited several ties to Columbine and other recent incidents. The Jokela school shooting occurred on November 7, 2007 at Jokela High School (Finnish: Jokelan koulukeskus), a public secondary school in the town of Jokela, Tuusula municipality, Finland. The gunman was 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen uploaded a home-made movie entitled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" to YouTube announcing the "massacre" hours prior to the shooting. KMFDM's "Stray Bullet" was used as background music. The KMFDM track used in his video, "Stray Bullet", was also used on the website of Columbine shooter Eric Harris.
Several hours after the 2007 event, YouTube suspended some videos belonging to the username Sturmgeist89 due to relations with the shootings. Sturmgeist means "Stormspirit" in German. This appears to have been a reference to KMFDM, as Sturm had been a member of the band. Dylan Klebold, and Eric Harris (Columbine's shooters, were also KMFDM fans and Eric wore a KMFDM hat during the shooting) was idolized by Auvinen. His previous YouTube account name was "naturalselector89", which he used from March 2007 until it was suspended in October 2007. Many of Auvinen's videos were about other shootings and violent incidents, including the Columbine High School massacre, the Waco Siege, the Tokyo sarin gas attack, and bombing during the Iraq invasion.
Spokesman for the cyber crime department of Helsinki police has stated that "it's highly probable that there was some form of contact between Pekka-Eric Auvinen and Dillon Cossey." The 14-year-old Cossey was arrested in October 2007 on suspicion of planning an attack on his school in a suburb of Philadelphia.
There is developing information that Auvinen and this week's Finnish school shooter Matti Saari may have been in contact too. Certainly it is now known that they both bought their guns at the same place in Jokela.
Before the 2007 incident, another school shooting occurred in 1989 at the Raumanmeri school in Rauma, Finland, when a 14-year-old fatally shot two fellow students.
Now the latest....
Panic spread among students in Finland on Thursday (September 25, 2008) as threatening text messages and Internet postings raised fears of new attacks mimicking a deadly school rampage.
Worried children and parents jammed telephone help lines and scores of children stayed away from class after threats popped up against schools and students, noted Associated Press writer Marius Turula from Kauhajoki, Finland.
While most appeared to be hoaxes, police were taking every threat seriously to avoid a repeat of Tuesday's shooting (September 23, 2008), in which a 22-year-old gunman killed 10 people and himself at a vocational school in this town in western Finland.
It was the second school shooting in the country in less than a year. Last November 2007, an 18-year-old man fatally shot eight people and himself at a high school in southern Finland.
"It's clear that the more you talk about these incidents, the more chances there are of copycats," National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero told reporters in Helsinki. "After we've witnessed two such incidents, the threat is real."
Both gunmen posed with or fired guns in YouTube clips posted before the rampages. The similarities between the attacks — including reports that they bought their guns at the same place — prompted police to probe potential links between them.
"The cases were similar. They were the same type of person, so it could be possible," investigation leader Jari Neulaniemi told The Associated Press. "They had the same style of hair, same kind of clothing, same interests and ideals — and their deeds were the same."
The jitters spread to neighboring Sweden, where one school was evacuated. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy after viewing a suspicious YouTube clip in which he posed with weapons. He was released after police said the video was just a prank.
Police in both countries stepped up their surveillance of YouTube and other Web sites to monitor for signs of possible attack plans.
"We'd be looking to see if we can, by careful analysis, weed out some who would pose a potential threat," said Tero Kuremaa, from the National Bureau of Investigation.
In Finland, police held two young men for questioning about threatening Internet postings, evacuated at least one school and detained a 15-year-old for allegedly sending threats to another school.
Meanwhile, investigators struggled to find the origin of the text messages that sparked fear among students.
"The text messages are threatening in nature and are causing fear and hysteria among young people, and we must stop them," said Urpo Lintula, a spokesman for the regional police department that covers Kauhajoki.
He added that Finland saw a similar wave of threats after the November 2007 shooting.
Police, psychiatrists and social workers set up dozens of crisis help lines nationwide to deal with reported threats, calls for help and to provide counseling. The Finnish Red Cross closed down a chat line after 350 callers jammed switchboards.
"There's a lot of uncertainty in the air and there's a lot of fear," said Tero Hintsa, a Red Cross worker in Kauhajoki. Scores of children stayed away from class Wednesday (Sept. 24, 2008) and Thursday (Sept. 25), he said.
A 500-student school in the southern town of Keuruu was evacuated after suspicious text messages and Internet postings. A 15-year-old boy was arrested in the west coast city of Turku for allegedly sending threatening messages to a school, STT news agency reported.
Police in the central town of Kajaani detained two men aged 18 and 23 for menacing messages they had posted on the Internet.
"They were fairly vague but they mentioned shootings in schools and bomb explosions," Kajaani police spokesman Arto Lumikari said, adding the men were not believed to be planning any attacks.
On Tuesday, September 23, 2008, Matti Saari killed eight female students, one male teacher and one male student, and torched their bodies. A 21-year-old woman whom Saari shot in the head was still hospitalized after having two operations.
Sanna Orpana, 17, told AP Television News that she was in the classroom next door when the shooting began at the school.
"We started to hear shooting and a kind of a rumble like tables falling down. We thought someone is playing around, fooling with toy guns," she said, adding that a few students went to look in the other room. "The guy was there with a gun, and tried to shoot them."
___
Associated Press writers Matti Huuhtanen and Jari Tanner in Helsinki and Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this report.
Also thanks to Todd Campbell.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Da Vinci Code Attack
Rosemary's baby, 666, The Da Vinci Code, and the Last Supper? Fiction is turning into fact and the latest from Rome gives haunting pause to all Hell breaking loose across the landscape during a time of killings at a school in Finland to a language school in London just this week.
Reuters today is reporting that a 25-year-old man who tried to kill a priest by stabbing him in a Rome church has told police that he did so after the watching the film The Da Vinci Code and believing himself to be the anti-Christ.
The priest, Rev. Caino Calitri, 68, was in critical condition in a Rome hospital after he was stabbed repeatedly in the neck Tuesday, September 23, 2008, by Marco Luzi, according to Italian media reports, including the Catholic paper Avvenire.
The attack took place at the Santa Marcella church in Rome and left two other worshippers needing treatment.
Police officer Luca Gori, 41, who disarmed Luzi, suffered knife wounds to his stomach as he struggled with him on the floor of the church. Witnesses said Luzi had burst in armed with two knives, and carrying a set of rosary beads. Gori is said to have shouted that he was the ''Antichrist'' as well as talking about The Da Vinci Code.
Police found a note in one of Luzi's pockets reading "this is just the beginning, 666."
The number 666 is known as "the number of the beast" in the "Book of Revelation" in the Bible.
Luzi, who stabbed three other people who had tried to help the priest, told police after his arrest that he had watched The Da Vinci Code on television the night before, September 22.
At his flat nearby, where he lived with his mother Paola, investigators found material on the Apocalypse and the anti-Christ, and the telephone number of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
There was also a large reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, which is at the heart of the mystery in The Da Vinci Code, with a note pointing to one of the disciples reading: "This is the hand in which a knife is hidden".
Police also found a box on which was written "In here are the keys to the Sixth and Seventh Seals, closed by order of Satan and Jesus Christ. Give all these things to the Pope."
A rambling note read: "Between my death and my return many grave events will take place, years will pass, perhaps centuries. Christianity will be reviewed in the light of the new alliance between Jesus and the Madonna". Other notes referred to Islam, Satanism and robots.
Luzi told police: "I am the anti-Christ”, and said he had heard voices telling him to attack the priest, adding: "I have carried out my mission". In his pockets investigators found a rosary and a note reading "This is just the beginning: 666", the mystical number said to refer to Satan.
Neighbours said that Luzi was "a loner, a solitary introvert who sometimes quarrelled violently with his mother". Doctors said Father Canistri was in intensive care, while the pensioner who went to his aid at the church, Antonio Farrace, 78, a retired policeman, was also "in serious condition".
The Peruvian nanny, Rosemary Sotero Rivera, 37, was attacked by Luzi as he ran through a park after fleeing from the church. Witnesses said she threw herself on the three year old girl in her charge to protect her, and was stabbed in the shoulder. (What was the name of "Rosemary's baby" in this event? Very curious.)
The police found various references to the novel by Dan Brown in Luzi's apartment, including a print of the The Last Supper fresco by Leonardo Da Vinci.
One note read "I, the anti-Christ."
The theme of the anti-Christ and Leonardo's fresco figure prominently in the best-selling book and its film adaptation, both of which have been condemned by the Vatican.
The Da Vinci Code outraged the Vatican and some Catholics because of its storyline that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, creating a royal blood line that Church officials kept secret for centuries.
(Thanks to Todd Campbell at Through The Looking Glass for the tip on this one.)
Reuters today is reporting that a 25-year-old man who tried to kill a priest by stabbing him in a Rome church has told police that he did so after the watching the film The Da Vinci Code and believing himself to be the anti-Christ.
The priest, Rev. Caino Calitri, 68, was in critical condition in a Rome hospital after he was stabbed repeatedly in the neck Tuesday, September 23, 2008, by Marco Luzi, according to Italian media reports, including the Catholic paper Avvenire.
The attack took place at the Santa Marcella church in Rome and left two other worshippers needing treatment.
Police officer Luca Gori, 41, who disarmed Luzi, suffered knife wounds to his stomach as he struggled with him on the floor of the church. Witnesses said Luzi had burst in armed with two knives, and carrying a set of rosary beads. Gori is said to have shouted that he was the ''Antichrist'' as well as talking about The Da Vinci Code.
Police found a note in one of Luzi's pockets reading "this is just the beginning, 666."
The number 666 is known as "the number of the beast" in the "Book of Revelation" in the Bible.
Luzi, who stabbed three other people who had tried to help the priest, told police after his arrest that he had watched The Da Vinci Code on television the night before, September 22.
At his flat nearby, where he lived with his mother Paola, investigators found material on the Apocalypse and the anti-Christ, and the telephone number of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
There was also a large reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, which is at the heart of the mystery in The Da Vinci Code, with a note pointing to one of the disciples reading: "This is the hand in which a knife is hidden".
Police also found a box on which was written "In here are the keys to the Sixth and Seventh Seals, closed by order of Satan and Jesus Christ. Give all these things to the Pope."
A rambling note read: "Between my death and my return many grave events will take place, years will pass, perhaps centuries. Christianity will be reviewed in the light of the new alliance between Jesus and the Madonna". Other notes referred to Islam, Satanism and robots.
Luzi told police: "I am the anti-Christ”, and said he had heard voices telling him to attack the priest, adding: "I have carried out my mission". In his pockets investigators found a rosary and a note reading "This is just the beginning: 666", the mystical number said to refer to Satan.
Neighbours said that Luzi was "a loner, a solitary introvert who sometimes quarrelled violently with his mother". Doctors said Father Canistri was in intensive care, while the pensioner who went to his aid at the church, Antonio Farrace, 78, a retired policeman, was also "in serious condition".
The Peruvian nanny, Rosemary Sotero Rivera, 37, was attacked by Luzi as he ran through a park after fleeing from the church. Witnesses said she threw herself on the three year old girl in her charge to protect her, and was stabbed in the shoulder. (What was the name of "Rosemary's baby" in this event? Very curious.)
The police found various references to the novel by Dan Brown in Luzi's apartment, including a print of the The Last Supper fresco by Leonardo Da Vinci.
One note read "I, the anti-Christ."
The theme of the anti-Christ and Leonardo's fresco figure prominently in the best-selling book and its film adaptation, both of which have been condemned by the Vatican.
The Da Vinci Code outraged the Vatican and some Catholics because of its storyline that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, creating a royal blood line that Church officials kept secret for centuries.
(Thanks to Todd Campbell at Through The Looking Glass for the tip on this one.)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Canadian HS Held Hostage
On Tuesday, September 23, 2008, an expelled 16-year-old student entered a private Christian high school in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, during chapel, and put a pellet gun to the pastor's head before the principal grabbed the gun. Police arrested the student, officials said.
Principal Mark Anderson said he kept talking with the youth, who was forcing the pastor to read a letter.
Anderson said he got close enough to see the weapon was not a firearm, then grappled with the teen and held him until police arrived and arrested him. Police said they recovered a pellet pistol.
"He just felt like we had to listen to his story, that people were working against him and that everything is a big conspiracy," Anderson told The Associated Press.
Anderson said he was expelled him because of incidents from last school year.
Alex McNair, a student at the Luther College high school, said the gunman forced the pastor to read a letter about his expulsion. He said the letter was about how the gunman had been bullied.
"He seemed completely unstable," McNair said in a message to the AP via the Internet social networking site Facebook.
According to student Tasha Niedzielski, “He had a gun in his hand and everyone started screaming,” said the story. “He basically told everyone to shut up and listen and he told Pastor (Larry) Fry to read.
“He read the speech and people exited carefully but then he’d point the gun at them and tell them to stop. He did it several times. They got all the Grade 9s out and then after probably half an hour or 45 minutes Mr. Anderson [school principal Mark Anderson] grabbed him and grabbed the gun and then a bunch of cops came in after him.”
Almost all the school's 450 staff and students were in the chapel for daily prayer when the suspect walked in and ignored a vice principal's request to stop, Anderson said.
Teachers were helping students to leave quietly as Anderson negotiated with the suspect to let students leave.
Police said there were no reports of any injuries to staff, students or the suspect.
The arrest came on the same day as a deadly school shooting in Finland. In that case, a masked gunman killed 11 people at a trade school and burned some of their bodies before shooting himself in the head.
Principal Mark Anderson said he kept talking with the youth, who was forcing the pastor to read a letter.
Anderson said he got close enough to see the weapon was not a firearm, then grappled with the teen and held him until police arrived and arrested him. Police said they recovered a pellet pistol.
"He just felt like we had to listen to his story, that people were working against him and that everything is a big conspiracy," Anderson told The Associated Press.
Anderson said he was expelled him because of incidents from last school year.
Alex McNair, a student at the Luther College high school, said the gunman forced the pastor to read a letter about his expulsion. He said the letter was about how the gunman had been bullied.
"He seemed completely unstable," McNair said in a message to the AP via the Internet social networking site Facebook.
According to student Tasha Niedzielski, “He had a gun in his hand and everyone started screaming,” said the story. “He basically told everyone to shut up and listen and he told Pastor (Larry) Fry to read.
“He read the speech and people exited carefully but then he’d point the gun at them and tell them to stop. He did it several times. They got all the Grade 9s out and then after probably half an hour or 45 minutes Mr. Anderson [school principal Mark Anderson] grabbed him and grabbed the gun and then a bunch of cops came in after him.”
Almost all the school's 450 staff and students were in the chapel for daily prayer when the suspect walked in and ignored a vice principal's request to stop, Anderson said.
Teachers were helping students to leave quietly as Anderson negotiated with the suspect to let students leave.
Police said there were no reports of any injuries to staff, students or the suspect.
The arrest came on the same day as a deadly school shooting in Finland. In that case, a masked gunman killed 11 people at a trade school and burned some of their bodies before shooting himself in the head.
Phantom Of The Opera Attack
An east London woman killed by a knifeman wearing a Phantom Of The Opera-style mask has been named by Scotland Yard. A spokesman said Sehrish Waqar Sheikh was aged 23 and from Dagenham.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. The suspect wore a Phantom of the Opera-style mask and wig when stabbing and killing his alleged ex-girlfriend whom he was stalking, then injured her best friend and turned his knife on himself in a gruesome attack in East London on Monday, September 22, 2008.
Waqar, of Pakistani origin, died at the scene in an office belonging to St George’s College in Plaistow. She was found partially clothed with stab wounds to the chest and neck, Scotland Yard said. She was a receptionist at the private college for international students.
Her friend, college manager Kiran Asghar, was also hurt but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
According to witnesses, Asghar ran out of the building screaming: “He’s killing her.”
Friends told how Waqar was preparing for a January wedding in Dubai.
Mohammed Noorani, landlord to Asghar and her husband Irfan Sheikh - who owns the small language and business school based in a first-floor office above shops - said: "She was engaged to a man in Dubai. She was very much looking forward to getting married."
When police and ambulance services arrived at the scene just after 6pm yesterday, the knifeman tried to kill himself.
A police source described the incident as a “frenzied attack”.
“First of all he launched himself at the dead girl’s best friend and stabbed her. Then he turned his attention to his ex-girlfriend, stabbed her and killed her.
“Police and the ambulance were called and arrived straight away. He panicked and tried to kill himself by stabbing himself in the neck.”
Malik Ijaz, 40, who runs a builders merchants underneath the college, said that the knifeman continued stabbing his ex-girlfriend even after she was unconscious.
“It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “I saw something so brutal and something I can’t explain.
“One girl came down screaming that she had been stabbed. I went up there and saw a man in a mask stabbing a girl. I don’t know how many times he stabbed her, but she had already passed out and he was still stabbing her.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed today that they had arrested a 29-year-old man. He remains under police guard in hospital, where he is believed to be in a stable condition.
"At this early stage no-one else is sought in connection with the incident," Scotland Yard said in a statement.
A murder inquiry has been launched, led by Detective Chief Inspector Bob Mahoney.
Mr Mahoney said: “A man wearing a mask and a wig has was seen prior to the incident. It was a black curly wig and a white mask in a Phantom of the Opera style.”
A worker in a nearby kebab shop said today that he knew the 23-year-old victim: “She would come in here every lunchtime. She was so bubbly, such a nice, pretty girl. She had been a receptionist at the college for about a year.”
(Thanks to Benjamin Singleton and Todd Campbell for bringing this event to my attention.)
(BTW, a language arts teacher is mentioned in my posting on the Olympic Peninsula rampage of Saturday, September 20, 2008. Also, I note the strange name game link that incident has to the Kip Kinkel school shooting, ten years ago, where Kinkel killed his Spanish teacher parents before going to school to murder two classmates.)
A 29-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. The suspect wore a Phantom of the Opera-style mask and wig when stabbing and killing his alleged ex-girlfriend whom he was stalking, then injured her best friend and turned his knife on himself in a gruesome attack in East London on Monday, September 22, 2008.
Waqar, of Pakistani origin, died at the scene in an office belonging to St George’s College in Plaistow. She was found partially clothed with stab wounds to the chest and neck, Scotland Yard said. She was a receptionist at the private college for international students.
Her friend, college manager Kiran Asghar, was also hurt but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
According to witnesses, Asghar ran out of the building screaming: “He’s killing her.”
Friends told how Waqar was preparing for a January wedding in Dubai.
Mohammed Noorani, landlord to Asghar and her husband Irfan Sheikh - who owns the small language and business school based in a first-floor office above shops - said: "She was engaged to a man in Dubai. She was very much looking forward to getting married."
When police and ambulance services arrived at the scene just after 6pm yesterday, the knifeman tried to kill himself.
A police source described the incident as a “frenzied attack”.
“First of all he launched himself at the dead girl’s best friend and stabbed her. Then he turned his attention to his ex-girlfriend, stabbed her and killed her.
“Police and the ambulance were called and arrived straight away. He panicked and tried to kill himself by stabbing himself in the neck.”
Malik Ijaz, 40, who runs a builders merchants underneath the college, said that the knifeman continued stabbing his ex-girlfriend even after she was unconscious.
“It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “I saw something so brutal and something I can’t explain.
“One girl came down screaming that she had been stabbed. I went up there and saw a man in a mask stabbing a girl. I don’t know how many times he stabbed her, but she had already passed out and he was still stabbing her.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed today that they had arrested a 29-year-old man. He remains under police guard in hospital, where he is believed to be in a stable condition.
"At this early stage no-one else is sought in connection with the incident," Scotland Yard said in a statement.
A murder inquiry has been launched, led by Detective Chief Inspector Bob Mahoney.
Mr Mahoney said: “A man wearing a mask and a wig has was seen prior to the incident. It was a black curly wig and a white mask in a Phantom of the Opera style.”
A worker in a nearby kebab shop said today that he knew the 23-year-old victim: “She would come in here every lunchtime. She was so bubbly, such a nice, pretty girl. She had been a receptionist at the college for about a year.”
(Thanks to Benjamin Singleton and Todd Campbell for bringing this event to my attention.)
(BTW, a language arts teacher is mentioned in my posting on the Olympic Peninsula rampage of Saturday, September 20, 2008. Also, I note the strange name game link that incident has to the Kip Kinkel school shooting, ten years ago, where Kinkel killed his Spanish teacher parents before going to school to murder two classmates.)
Eleven Dead In Finnish College Shooting
Tuesday's shootings in Kauhajoki, began just before 1100 local time (0800 GMT). At least eleven people have been killed and two others wounded in a shooting spree at a college in the small town in western Finland, some 330km (205 miles) north of the capital, Helsinki.
Police said the gunman, thought to be a student in his early 20s, then shot himself. His condition is unclear. (He died later.)
The gunmen apparently posted a YouTube video of himself on the internet last week firing a gun. As a result, police interviewed him on Monday but did not revoke his licence, the interior minister said.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said this was a "tragic day" for Finland, said BBC News.
An estimated 200 students were thought to be in the college buildings at the time.
A BBC correspondent in Finland said a gunman dressed in black was seen at the school, apparently carrying an automatic weapon. A man with a ski mask was seen entering the building with a large bag, national broadcaster YLE reported. Shots were fired soon afterwards, and reports emerged that several people were seriously wounded.
School caretaker Jukka Forsberg told Finnish TV: "Within a short space of time I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol. I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning and one managed to escape out of the back door."
Police ordered an evacuation and called for reinforcements as fires blazed in the building.
The gunman remained at large within the college grounds for some time.
Mr Vanhanen confirmed the gunman had shot himself but gave no details of his condition.
Media reports said the gunman was being treated for a bullet wound to the head at Tampere University Hospital.
Mr Vanhanen expressed condolences to the families of the victims and declared Wednesday a day of national mourning.
Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said police questioned the man about the YouTube video, which showed him shooting at a firing range.
"Police were aware of this and spoke to him on Monday, September 22," she said.
"However, the police officer on duty decided there was no need to terminate his gun licence."
The gunman was given a "temporary licence" for a .22-calibre firearm this year, Ms Holmlund said.
In November 2007, eight people died in another school attack in Finland.
In that incident, the gunman, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, posted a video on YouTube as a preview of his attack, pledging to "eliminate" those he saw as "unfit".
In the wake of that attack, Finland's government pledged to raise the minimum age for buying guns.
But the country has a long tradition of hunting and weapons-bearing, with about 1.6 million firearms in private hands.
Police said the gunman, thought to be a student in his early 20s, then shot himself. His condition is unclear. (He died later.)
The gunmen apparently posted a YouTube video of himself on the internet last week firing a gun. As a result, police interviewed him on Monday but did not revoke his licence, the interior minister said.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said this was a "tragic day" for Finland, said BBC News.
An estimated 200 students were thought to be in the college buildings at the time.
A BBC correspondent in Finland said a gunman dressed in black was seen at the school, apparently carrying an automatic weapon. A man with a ski mask was seen entering the building with a large bag, national broadcaster YLE reported. Shots were fired soon afterwards, and reports emerged that several people were seriously wounded.
School caretaker Jukka Forsberg told Finnish TV: "Within a short space of time I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol. I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning and one managed to escape out of the back door."
Police ordered an evacuation and called for reinforcements as fires blazed in the building.
The gunman remained at large within the college grounds for some time.
Mr Vanhanen confirmed the gunman had shot himself but gave no details of his condition.
Media reports said the gunman was being treated for a bullet wound to the head at Tampere University Hospital.
Mr Vanhanen expressed condolences to the families of the victims and declared Wednesday a day of national mourning.
Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said police questioned the man about the YouTube video, which showed him shooting at a firing range.
"Police were aware of this and spoke to him on Monday, September 22," she said.
"However, the police officer on duty decided there was no need to terminate his gun licence."
The gunman was given a "temporary licence" for a .22-calibre firearm this year, Ms Holmlund said.
In November 2007, eight people died in another school attack in Finland.
In that incident, the gunman, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, posted a video on YouTube as a preview of his attack, pledging to "eliminate" those he saw as "unfit".
In the wake of that attack, Finland's government pledged to raise the minimum age for buying guns.
But the country has a long tradition of hunting and weapons-bearing, with about 1.6 million firearms in private hands.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Another Canadian Bus Stabbing
A young man was stabbed Sunday, September 21, 2008, aboard a Winnipeg-bound Greyhound bus travelling near the town of White River, about 300 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, according to reporter Marcus Grundt of Canadian Press.
Police are investigating a stabbing aboard the Greyhound bus eerily on its way Winnipeg, during an incident in which a young man was attacked by another passenger as the vehicle travelled through northern Ontario. It appears to mirror another recent Greyhound bus involving Winnipeg.
The man who was stabbed is believed to be in his 20s. He was taken to hospital Sunday afternoon with minor injuries, the Sault Star newspaper reported.
Police arrested a 28-year-old man near the town of White River, shortly after the bus driver let him get off at the side of the highway.
“I can confirm that an incident did occur aboard one of our buses,” said Greyhound spokesperson Abby Wambaugh, speaking from Dallas, Texas.
“The incident occurred 10 miles [16 kilometres] east of White River,” she said. “The bus originated in Toronto and was headed for its final destination of Winnipeg.”
Wambaugh said the company is “co-operating fully” with Ontario Provincial Police in the investigation.
Another bus was provided for the 13 remaining passengers to continue on their trip.
Update: Police in Ontario admitted they put a mentally troubled convict on a Winnipeg-bound Greyhound bus Sunday afternoon but don't know how he managed to sneak a knife on board which was later used to stab a sleeping passenger.
Monday's revelation has sparked multiple investigations and left critics howling in protest, saying the case further underscores how dangerous public bus transportation is in Canada.
"It's absolutely astounding," said Winnipeg defence lawyer Jay Prober, who recently filed a lawsuit against the RCMP and Greyhound following the July murder and beheading of Winnipeg resident Tim McLean on board a Greyhound near Portage la Prairie.
"This latest incident is just a vindication of the lawsuit, not that we needed it. What's it going to take for Greyhound to do something to protect their passengers? Are they waiting for someone else to get killed?"
David Wayne Roberts, 28, of Manitouwadge, Ontario, has been charged with aggravated assault and breach of probation. He will appear in a Sault Ste. Marie courtroom Tuesday morning. (As has been noted by various researchers, for some strange reason many violent criminals share the middle name "Wayne.")
The 20-year-old victim suffered non life-threatening injuries after passengers say he was stabbed in the chest while sitting on the bus around 4:15 p.m. (EDT) Sunday. He remains in hospital but is expected to be released later this week. His name and hometown haven't been released.
Winnipeg author Anita Daher (upcoming book in 2009, On the Trail of the Bushman, set in the Yukon) was on the bus and witnessed the attack. She told the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday night the attack was unprovoked and happened shortly after police brought the man on board.
OPP and municipal police confirmed her story Monday, saying there was no apparent history between the victim and the accused and no motive has been established.
Police said Roberts boarded the bus in Wawa, Ontario, armed with a ticket that had been paid for with social-assistance funds supplied to him by the Wawa municipal police earlier in the day. The OPP confirmed they were asked to assist in getting Roberts on his way. Wawa Sgt. Larry Ross told CBC they first dealt with Roberts early Sunday morning when they charged him with causing a public disturbance. Roberts has a previous criminal history and is currently on probation for unspecified convictions. Ross said they briefly detained Roberts but released him later in the morning.
Roberts then returned to the police station a few hours later, seeking to be taken to hospital for what Ross called "psychological reasons." Roberts was examined by a doctor but then released after they found no reason to hold him under the Mental Health Act.
Police then stepped in to help get Roberts on his way back home, which they said is a common practice. Ross told CBC they searched him immediately after his arrest and before going to the hospital but not before he boarded the bus because there was no valid, lawful reason to do so.
Ross and other members of the Wawa detachment did not return several Free Press calls seeking comment Monday.
Manitoba RCMP Sgt. Line Karpish told the Free Press it's not unusual to assist transients and hitchhikers with transportation - especially when the weather turns colder in the fall and winter. She said the expenses are usually covered by the town or municipality but police may be asked to assist with arrangements.
"We wouldn't just leave someone out there in the middle of nowhere," said Karpish. She said a person who is clearly intoxicated would be detained until they sobered up, while a person exhibiting obvious signs of mental illness would be examined.
"A mentally deranged person would not just be turned loose on a bus," she said.
The RCMP occasionally transport criminals on commercial flights but never use buses or trains, said Karpish.
"Obviously public safety is first and foremost. We have a two-to-one ratio of officers (to prisoner) and they are always handcuffed and shackled. We have to notify the airlines and ultimately it's the pilot that has the last say as to whether we board or not," said Karpish.
"We do it very discreetly, usually first in, last out. And all prisoners would be searched multiple times," she said.
The incident comes less than two months after a Greyhound passenger beheaded Tim McLean, a 22-year-old man from Winnipeg, sparking questions about security on buses.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, is charged with second-degree murder and is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation to see whether he is fit to stand trial. He’s scheduled to appear in court October 6, 2008.
(Thanks to K. McGillis and S. Lewis for media input.)
Police are investigating a stabbing aboard the Greyhound bus eerily on its way Winnipeg, during an incident in which a young man was attacked by another passenger as the vehicle travelled through northern Ontario. It appears to mirror another recent Greyhound bus involving Winnipeg.
The man who was stabbed is believed to be in his 20s. He was taken to hospital Sunday afternoon with minor injuries, the Sault Star newspaper reported.
Police arrested a 28-year-old man near the town of White River, shortly after the bus driver let him get off at the side of the highway.
“I can confirm that an incident did occur aboard one of our buses,” said Greyhound spokesperson Abby Wambaugh, speaking from Dallas, Texas.
“The incident occurred 10 miles [16 kilometres] east of White River,” she said. “The bus originated in Toronto and was headed for its final destination of Winnipeg.”
Wambaugh said the company is “co-operating fully” with Ontario Provincial Police in the investigation.
Another bus was provided for the 13 remaining passengers to continue on their trip.
Update: Police in Ontario admitted they put a mentally troubled convict on a Winnipeg-bound Greyhound bus Sunday afternoon but don't know how he managed to sneak a knife on board which was later used to stab a sleeping passenger.
Monday's revelation has sparked multiple investigations and left critics howling in protest, saying the case further underscores how dangerous public bus transportation is in Canada.
"It's absolutely astounding," said Winnipeg defence lawyer Jay Prober, who recently filed a lawsuit against the RCMP and Greyhound following the July murder and beheading of Winnipeg resident Tim McLean on board a Greyhound near Portage la Prairie.
"This latest incident is just a vindication of the lawsuit, not that we needed it. What's it going to take for Greyhound to do something to protect their passengers? Are they waiting for someone else to get killed?"
David Wayne Roberts, 28, of Manitouwadge, Ontario, has been charged with aggravated assault and breach of probation. He will appear in a Sault Ste. Marie courtroom Tuesday morning. (As has been noted by various researchers, for some strange reason many violent criminals share the middle name "Wayne.")
The 20-year-old victim suffered non life-threatening injuries after passengers say he was stabbed in the chest while sitting on the bus around 4:15 p.m. (EDT) Sunday. He remains in hospital but is expected to be released later this week. His name and hometown haven't been released.
Winnipeg author Anita Daher (upcoming book in 2009, On the Trail of the Bushman, set in the Yukon) was on the bus and witnessed the attack. She told the Winnipeg Free Press on Sunday night the attack was unprovoked and happened shortly after police brought the man on board.
OPP and municipal police confirmed her story Monday, saying there was no apparent history between the victim and the accused and no motive has been established.
Police said Roberts boarded the bus in Wawa, Ontario, armed with a ticket that had been paid for with social-assistance funds supplied to him by the Wawa municipal police earlier in the day. The OPP confirmed they were asked to assist in getting Roberts on his way. Wawa Sgt. Larry Ross told CBC they first dealt with Roberts early Sunday morning when they charged him with causing a public disturbance. Roberts has a previous criminal history and is currently on probation for unspecified convictions. Ross said they briefly detained Roberts but released him later in the morning.
Roberts then returned to the police station a few hours later, seeking to be taken to hospital for what Ross called "psychological reasons." Roberts was examined by a doctor but then released after they found no reason to hold him under the Mental Health Act.
Police then stepped in to help get Roberts on his way back home, which they said is a common practice. Ross told CBC they searched him immediately after his arrest and before going to the hospital but not before he boarded the bus because there was no valid, lawful reason to do so.
Ross and other members of the Wawa detachment did not return several Free Press calls seeking comment Monday.
Manitoba RCMP Sgt. Line Karpish told the Free Press it's not unusual to assist transients and hitchhikers with transportation - especially when the weather turns colder in the fall and winter. She said the expenses are usually covered by the town or municipality but police may be asked to assist with arrangements.
"We wouldn't just leave someone out there in the middle of nowhere," said Karpish. She said a person who is clearly intoxicated would be detained until they sobered up, while a person exhibiting obvious signs of mental illness would be examined.
"A mentally deranged person would not just be turned loose on a bus," she said.
The RCMP occasionally transport criminals on commercial flights but never use buses or trains, said Karpish.
"Obviously public safety is first and foremost. We have a two-to-one ratio of officers (to prisoner) and they are always handcuffed and shackled. We have to notify the airlines and ultimately it's the pilot that has the last say as to whether we board or not," said Karpish.
"We do it very discreetly, usually first in, last out. And all prisoners would be searched multiple times," she said.
The incident comes less than two months after a Greyhound passenger beheaded Tim McLean, a 22-year-old man from Winnipeg, sparking questions about security on buses.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, is charged with second-degree murder and is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation to see whether he is fit to stand trial. He’s scheduled to appear in court October 6, 2008.
(Thanks to K. McGillis and S. Lewis for media input.)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Olympic Shootings Have Links To School Gun Incident
A school gun incident two years ago appears to have been a prelude to the Olympic Peninsula shooting that left three dead over the weekend.
The shooting also comes not long after a 28-year-old Washington man was charged with killing six people and injuring four in a shooting rampage that started about 70 miles north of Seattle. According to court documents, Isaac Zamora told police that God had instructed him to "kill evil."
A U.S. Forest Service officer was fatally shot on Saturday, September 20, 2008, while making a traffic stop of a man who investigators suspect had also killed the owner of the pickup truck he was driving when captured, the Washington State Patrol said. The suspect died later in a shootout with sheriff's deputies. But in 2006, his estranged wife warned officials of his violent nature, but had to resign from her teaching job when she decided to protect herself.
The FBI was investigating the shooting of Officer Kristine Fairbanks, 51, a canine officer with 15 years in the forest service, state Trooper Krista D. Hedstrom told The Associated Press early Sunday.
Shawn M. Roe, 36, the suspected shooter, had three handguns and fired at least one shot at the deputies who confronted him at a convenience store, Hedstrom said.
Roe was a convicted felon with "an active criminal history" and was supposed to be under state Corrections Department supervision, she added. He apparently was not being sought on any warrant, she said. He was wanted on an arrest warrant from Mason County.
The third shooting victim was described only as a man in his 60s.
"We're just hoping that nobody else shows up" dead or injured, Hedstrom said.
The shootings occurred on the northern Olympic Peninsula about 50 miles west of Seattle.
Fairbanks called the state patrol at 2:22 p.m. and said she had stopped Roe in an old Dodge van without license plates near the Dungeness Forks campground in Olympic National Park, noted reporter Tim Klass.
When a dispatcher tried to contact Fairbanks with information on Roe, there was no response and troopers and a sheriff's deputy were dispatched. The deputy arrived first, at 3:10 p.m., and found Fairbanks dead. Her police dog was unharmed in her vehicle.
Authorities found the van about 6:30 p.m., abandoned not far away in a densely wooded area. Posters and flyers warning people to be on the lookout for Roe were distributed in the area.
A security guard at a convenience store near the Seven Cedars Casino on U.S. Highway 101 alerted sheriff's deputies at about 9:30 p.m. that a man matching Roe's description was in the store, Hedstrom said.
Two deputies arrived and told him to put up his hands as he came out of the store, but he drew a handgun and fired at least once before both deputies opened fire, Hedstrom said. Neither deputy was hit. Roe died at the scene.
Roe was found to be carrying two modern handguns and an older six-shooter, she said.
Investigators checked the registration of a white pickup he was seen driving when he arrived at the store, went to the house of the registered owner, and found the body of a man who had been shot, Hedstrom said.
Shawn Roe had been, indirectly, in the news before.
According to the October 24, 2006, issue of the Mason County Daily News, a North Thurston School District teacher from Shelton, Washinton, was accused of bringing a gun onto school grounds and had to resign. The North Thurston School Board accepted the resignation of Mary Catherine Roe, a language arts teacher at Nisqually Middle School.
The Thurston County Sheriff's Office said Roe brought the handgun inside the school building in early September 2006. Roe told deputies she had the gun because she was afraid of her estranged husband, Shawn Roe. At the time, Mary Roe was being investigated for unlawfully carrying a firearm on school grounds, which is a gross misdemeanor. Under state law, guns can be brought to schools "only in certain instances."
North Thurston High School, located in the North Thurston Public Schools District in Olympia, Washington, is a comprehensive high school which first opened in 1955. North Thurston serves a portion of Lacey in Mason County, and part of northeast Thurston County, Washington State.
North Thurston High School is not to be confused with the Thurston High School shooting of Springfield, Oregon. On May 20, 1998, student Kipland "Kip" Kinkel killed his parents, William and Faith, both Spanish teachers at local high schools. On May 21, 1998, he arrived at class at Thurston and murdered two classmates, Ben Walker and Mikael Nickolauson, and injured 25. Kinkel was subdued by fellow students, at least one of whom had himself been shot.
Kinkel had brought three weapons to the high school, a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber handgun, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol. His case was a precusor to the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999.
The shooting also comes not long after a 28-year-old Washington man was charged with killing six people and injuring four in a shooting rampage that started about 70 miles north of Seattle. According to court documents, Isaac Zamora told police that God had instructed him to "kill evil."
A U.S. Forest Service officer was fatally shot on Saturday, September 20, 2008, while making a traffic stop of a man who investigators suspect had also killed the owner of the pickup truck he was driving when captured, the Washington State Patrol said. The suspect died later in a shootout with sheriff's deputies. But in 2006, his estranged wife warned officials of his violent nature, but had to resign from her teaching job when she decided to protect herself.
The FBI was investigating the shooting of Officer Kristine Fairbanks, 51, a canine officer with 15 years in the forest service, state Trooper Krista D. Hedstrom told The Associated Press early Sunday.
Shawn M. Roe, 36, the suspected shooter, had three handguns and fired at least one shot at the deputies who confronted him at a convenience store, Hedstrom said.
Roe was a convicted felon with "an active criminal history" and was supposed to be under state Corrections Department supervision, she added. He apparently was not being sought on any warrant, she said. He was wanted on an arrest warrant from Mason County.
The third shooting victim was described only as a man in his 60s.
"We're just hoping that nobody else shows up" dead or injured, Hedstrom said.
The shootings occurred on the northern Olympic Peninsula about 50 miles west of Seattle.
Fairbanks called the state patrol at 2:22 p.m. and said she had stopped Roe in an old Dodge van without license plates near the Dungeness Forks campground in Olympic National Park, noted reporter Tim Klass.
When a dispatcher tried to contact Fairbanks with information on Roe, there was no response and troopers and a sheriff's deputy were dispatched. The deputy arrived first, at 3:10 p.m., and found Fairbanks dead. Her police dog was unharmed in her vehicle.
Authorities found the van about 6:30 p.m., abandoned not far away in a densely wooded area. Posters and flyers warning people to be on the lookout for Roe were distributed in the area.
A security guard at a convenience store near the Seven Cedars Casino on U.S. Highway 101 alerted sheriff's deputies at about 9:30 p.m. that a man matching Roe's description was in the store, Hedstrom said.
Two deputies arrived and told him to put up his hands as he came out of the store, but he drew a handgun and fired at least once before both deputies opened fire, Hedstrom said. Neither deputy was hit. Roe died at the scene.
Roe was found to be carrying two modern handguns and an older six-shooter, she said.
Investigators checked the registration of a white pickup he was seen driving when he arrived at the store, went to the house of the registered owner, and found the body of a man who had been shot, Hedstrom said.
Shawn Roe had been, indirectly, in the news before.
According to the October 24, 2006, issue of the Mason County Daily News, a North Thurston School District teacher from Shelton, Washinton, was accused of bringing a gun onto school grounds and had to resign. The North Thurston School Board accepted the resignation of Mary Catherine Roe, a language arts teacher at Nisqually Middle School.
The Thurston County Sheriff's Office said Roe brought the handgun inside the school building in early September 2006. Roe told deputies she had the gun because she was afraid of her estranged husband, Shawn Roe. At the time, Mary Roe was being investigated for unlawfully carrying a firearm on school grounds, which is a gross misdemeanor. Under state law, guns can be brought to schools "only in certain instances."
North Thurston High School, located in the North Thurston Public Schools District in Olympia, Washington, is a comprehensive high school which first opened in 1955. North Thurston serves a portion of Lacey in Mason County, and part of northeast Thurston County, Washington State.
North Thurston High School is not to be confused with the Thurston High School shooting of Springfield, Oregon. On May 20, 1998, student Kipland "Kip" Kinkel killed his parents, William and Faith, both Spanish teachers at local high schools. On May 21, 1998, he arrived at class at Thurston and murdered two classmates, Ben Walker and Mikael Nickolauson, and injured 25. Kinkel was subdued by fellow students, at least one of whom had himself been shot.
Kinkel had brought three weapons to the high school, a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber handgun, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol. His case was a precusor to the Columbine High School massacre of April 20, 1999.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
666 Stabbing Spree
The "when" seems less important than the graphic details to the media, but here are the latest mass stabbings and beheadings, this time, from Eurasia, 155 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Moscow, Russia.
An alleged gang of Satanists, accused of stabbing four teenagers 666 times and eating their body parts, were carrying out an initiation ritual during one of the murders, according to Russian police.
Police said that during the murders of the two teenage girls, the Satanists carried out a ritualistic initiation ceremony for a new recruit to their cult.
As part of the initiation, the blood of the dead girls was poured over the near-naked body of 18-year-old Ksenia Kuznetsova, while they prayed to the Devil.
They carried out the murders and induction at the same time, the UK's Sun quoted a source, as saying.
The victims, aged between 15 and 16 described by police as "Goths" were stabbed 666 times before being roasted on a bonfire and eaten. They had apparently been singled out by the Satanists because they were fans of "Goth" music and fashion. One of the girls was said to have had a document titled "101 rules of Satanism" among her belongings. Kuznetsova was the ninth member to join the group all of whom had the nicknames Dead, Corpse, Hitler, Fang, The Count, Doctor, Dark and Goth. Kuznetsova — known as Kara, meaning punishment — and three of the youths have been quizzed by cops over the killing spree.
(Of course, critical thinking would call for us to ask, how can the authorities prove that someone was stabbed 666 times if their body parts have been eaten? Why should the word of the murderers be taken as fact versus attention-seeking sensationalized testimony?)
Two more victims, a boy and a girl, were killed and dismembered the next day by the gang in a rural area of Russia. The four teenagers slain in Russia were Varya Kurmina, Olga Pukhova, Andrei Sorokin and Anya Gorokhova. The remains of a 16-year-old boy and three girls aged 16 and 17 were discovered in a pit near the home of the alleged ringleader Nikolai Ogolobyak in the Yaroslavl region. The remains of a rat tied to an upturned cross marked the spot where they had been executed.
(It should be pointed out that in Yaroslavl, one of the most prominent churches in the important Russian mafia Perekop section of town is the Church of Saint John the Baptist, celebrating the beheaded saint. Yaroslavl is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It was preceded here by the Viking site Timerevo from the 8th or 9th centuries.)
Russia has a history of gruesome killings. The so-called "chessboard killer" Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and three attempted murders last October after he told a court that he had wanted to kill enough people to fill all 64 squares on a chessboard.
He claimed to have murdered 63 people in a bid to overtake the country's worst serial killer, the notorious "Rostov ripper" Andrei Chikatilo, who was executed by firing squad in 1994 for the deaths of 52 women and children.
(Of course, my question is "when" did this occur? Why no specific date in conjunction with the high-level of graphic details?)
Sources: Sun, Times, ANI, & Todd Campbell's Through The Looking Glass.
An alleged gang of Satanists, accused of stabbing four teenagers 666 times and eating their body parts, were carrying out an initiation ritual during one of the murders, according to Russian police.
Police said that during the murders of the two teenage girls, the Satanists carried out a ritualistic initiation ceremony for a new recruit to their cult.
As part of the initiation, the blood of the dead girls was poured over the near-naked body of 18-year-old Ksenia Kuznetsova, while they prayed to the Devil.
They carried out the murders and induction at the same time, the UK's Sun quoted a source, as saying.
The victims, aged between 15 and 16 described by police as "Goths" were stabbed 666 times before being roasted on a bonfire and eaten. They had apparently been singled out by the Satanists because they were fans of "Goth" music and fashion. One of the girls was said to have had a document titled "101 rules of Satanism" among her belongings. Kuznetsova was the ninth member to join the group all of whom had the nicknames Dead, Corpse, Hitler, Fang, The Count, Doctor, Dark and Goth. Kuznetsova — known as Kara, meaning punishment — and three of the youths have been quizzed by cops over the killing spree.
(Of course, critical thinking would call for us to ask, how can the authorities prove that someone was stabbed 666 times if their body parts have been eaten? Why should the word of the murderers be taken as fact versus attention-seeking sensationalized testimony?)
Two more victims, a boy and a girl, were killed and dismembered the next day by the gang in a rural area of Russia. The four teenagers slain in Russia were Varya Kurmina, Olga Pukhova, Andrei Sorokin and Anya Gorokhova. The remains of a 16-year-old boy and three girls aged 16 and 17 were discovered in a pit near the home of the alleged ringleader Nikolai Ogolobyak in the Yaroslavl region. The remains of a rat tied to an upturned cross marked the spot where they had been executed.
(It should be pointed out that in Yaroslavl, one of the most prominent churches in the important Russian mafia Perekop section of town is the Church of Saint John the Baptist, celebrating the beheaded saint. Yaroslavl is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It was preceded here by the Viking site Timerevo from the 8th or 9th centuries.)
Russia has a history of gruesome killings. The so-called "chessboard killer" Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and three attempted murders last October after he told a court that he had wanted to kill enough people to fill all 64 squares on a chessboard.
He claimed to have murdered 63 people in a bid to overtake the country's worst serial killer, the notorious "Rostov ripper" Andrei Chikatilo, who was executed by firing squad in 1994 for the deaths of 52 women and children.
(Of course, my question is "when" did this occur? Why no specific date in conjunction with the high-level of graphic details?)
Sources: Sun, Times, ANI, & Todd Campbell's Through The Looking Glass.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Weekend Asian Stabbing Sprees Leave 3 Dead
Two so-called "stabbing rampages" have taken place in Asia over the weekend, one in Japan and the second in China, both related to Autumn Festivals.
On Saturday, September 13, 2008, one person was killed and six others injured when a man went on a stabbing rampage in central Japan -- the latest in a series of such sprees in the country in the last few months.
The attacks occurred during a festival (attended by people having late-night celebrations to welcome the onset of fall). At a shrine in Ishikawa Prefecture, a man was seen indiscriminately slashing people with a sickle, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Police arrested a 42-year-old vendor, Toshiaki Arai, and charged him with killing a 30-year-old man and wounding six others, Kyodo said. He was arrested at Kuwashima Jinja, a shrine in Hakusan in Ishikawa state.
The Associated Press reported that Arai told police he was angry that customers had made fun of him.
Police say Yohei Okada died from severe blood loss shortly after the stabbing. Among the six other men injured, two remain hospitalized Sunday afternoon, AP said.
In June, a man ran over a group of people with his truck and then stabbed 18, killing at least 7, in a video game district of downtown Tokyo. Twelve others were wounded, police said.
The following month, a woman stabbed seven men at a train station outside Tokyo after trying to slit her wrist in an attempt to kill herself.
As often happens in such situations when an international story on such a rampage occurs, after the Japanese public stabbing, a private domestic outburst, a copycat takes place.
A man in southern China’s Guangdong Province killed himself after stabbing his mother-in-law to death and seriously injuring his wife who had refused to go back home with him. A taxi driver was also injured in the stabbing spree in Gaozhou City in Guangdong at midday on Sunday, September 14, 2008, the local Guangzhou Daily reported today.
The wife, surnamed Cheng, is in a critical condition in hospital though the taxi driver is recovering.
The man, whose name was not revealed, had taken a taxi to his mother-in-law’s home and demanded that his wife, Cheng, return home with him for the Mid-Autumn festival. Cheng had been staying at her mother’s house after an earlier fight with her husband.
The angry man told his wife he would stab her if she refused but this threat angered the mother-in-law so much that she said if he dared to he should kill her first, a neighbor reported.
Enraged the man then attacked the mother-in-law and then his wife. His ill father-in-law could only watch the brutal assaults. The man fled to a nearby mountain after attacking the taxi driver. Police rushed to the mountain but found the man dead there.
Neighbors said the man had never got on with his in-laws and that he and his wife were constantly fighting.
On Saturday, September 13, 2008, one person was killed and six others injured when a man went on a stabbing rampage in central Japan -- the latest in a series of such sprees in the country in the last few months.
The attacks occurred during a festival (attended by people having late-night celebrations to welcome the onset of fall). At a shrine in Ishikawa Prefecture, a man was seen indiscriminately slashing people with a sickle, the Kyodo news agency reported.
Police arrested a 42-year-old vendor, Toshiaki Arai, and charged him with killing a 30-year-old man and wounding six others, Kyodo said. He was arrested at Kuwashima Jinja, a shrine in Hakusan in Ishikawa state.
The Associated Press reported that Arai told police he was angry that customers had made fun of him.
Police say Yohei Okada died from severe blood loss shortly after the stabbing. Among the six other men injured, two remain hospitalized Sunday afternoon, AP said.
In June, a man ran over a group of people with his truck and then stabbed 18, killing at least 7, in a video game district of downtown Tokyo. Twelve others were wounded, police said.
The following month, a woman stabbed seven men at a train station outside Tokyo after trying to slit her wrist in an attempt to kill herself.
As often happens in such situations when an international story on such a rampage occurs, after the Japanese public stabbing, a private domestic outburst, a copycat takes place.
A man in southern China’s Guangdong Province killed himself after stabbing his mother-in-law to death and seriously injuring his wife who had refused to go back home with him. A taxi driver was also injured in the stabbing spree in Gaozhou City in Guangdong at midday on Sunday, September 14, 2008, the local Guangzhou Daily reported today.
The wife, surnamed Cheng, is in a critical condition in hospital though the taxi driver is recovering.
The man, whose name was not revealed, had taken a taxi to his mother-in-law’s home and demanded that his wife, Cheng, return home with him for the Mid-Autumn festival. Cheng had been staying at her mother’s house after an earlier fight with her husband.
The angry man told his wife he would stab her if she refused but this threat angered the mother-in-law so much that she said if he dared to he should kill her first, a neighbor reported.
Enraged the man then attacked the mother-in-law and then his wife. His ill father-in-law could only watch the brutal assaults. The man fled to a nearby mountain after attacking the taxi driver. Police rushed to the mountain but found the man dead there.
Neighbors said the man had never got on with his in-laws and that he and his wife were constantly fighting.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
SA School's Beheading Bloodbath: Clown Masks, Slipknot & Joker
A technical high school rampage, the voice of the Joker, near beheadings, curved-bladed samurai swords, macabre clown masks, and Slipknot lead singer's Heath Ledger tattoo all merely seem to be incredibly coincidental cultural icons crashing together in one incident. Happenstance? Or enemy action?
On Monday, September 1, 2008, in Johannesburg, Morné Harmse, an 18-year-old matric pupil (one who is in the final year of high school in South Africa) allegedly killed a fellow student with a sword. Harmse apparently had envisioned a widespread bloodbath in his school.
The teenage attacker staged his deadly assault just before school assembly on Monday morning. He had left home dressed in his school uniform, including a red matric jersey and carrying four masks and three Samurai swords.
The teenager's masks were fashioned after those worn by members of the band Slipknot. One looked like a clown mask, one like a gas mask, one was red with black dreadlocks, and another was black.
He covered his face and neck in black paint and tried to convince his close friends to join him.
He carried out his attack before school started, slashing Pretorius across the neck.
"It looked like he beheaded him. I just ran when I saw him fall," said Pretorius's friend JC Welman.
One of Harmse's friends, Shaun Collins, 17, a grade-12 pupil at Nic Diederichs Technical High School in Krugersdorp, spoke with the media on Tuesday about how the schoolboy had told him and other friends what he planned to do.
"He wanted to wait until the children assembled in the hall and then kill them. He used the word 'massacre'; I understood he meant a bloodbath."
Minutes before the assembly began, Harmse put on a mask, pulled out a samurai sword and slashed open 16-year-old Jacques Pretorius's carotid artery. Some there reported that the victim was nearly beheaded by the act.
Harmse then walked around the school and apparently injured three other people - two workers Sam Namamela, 43, Joseph Kodisang, 26, and a grade-11 pupil Stephan Bouwer, 18. All were injured in the head.
Shaun told on Tuesday evening how he and his group of friends had seen the teenager "losing it". Shortly after Shaun arrived at school at about 07:10 am, three of his friends came to him and said Harmse's "head isn't right".
When Shaun and the others got to Harmse, he was already wearing his mask - similar to the one worn by Corey Taylor, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Slipknot.
Harmse was rearranging three swords, including a smallish Katana and a Sekizo Ninja sword, in his belt, and putting on gloves. He had apparently made the mask about three weeks before the attack.
"At first we thought he was joking but then we saw a bomb in his right hand," said schoolmate Shaun Collins.
It is believed he had been making bombs since last year.
"We kept our distance the whole time because we were really scared of him. I told him to put down the bomb but he refused. I took the bomb from his hand and threw it away. It didn't do anything. The whole time he was speaking with a weird voice, almost like the Joker's voice in Batman," Collins mentioned.
(Slipknot's Taylor has his own name tattooed in Russian on the right side of his body as well as a tattoo of Michael Jackson, Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger.)
"He also kept saying things like, 'Today I'm going to do it. Today is the massacre.'" Shaun said the boy then insisted that Max Brechlin, 18, also put on a mask.
The next moment he turned to Shaun and said, "Do you want to see something cool?"
He then pulled out his sword and Jacques - who happened to be walking past with a group of pupils - was hacked to death. "That sword was as blunt as a butter knife. I couldn't believe the force with which he struck. It was a very deep wound," Shaun said.
The pupils of his eyes apparently looked "smaller than usual". Shaun said he had noticed earlier that the pupil had two other masks in his school bag: a gas mask and a clown mask, similar to those worn by other members of Slipknot. Shaun and his friends also made similar masks and wore them at school on two occasions.
"I was very interested in Slipknot. The drummer is amazing; I would like to be able to play like him one day. But after I saw my friend? It's as if the music had changed him. I think about it very differently now," Shaun said.
The suspect will appear in Krugersdorp Magistrate's Court on Wednesday on a charge of murder and three charges of attempted murder. He will appear on charges of conspiracy to murder and possession of a dangerous weapon.
The lead singer of US metal band Slipknot thinks the Krugersdorp schoolboy who allegedly killed a fellow pupil and injured three others is ‘‘f****d up’’.
Yesterday, Corey Taylor finally broke the band’s silence on Monday’s schoolground slaying by speaking exclusively to the US music magazine Blender.
Earlier this week, the band’s label company, Roadrunner Records, refused to comment, but admitted they were aware of the incident.
Morné Harmse, 18, appeared in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday in connection with charges of murder and attempted murder following the samurai sword attack.
Harmse apparently had an obsession with the Grammy award-winning band, who are perhaps best known for the macabre masks they wear during shows.
The 18-year-old wore a similar mask when he allegedly attacked his fellow students, and had three more masks in a bag, together with three samurai swords.
In the magazine interview posted online, Taylor said Slipknot could not be blamed for people who are “f****d up and lost”.
He said he was ‘‘obviously’’ disturbed by the incident, but added the band could not take responsibility for what happened.
He was quoted as saying: “As far as my responsibility for that goes, it stops there, because I know our message is positive.”
He said that when the band was linked to violence in the past, such as the murder of a young man in California in 2003, he used to “sweat it really hard”.
‘‘But the thing I have to realise is the fact that I’m not encouraging anybody to kill anybody .”
South African radio presenter Barney Simon also said he did not believe the band could be blamed. "A disturbed youngster went on a violent rampage not because of Slipknot’s music, but because of other demons inside him," he told The Times in South Africa.
On Monday, September 1, 2008, in Johannesburg, Morné Harmse, an 18-year-old matric pupil (one who is in the final year of high school in South Africa) allegedly killed a fellow student with a sword. Harmse apparently had envisioned a widespread bloodbath in his school.
The teenage attacker staged his deadly assault just before school assembly on Monday morning. He had left home dressed in his school uniform, including a red matric jersey and carrying four masks and three Samurai swords.
The teenager's masks were fashioned after those worn by members of the band Slipknot. One looked like a clown mask, one like a gas mask, one was red with black dreadlocks, and another was black.
He covered his face and neck in black paint and tried to convince his close friends to join him.
He carried out his attack before school started, slashing Pretorius across the neck.
"It looked like he beheaded him. I just ran when I saw him fall," said Pretorius's friend JC Welman.
One of Harmse's friends, Shaun Collins, 17, a grade-12 pupil at Nic Diederichs Technical High School in Krugersdorp, spoke with the media on Tuesday about how the schoolboy had told him and other friends what he planned to do.
"He wanted to wait until the children assembled in the hall and then kill them. He used the word 'massacre'; I understood he meant a bloodbath."
Minutes before the assembly began, Harmse put on a mask, pulled out a samurai sword and slashed open 16-year-old Jacques Pretorius's carotid artery. Some there reported that the victim was nearly beheaded by the act.
Harmse then walked around the school and apparently injured three other people - two workers Sam Namamela, 43, Joseph Kodisang, 26, and a grade-11 pupil Stephan Bouwer, 18. All were injured in the head.
Shaun told on Tuesday evening how he and his group of friends had seen the teenager "losing it". Shortly after Shaun arrived at school at about 07:10 am, three of his friends came to him and said Harmse's "head isn't right".
When Shaun and the others got to Harmse, he was already wearing his mask - similar to the one worn by Corey Taylor, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Slipknot.
Harmse was rearranging three swords, including a smallish Katana and a Sekizo Ninja sword, in his belt, and putting on gloves. He had apparently made the mask about three weeks before the attack.
"At first we thought he was joking but then we saw a bomb in his right hand," said schoolmate Shaun Collins.
It is believed he had been making bombs since last year.
"We kept our distance the whole time because we were really scared of him. I told him to put down the bomb but he refused. I took the bomb from his hand and threw it away. It didn't do anything. The whole time he was speaking with a weird voice, almost like the Joker's voice in Batman," Collins mentioned.
(Slipknot's Taylor has his own name tattooed in Russian on the right side of his body as well as a tattoo of Michael Jackson, Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger.)
"He also kept saying things like, 'Today I'm going to do it. Today is the massacre.'" Shaun said the boy then insisted that Max Brechlin, 18, also put on a mask.
The next moment he turned to Shaun and said, "Do you want to see something cool?"
He then pulled out his sword and Jacques - who happened to be walking past with a group of pupils - was hacked to death. "That sword was as blunt as a butter knife. I couldn't believe the force with which he struck. It was a very deep wound," Shaun said.
The pupils of his eyes apparently looked "smaller than usual". Shaun said he had noticed earlier that the pupil had two other masks in his school bag: a gas mask and a clown mask, similar to those worn by other members of Slipknot. Shaun and his friends also made similar masks and wore them at school on two occasions.
"I was very interested in Slipknot. The drummer is amazing; I would like to be able to play like him one day. But after I saw my friend? It's as if the music had changed him. I think about it very differently now," Shaun said.
The suspect will appear in Krugersdorp Magistrate's Court on Wednesday on a charge of murder and three charges of attempted murder. He will appear on charges of conspiracy to murder and possession of a dangerous weapon.
The lead singer of US metal band Slipknot thinks the Krugersdorp schoolboy who allegedly killed a fellow pupil and injured three others is ‘‘f****d up’’.
Yesterday, Corey Taylor finally broke the band’s silence on Monday’s schoolground slaying by speaking exclusively to the US music magazine Blender.
Earlier this week, the band’s label company, Roadrunner Records, refused to comment, but admitted they were aware of the incident.
Morné Harmse, 18, appeared in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday in connection with charges of murder and attempted murder following the samurai sword attack.
Harmse apparently had an obsession with the Grammy award-winning band, who are perhaps best known for the macabre masks they wear during shows.
The 18-year-old wore a similar mask when he allegedly attacked his fellow students, and had three more masks in a bag, together with three samurai swords.
In the magazine interview posted online, Taylor said Slipknot could not be blamed for people who are “f****d up and lost”.
He said he was ‘‘obviously’’ disturbed by the incident, but added the band could not take responsibility for what happened.
He was quoted as saying: “As far as my responsibility for that goes, it stops there, because I know our message is positive.”
He said that when the band was linked to violence in the past, such as the murder of a young man in California in 2003, he used to “sweat it really hard”.
‘‘But the thing I have to realise is the fact that I’m not encouraging anybody to kill anybody .”
South African radio presenter Barney Simon also said he did not believe the band could be blamed. "A disturbed youngster went on a violent rampage not because of Slipknot’s music, but because of other demons inside him," he told The Times in South Africa.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Windigo Decapitation and Cannibalism
Windigo can be the hairy hominoid, the cannibal giant, and the psychosis. The three are merging and swirling around in the recent story of the beheading and eating of flesh on the Canadian Greyhound bus.
The Windigo (also known as the Wendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is an unknown hairy hominoid tied to the legends and folklore of First Nations people linked by the Algonquin languages.
The Windigo is a bipedal hairy creature, equal to the Eastern Bigfoot, Stone Giant, or Marked Hominid in some classification systems, which is often said to have aggressive behaviors and a malevolent cannibalistic spirit into which humans could transform, or which could possess humans. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk, and the legend appears to have reinforced this practice as taboo.
Windigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. Some ethnographers said this once occurred frequently among Algonquian cultures, though there is some sense that the psychological disorder may have been overstated and/or it has declined with Native American urbanization.
"Old Yellow Top," a regional name for a Windigo, the original Forest Giant of cryptozoology, not psychology, drawn by Harry Trumbore in The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.
Writing in The Edmonton Sun, columnist Andrew Hanon points out that there is a strange overlap between a column he wrote on July 20, 2008, about the study of the psychological Windigo by Nathan Carlson, and the recent Greyhound bus decapitation and cannibalism incident of July 30.
Hanon writes on Monday, August 11, 2008, that there seems to be a "Horrifying coincidence in beheading."
Hanon writes, in part:
Below, Vince Weiguang Li, the 40-year-old suspect being transported by Canadian law enforcement personnel, and the headshot of his victim, Tim McLean.
More MySpace photos of Tim McLean, who called himself "Jokawild."
As the following article is rapidly disappearing into the archives, so here is the full story mentioned above, for research purposes.
The Windigo (also known as the Wendigo, Windago, Windiga, Witiko, Wihtikow, and numerous other variants) is an unknown hairy hominoid tied to the legends and folklore of First Nations people linked by the Algonquin languages.
The Windigo is a bipedal hairy creature, equal to the Eastern Bigfoot, Stone Giant, or Marked Hominid in some classification systems, which is often said to have aggressive behaviors and a malevolent cannibalistic spirit into which humans could transform, or which could possess humans. Those who indulged in cannibalism were at particular risk, and the legend appears to have reinforced this practice as taboo.
Windigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. Some ethnographers said this once occurred frequently among Algonquian cultures, though there is some sense that the psychological disorder may have been overstated and/or it has declined with Native American urbanization.
"Old Yellow Top," a regional name for a Windigo, the original Forest Giant of cryptozoology, not psychology, drawn by Harry Trumbore in The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.
In John Green's Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, the researcher mentions the Cree in Manitoba call their Sasquatch the Weetekow and the Saulteaux term them the Wendego. These are variations on the spelling of Windigo seen throughout Canada but not on the hairy hominoid being described, as I discuss extenstively in Chapter 3, "Native Traditions," in Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America, pages 26-34.
Writing in The Edmonton Sun, columnist Andrew Hanon points out that there is a strange overlap between a column he wrote on July 20, 2008, about the study of the psychological Windigo by Nathan Carlson, and the recent Greyhound bus decapitation and cannibalism incident of July 30.
Hanon writes on Monday, August 11, 2008, that there seems to be a "Horrifying coincidence in beheading."
Hanon writes, in part:
Nathan Carlson has barely slept since July 30.
"Ever since it happened, I haven't been able to get it out of my head," Carlson says haltingly. "I just don't know what to think of it, quite frankly."
The Edmonton ethno-historian is one of the world's leading experts on Windigo phenomenon, and the recent horrific beheading and alleged cannibalism on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg from Edmonton rocked him to his very core.
As the grisly details of Tim McLean's last moments on Earth came to light in the following days, Carlson sank deeper and deeper into a fog of horror and revulsion.
Vince Weiguang Li is accused of abruptly attacking McLean, who by all accounts he didn't even know -- while McLean slept on the bus.
Up until a few days before the killing, Li held a part- time job delivering newspapers in Edmonton. He was well thought-of by his boss and considered a nice guy, if a bit quiet and shy.
On July 20 -- just 10 days before the killing -- Li delivered copies of the Sun that contained an extensive interview with Carlson about his research into the Windigo, a terrifying creature in native mythology that has a ravenous appetite for human flesh. It could take possession of people and turn them into cannibalistic monsters.
Below, Vince Weiguang Li, the 40-year-old suspect being transported by Canadian law enforcement personnel, and the headshot of his victim, Tim McLean.
More MySpace photos of Tim McLean, who called himself "Jokawild."
Carlson documented several cases in northern Alberta communities where people believing they were "turning Windigo" would go into convulsions, make terrifying animal sounds and beg their captors to kill them before they started eating people.
In last month's bus case, Li allegedly butchered McLean's body, brandishing the victim's severed head at the men who trapped him on the bus until police could arrive.
He was later accused of eating McLean's flesh.
When he appeared in a Portage La Prairie courthouse on charges of second-degree murder, the only words Li reportedly uttered were pleas for someone to kill him.
A lot of his reported behaviour eerily mirrors the Windigo cases recounted in the newspaper feature that Li helped deliver to Edmonton homes just days before McLean was killed, one of the most gruesome slayings in modern Canadian history.
Several media reports called McLean's killing unprecedented - an unspeakable, random attack the likes of which has never been seen in Canada.
But Carlson knows better.
"There are just too many parallels," he says.
"I can't say there's definite connection, but there are just too many coincidences.
"It's beyond eerie."
As the following article is rapidly disappearing into the archives, so here is the full story mentioned above, for research purposes.
Sun, July 20, 2008
Evil spirit made man eat family
A look back at Swift Runner
By Andrew Hanon
On a cold December day in 1879, a man was hanged in Fort Saskatchewan, putting an end to one of the most horrifying killing sprees in Alberta history.
Swift Runner was executed for murdering and then eating eight members of his own family over the previous winter. He believed he was possessed by Windigo, a terrifying mythological creature with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.
It wasn’t an isolated case. During the late 1800s and into the 20th Century, fear of Windigo haunted northern Alberta communities, resulting in several grisly deaths.
Sun Media’s Andrew Hanon speaks with Nathan Carlson, one of the world’s leading authorities on Windigo, about Carlson’s personal connection to the blood-curdling creature.
Some call him a serial killer.
Others call him a desperate madman.
But right up until the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut around his neck, one of Alberta’s most prolific murderers insisted it was an evil spirit that compelled him to butcher and eat his entire family.
Over the course of a single winter, he devoured his wife, six children, mother and brother.
MOST HORRIFYING
The man, a Cree trapper named Swift Runner, was hanged in 1879 in Fort Saskatchewan, the first legal execution in Alberta. The macabre case is considered by many to be the most horrifying crime in the province’s history.
But what most people don’t realize is that it was part of a much larger phenomenon that Edmonton ethno-historian Nathan Carlson calls Windigo condition, which haunted communities right across northern Alberta in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and cost dozens of lives.
The Windigo (an Anglicized form of the word Witiko) is a mythological creature among native cultures from the Rockies to northern Quebec. It has an insatiable appetite for human flesh and wreaks destruction wherever it goes.
Carlson describes it as “the consummate predator of humanity.” It’s sometimes described as “an owl-eyed monster with large claws, matted hair, a naked emaciated body and a heart made of solid ice.”
“It’s extremely destructive,” he says. “The more it eats, the hungrier it gets, so it just keeps killing.”
Windigos can possess people, transforming them into wild-eyed, violent, flesh-eating maniacs with superhuman strength. Many native people in northern Alberta lived in terror of being possessed.
“It’s important to understand that cannibalism was repellent to the people,” Carlson explains. “The Windigo personified evil.”
The Swift Runner case caused an international sensation, making headlines in newspapers across Canada and the U.S.
According to accounts, he wandered alone into the Catholic Mission in St. Albert in the spring of 1879, claiming to be the only member of his family who didn’t starve to death over a particularly cold, bitter winter.
The priests became suspicious when they realized that Swift Runner, who weighed around 200 pounds, didn’t seem malnourished at all and was plagued with screaming fits and nightmares as he slept. He told them he was being tormented by an evil spirit, called Windigo, but said little else about it.
They reported their misgivings to police, who took Swift Runner to his family campground in the woods northeast of Edmonton, where they made a horrific discovery - the site was littered with bones, bits of flesh and hair. Some accounts claim that the larger bones had even been snapped and the marrow sucked out.
He eventually confessed that he shot some of his family, bludgeoned others with an axe and even strangled one girl with a cord. In some accounts, Swift Runner said he fed one boy human flesh before he too was killed.
‘THE LEAST OF MEN’
Before he was hanged, Swift Runner expressed extreme remorse. He told Father Hippolyte Leduc, “I am the least of men and do not merit even being called a man.”
Interestingly, Swift Runner is the only documented case Carlson can find of someone killing others because he thought he was possessed by a Windigo.
All other deaths he can document were cases of “Windigo executions,” where others have killed the person believed to be possessed. They were acts of self-preservation, attempts to protect their community.
In most of the cases, the victims themselves begged to be killed before they harmed their families.
In many cases, witnesses reported physical changes -bodies swelling and growing, lips and mouths enlarging. Some of the victims spoke of icy cold in their chests and an inability to warm up.
Carlson, who’s Metis, first heard about the Windigo from his grandmother, who told him about an incident at Trout Lake, where members of the community killed a man possessed by a demon that had been cursed and turned into a Windigo.
The story haunted him throughout his childhood, and after his grandmother died in 2002, he discovered an eerily similar story in an archived newspaper.
“I was somewhat confounded by the discovery of the newspaper account that seemed to confirm a story that had been in my family for almost 100 years,” he says.
Further research revealed that the man who was killed was also a distant relative of Carlson’s.
Carlson is now writing a book on the Windigo condition in northern Alberta and is negotiating with filmmakers about a documentary.
The Marked Hominid, another view of the Windigo of cryptozoology, not psychology, as drawn by artist Harry Trumbore in The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Brotherhood of the Bell
The Brotherhood of the Bell is a 1970 made-for-television movie produced by Cinema Center 100 Productions and starring Glenn Ford. The director Paul Wendkos was nominated in 1971 by the Directors Guild of America for "outstanding directorial achievement in television." It should be noted that Paul Wendkos (b. 1925) is still alive in 2008, and went on to direct other intriguing movies, such as The Mephisto Waltz (1971) and episodes of the harmonically named television program, Route 66.
The motion picture has been interpreted as a fictionalized portrayal of a real-life, academic-based secret organization, in general.
But The Brotherhood of the Bell is something more. It allegedly is especially based on the secret society called the Order or Chapter 322, known in the popular jargon as Skull and Bones or Bones, which only exists at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
The film relates how a successful Economics professor, Dr. Andrew Patterson, discovers that an elite fraternity he had joined 22 years before in college is really a callous banking and business cabal that obtains wealth and power for its members through nefarious practices.
Twenty-two years, according to the summary plot noted in Wikipedia, after his initiation into a secret society known as the "Brotherhood of the Bell" or "the Bell," Dr. Andrew (Andy) Patterson (Glenn Ford) is requested to be the "senior" of a new initiate, Phillip Everest Dunning (Robert Pine). The initiation takes place in "the secret chamber of the bell" in the Beta Epsilon Lambda fraternity house of St. George College in San Francisco at sunrise.
Patterson is coldly greeted by the house proctor Weber, who directs him to the library where he meets his "senior" Chad Harmon (Dean Jagger) of San Francisco, a member for forty years. The initiation takes place before a large bell in the center of points of the compass depicted on the floor.
Phillip Dunning had been studying the articles and letters of the brotherhood since midnight. He is then instructed by Harmon to give them to him to be destroyed. He is sworn to secrecy, and he takes his appropriate place at the due east compass point with Harmon at the south point, Patterson at the west point, and Weber at the north point. He is reminded that he will be given an assignment or "due bill" at some indeterminate time in the future, and instructed that he is obliged to carry it out without question. The four men recite the oath of loyalty and secrecy and end by tolling the bell.
As they leave the fraternity house Chad Harmon gives Patterson a business card with an address written on it, telling him to stop by there before he takes the return flight to Los Angeles. In a parting conversation with his new junior Phillip Dunning, he makes the point of telling him that they are not only part of the Establishment but "the Establishment."
Patterson arrives at the address on the business card to find that it is a mansion that is probably unoccupied—the furniture in the parlor he goes to is covered with dust sheets. A tall gray-haired man asks him for the card, and hands him two envelopes. A legal envelope contains the assignment, and a large manila envelope contains materials that assist in carrying out the assignment. Patterson is told to open them one hour after leaving the mansion.
Chad Harmon is then shown in his office being seated for luncheon when Patterson is ushered in. When the two of them are alone, Patterson tells Harmon his assignment: to see to it that a colleague at his institute, Dr. Constantine Horvathy (Eduard Franz), decline a deanship of the College of Linguistics in the eastern United States to which he has been appointed. The materials to assist in that assignment are photostated dossiers (pictures and descriptions) of all the men and women in a Communist nation that helped him to defect to the west. Patterson is instructed to send them to the embassy of that nation if Horvathy refuses to comply.
Since Horvathy is a dear friend of Patterson and his wife, Harmon tries to calm Patterson with advice to make his appeal to Horvathy on a personal level, which might eliminate the need of blackmail. Patterson summarily complies when he returns to Los Angeles by seeing Dr. Horvathy just before an evening scholarly presentation.
Dr. Horvathy does not agree to comply with Patterson's request that he decline the deanship, and demands reasons why he should do so. Patterson hands him the dossiers, and Horvathy is horrified as its release would cause the deaths of many people back in the old country. A terrified Horvathy into hurrying back to his apartment and dies by suicide that evening in his bathtub.
Dr. and Mrs. Vivian Patterson (Rosemary Forsyth) are awakened by police investigating Horvathy's suicide since Patterson was the last person to talk with Horvathy. When the police leave Dr. Patterson tells his wife the real reason Horvathy took his own life. Vivian suggests that Patterson see her father Harry Masters (Maurice Evans) and ask his advice.
Harry Masters and Patterson meet with a Thaddeus Byrnes, whom Masters says is an agent of the "Federal Security Services" (fictitious name for the FBI). They meet in what Byrnes calls a cover office. Byrnes persuades Patterson to surrender the papers he has, which he does. When there is no follow up, Patterson returns to the building, which also houses an ostensible office of the Federal Security Services. An Agent Shepherd (Dabney Coleman) gives Patterson the astounding news that there is no agent Thaddeus Byrnes, and that there is no record of his report to the FSS with information on the Brotherhood of the Bell. Harry Masters when called by Shepherd denies having taken Patterson to see Byrnes, and tells him that Patterson is emotionally disturbed and needs to consult a psychiatrist.
Coincidentally, when Patterson goes again to Harry Master's home he finds him in his study with a psychiatrist. Patterson ends the visit with the statement, "You're a damned liar, Harry!"
Patterson then finds out that his entire branch of economics at his college must be discontinued by the Dean Dr. Jerry Fielder (William Smithers) due to a rash stoppage of grant money. Patterson is then "black-listed" so that he cannot acquire employment elsewhere as a professor. The strain of all of this causes Vivian and him to separate as he realizes that all he has ever had in life for the past 22 years has been given to him because he was a Brother of the Bell.
Patterson holds a press conference in which he discloses the existence of the Brotherhood of the Bell and his assignment from them that brought about Constantine Horvathy's death. It is denied by Chad Harmon, and the local district attorney discounts it on lack of evidence.
His father Mike Patterson (Will Geer), who is a road construction contractor, is also ruined by a sudden audit of Patterson Construction's books. The elder Patterson suffers a stroke in a confrontation with Harry Masters and dies shortly thereafter.
Dr. Patterson has now become a crusader to expose and destroy the Brotherhood of the Bell. He appears on a local television talk show hosted by Bart Harris (William Conrad), who conducts an on-the-air forum of people, who respond to his guests. Since Patterson alleges a conspiracy, two eccentric forum participants claim that they know all about it as something altogether different. Harris humiliates Patterson by telling him that he is part of a lunatic fringe in the United States, which finds conspiracy everywhere. Patterson attacks Harris physically and is led off to jail.
Help comes from an unexpected quarter when his friend Dr. Fielder bails him out of jail and has him stay at his home. He encourages Patterson to find another Brother of the Bell to come forward with him. Patterson can think of no one who would do this but his own junior Phillip Dunning. He flies to San Francisco, and confronts Dunning in his dorm room early in the morning. Feeling he has failed to convince Dunning, he dejectedly returns to the airport. He is shown walking down a deserted corridor of the airport when he hears footsteps of someone running towards him. It is Dunning rushing to meet up with him to go back to Los Angeles and do what Dr. Fielder had suggested.
Speaking of bells....
A successful 1958 movie, Bell, Book, and Candle involves a coven of characters, a Greenwich Village witch Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak) who owns a gallery of primitive art, publisher Shep Henderson (James Stewart), Sidney Redlitch (Ernie Kovacs), author of a best-selling book, Magic in Mexico, who is researching a book on witches in New York, and his collaborator, Gillian's warlock brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon). Few today realize that speculation about witches, voodoo, and warlocks was so popular in the 1950s.
More Brotherhoods...
The legacy of Brotherhood of the Bell continues in the film, The Skulls (2000), which stars Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, and Leslie Bibb. It is directed by Rob Cohen, the famed director of the new The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). The Skulls plot is based upon some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Yale University's so-called Skull and Bones student society.
The phrase "Brotherhood of the Bell" is also used in the title of a book by Joseph P. Farrell, Ph. D.
Farrell's The SS Brotherhood of the Bell: Nasa's Nazis, JFK, And Majic-12 caused one reviewer to remark that it is filled with an "incoherent pastiche of interlocking conspiracies that populate the chapters. "
Farrell's tease is that the book is about "a mysterious Nazi secret weapons project code-named The Bell [that in 1945] left its underground bunker in lower Silesia, with its project documentation, and the 4-star SS general Hans Kammler. Taken aboard a massive six engine Junkers 390 ultra-long range aircraft, The Bell, Kammler, and all project records disappeared completely, along with the gigantic Junkers 390 carrying them. It has been speculated that it flew to Argentina."
I'll stop there, for now. I'll speak of other "Bells" on another day.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Olympics: Dark Drum Tower Deaths
There has been a murder-suicide at the the "dark drum" tower in Beijing, on the first day after the opening of the 2008 Olympics.
A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide.
(The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.)
Drum Tower
The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ground for two hours before it was removed by an ambulance, witnesses said.
A Chinese tour guide, a woman, was also wounded in the attack, which happened at the historic Drum Tower monument, a popular tourist site, just after noon, around 12:20 pm (local time).
The attacker was identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old man from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, He jumped to his death from the second level of the Drum Tower, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government Information Office said. The official said both U.S. citizens had entered China with tourist visas.
A White House spokesman informed the media that President Bush, who is attending Olympic events Saturday, was told about the attack against the U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy and the White House have offered the victims' families whatever assistance is needed, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua and the international news agency, CNN.
The Drum Tower is in the historic heart of Beijing. Together with the Bell Tower, the sites were once used for banging of drums and bells to tell time. Now the Drum and Bell towers are tourist sites, with visitors able to stroll from them to the city's famed old lakes and other historic areas.
Police closed off the Drum Tower following the incident.
The Drum Tower is located northwest of the Bell Tower, across the Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Both of them are called the "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum." In ancient China, especially from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the drums were used to signal the running of time and on occasion were used as an alarm in emergency situations.
Dark, indeed.
In lexilinking, the name game, and the twilight language, one of the most significant monikers is Bell (e.g. Brotherhood of the Bell, Bell Witch, Art Bell, Nazi Bell, Confederate spy John Yates Beall hanged at Fort Lafayette).
"Words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy....I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H. P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants...." ~ Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan, 1983: 185.
A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide.
(The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.)
Drum Tower
The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ground for two hours before it was removed by an ambulance, witnesses said.
A Chinese tour guide, a woman, was also wounded in the attack, which happened at the historic Drum Tower monument, a popular tourist site, just after noon, around 12:20 pm (local time).
The attacker was identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old man from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, He jumped to his death from the second level of the Drum Tower, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government Information Office said. The official said both U.S. citizens had entered China with tourist visas.
A White House spokesman informed the media that President Bush, who is attending Olympic events Saturday, was told about the attack against the U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy and the White House have offered the victims' families whatever assistance is needed, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua and the international news agency, CNN.
The Drum Tower is in the historic heart of Beijing. Together with the Bell Tower, the sites were once used for banging of drums and bells to tell time. Now the Drum and Bell towers are tourist sites, with visitors able to stroll from them to the city's famed old lakes and other historic areas.
Police closed off the Drum Tower following the incident.
The Drum Tower is located northwest of the Bell Tower, across the Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Both of them are called the "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum." In ancient China, especially from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the drums were used to signal the running of time and on occasion were used as an alarm in emergency situations.
Dark, indeed.
In lexilinking, the name game, and the twilight language, one of the most significant monikers is Bell (e.g. Brotherhood of the Bell, Bell Witch, Art Bell, Nazi Bell, Confederate spy John Yates Beall hanged at Fort Lafayette).
"Words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy....I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H. P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants...." ~ Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan, 1983: 185.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Joker's Card, Jokawild and Decapitations
The Joker is wild. But so are a many other things overlapping with The Dark Knight.
Following my posting on "The Dark Knight Curse", a phenomenon that was even discussed on CNN yesterday, some questioned whether or not the Joker is actually holding a "calling card" with a decapitated head. I was told that in the actual movie the Heath Ledger character has another card in his hand.
First to clear up what is on the card. Here below is a closeup of the card from a movie props site, labeled specifically "Dark Knight, The (2008), Joker's Calling Card." The card shows an inverted decapitated head.
See larger version at bottom of posting.
Death cards and Joker's cards are usually a little more subtle than what you are seeing here from The Dark Knight.
The Ace of Spade has traditionally been a "death card" left on bodies in military situations, as depicted from the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now (1979). Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight is merely continuing that tradition.
The images of what the Joker is holding may have been changed in final post-production or in later publicity images, as reflected here in this promo poster of the Joker and of one of the Batman.
But in the early trailers, initial publicity photographs, and early posters, they all certainly do show the decapitation on the Joker's calling card.
Jokawild
The spooky links to the decapitation death of Tim McLean, who was beheaded on the Greyhound bus, continue to be found. Shown following is the routine media image of the victim, whose head is unfortunately found free-floating within the frame, with Vince Weiguang Li, the 40-year-old suspect being transported by Canadian law enforcement personnel.
Below is the MySpace head shot of the victim McLean. I mentioned on August 2, on various forums, that on his MySpace profile, McLean called himself "Jokawild," had three tattoos, owned an iguana and loved loud music and motorcycles.
Todd Campbell writing of Tim McLean at his blog Through the Looking Glass has dug up information that reveals one of the passions of the victim's, he was a big fan of Insane Clown Posse.
Campbell also found photos of Tim McLean wearing clown makeup and of his large clown tatoo on his back.
Also as noted before, Tim McLean, who loved being a carny, was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton. It was McLean's third stint as a summer carnival worker at Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition, where he worked for LL Enterprises, which provides midway games such as rollerball and darts to carnivals across the country.
Perhaps the most famous stunt in the new Batman movie is when Joker's semi-truck completely flips over. As you can see above, the truck's side is painted with images of a ferris wheel and a roller coaster at a carnival or circus.
The melodrama of the real-life decapitation of the clown-covered carny on a Greyhound bus and the real-life decapitation of an adolescent by the Batman roller-coaster synchs strangely with the character and death of Heath Ledger, the Joker, holding a Joker's Card with a decapitation in The Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight was released on July 18, 2008. The incident on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger occurred on July 30th.
A 17-year-old South Carolina teen Asia Leeshawn Ferguson, of Springfield, S.C., was decapitated by the "Batman the Ride" rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia about 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, 2008. It was the second Batman ride-related death at the Cobb County park. Six years earlier, a 58-year-old park worker, Samuel Milton Guyton of Atlanta, was killed on May 26, 2002. Guyton was in a restricted area on a platform when he was kicked in the head by 14-year-old girl on the front car of the ride. The girl was hospitalized with a leg injury.
In March, 2007, a worker dismantling a ride at Six Flags Great America near Chicago fell 40-feet to his death. In 2004 at the same park, a maintenance worker was hit by a roller coaster and killed.
A 55-year-old disabled man was killed in May 2004 when he was thrown from a ride at Six Flags New England near Springfield, Mass. Five years ago, a grandmother strapping her 4-year-old grandson into Six Flags New Orleans' Joker's (!) Jukebox ride was hit by a spinning car when the ride began operating before she was out of the way.
More Clowns and Twilight Language
Heath Ledger modeled his Joker character after "Alex" in A Clockwork Orange.
The Joker = Heath Ledger was found dead in his fourth-floor apartment at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, New York City, on the day of the Full Moon, January 22, 2008.
I've written extensively of the Name Game (e.g. Lafayette = little fairy, little enchantment), of the specialness of time and place and their ties to weirdness. I've penned words on the Phantom Clowns, a phase I coined in 1981, to capture the strangeness of killer clowns out to abduct young people, even before the seemingly free-floating head of Stephen King's It (below) terrorized the masses.
It seems as though there is a Zorro - Phantom Clown connection, as well; see my 2005 posting, "The Naked Zorro".
As the years pass by, if there's one movie which may become a magnet for the Macabré (the dance of death), it would surely seem that The Dark Knight shall join films such as the original The Omen, which tops all other films in having the most cinematic decapitation in history.
Batman and Zorro
A word definitely needs to be inserted about the movie showing on McLean's Greyhound bus. It was The Legend of Zorro.
Zorro and Batman are linked in the fictional literature ~ symbolically, historically, and closely.
In the column, "Batman Begins and the Comics, Part : Sequential Culture #34," (17 June 2005/updated 9 Aug 2005) Julian Darius writes:
"The death scene has been depicted countless times, but none as memorably as in the flashbacks in [Frank Miller's graphic comic Batman:] The Dark Knight Returns and Year One. The most startling change [in director Christopher Nolan's 2005 Batman Begins] is that the family emerges from the opera before being killed: in the comics, it has been a movie. Though the particulars have changed, the film tends to be a Zorro film. In the first chapter of Year One, it was The Mark of Zorro. In the silent flashback version in The Dark Knight Returns, only 'Zorro' is visible on the movie theatre's marquis, though the elderly Wayne seeing The Mark of Zorro on television triggers the memory."
The sequel to Batman Begins is, of course, The Dark Knight, based on Frank Miller's use of that name in his graphic novels.
Wikipedia also talks of this link between Batman and Zorro, under its discussion of the 1940 film, The Mark of Zorro:
"In the DC Comics continuity it is established that The Mark of Zorro was the film which the young Bruce Wayne had seen with his parents at the cinema, moments before they were killed in front of his eyes by an armed thug. Zorro is often portrayed as Bruce's childhood hero and an influence on his Batman persona. There are discrepancies regarding which version Bruce saw, The Dark Knight Returns claims it was the Tyrone Power [1940] version whereas a story by Alan Grant claimed it to be the silent [1920] Douglas Fairbanks original.
In the animated series Justice League Unlimited, a flashback of the fateful night establishes that for DCAU continuity, the young Bruce and his parents also were attending The Mark of Zorro, though there is nothing to indicate which version."
The version of the film being shown on the decapitation Greyhound bus trip was The Legend of Zorro, a 2005 sequel to 1998's The Mask of Zorro, both directed by Martin Campbell, and both starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
In the previous movie in the series, The Mask of Zorro, there is a fictionalized version of a famous beheading.
The tale that merges reality with fiction within the movie is the one of JoaquÃn Murieta, (1829?–1853), a real-life California bandit, who was born in Mexico.
From 1849 to 1851, Murieta worked in the California gold mine fields. After he and his family were mistreated by American miners and driven from their claim, he became the leader of a band of desperadoes. For two years, his robberies and murders terrorized California, until the legislature authorized Captain Harry Love, deputy sheriff of Los Angeles County, to organize a company of mounted rangers to exterminate Murrieta's band.
Surprised at his camp near Tulare Lake, Murrieta was shot, decapitated, and most of his followers were killed or captured. Murrieta's head was displayed for all to see afterward.
In The Mask of Zorro, Matt Letscher plays Captain Harrison Love, who kills Zorro's brother, and shows the brother's head in a jar.
Batman and Mothman
A synch headnote about Mothman: it is a headless creature specifically seen in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia, area from 1966-1967. At first called a "big bird" by locals, an Ohio newspaper's copyeditor, who was a fan of the "Batman" series on television at the time, coined the name "Mothman" for a headline. It stuck.
There is no "Mothman" character in any of the Batman TV programs. It appears the copyeditor merely came up with the invented name because of the sound of the word.
The Mothman Prophecies, a 1975 book by John A. Keel, was made into a 2002 movie, directed by Mark Pellington.
One of the most dramatic scenes was the re-creation, of the 5:04 PM, December 15, 1967, collapse of Point Pleasant's Silver Bridge during rush hour. A total of 46 people perished, and 44 bodies were recovered. Several seemingly related deaths have ended up on the "Mothman Death Curse" list.
For more background, see Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.
As the movie began screening on January 25, 2002, one group of the original witnesses, the Mallettes were attending a funeral in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Stephen Mallette, who was one of the first four witnesses, was mourning the passing of his brother, Charlie, due to a brain tumor. Charles Putnam 'Charlie' Mallette, 43, of Point Pleasant, died Thursday, January 22, 2002, at his home. (This happens to be the same date as Heath Ledger's death date, six years later.)
Over 80 people are on the list, including, on July 30, 2004, Jennifer Barrett-Pellington, 42, wife of The Mothman Prophecies director Mark Pellington, who died suddenly, in Los Angeles, after a short illness.
Following my posting on "The Dark Knight Curse", a phenomenon that was even discussed on CNN yesterday, some questioned whether or not the Joker is actually holding a "calling card" with a decapitated head. I was told that in the actual movie the Heath Ledger character has another card in his hand.
First to clear up what is on the card. Here below is a closeup of the card from a movie props site, labeled specifically "Dark Knight, The (2008), Joker's Calling Card." The card shows an inverted decapitated head.
See larger version at bottom of posting.
Death cards and Joker's cards are usually a little more subtle than what you are seeing here from The Dark Knight.
The Ace of Spade has traditionally been a "death card" left on bodies in military situations, as depicted from the Vietnam War in Apocalypse Now (1979). Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight is merely continuing that tradition.
The images of what the Joker is holding may have been changed in final post-production or in later publicity images, as reflected here in this promo poster of the Joker and of one of the Batman.
But in the early trailers, initial publicity photographs, and early posters, they all certainly do show the decapitation on the Joker's calling card.
Jokawild
The spooky links to the decapitation death of Tim McLean, who was beheaded on the Greyhound bus, continue to be found. Shown following is the routine media image of the victim, whose head is unfortunately found free-floating within the frame, with Vince Weiguang Li, the 40-year-old suspect being transported by Canadian law enforcement personnel.
Below is the MySpace head shot of the victim McLean. I mentioned on August 2, on various forums, that on his MySpace profile, McLean called himself "Jokawild," had three tattoos, owned an iguana and loved loud music and motorcycles.
Todd Campbell writing of Tim McLean at his blog Through the Looking Glass has dug up information that reveals one of the passions of the victim's, he was a big fan of Insane Clown Posse.
Campbell also found photos of Tim McLean wearing clown makeup and of his large clown tatoo on his back.
Also as noted before, Tim McLean, who loved being a carny, was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton. It was McLean's third stint as a summer carnival worker at Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition, where he worked for LL Enterprises, which provides midway games such as rollerball and darts to carnivals across the country.
Perhaps the most famous stunt in the new Batman movie is when Joker's semi-truck completely flips over. As you can see above, the truck's side is painted with images of a ferris wheel and a roller coaster at a carnival or circus.
The melodrama of the real-life decapitation of the clown-covered carny on a Greyhound bus and the real-life decapitation of an adolescent by the Batman roller-coaster synchs strangely with the character and death of Heath Ledger, the Joker, holding a Joker's Card with a decapitation in The Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight was released on July 18, 2008. The incident on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger occurred on July 30th.
A 17-year-old South Carolina teen Asia Leeshawn Ferguson, of Springfield, S.C., was decapitated by the "Batman the Ride" rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Georgia about 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, 2008. It was the second Batman ride-related death at the Cobb County park. Six years earlier, a 58-year-old park worker, Samuel Milton Guyton of Atlanta, was killed on May 26, 2002. Guyton was in a restricted area on a platform when he was kicked in the head by 14-year-old girl on the front car of the ride. The girl was hospitalized with a leg injury.
In March, 2007, a worker dismantling a ride at Six Flags Great America near Chicago fell 40-feet to his death. In 2004 at the same park, a maintenance worker was hit by a roller coaster and killed.
A 55-year-old disabled man was killed in May 2004 when he was thrown from a ride at Six Flags New England near Springfield, Mass. Five years ago, a grandmother strapping her 4-year-old grandson into Six Flags New Orleans' Joker's (!) Jukebox ride was hit by a spinning car when the ride began operating before she was out of the way.
More Clowns and Twilight Language
Heath Ledger modeled his Joker character after "Alex" in A Clockwork Orange.
The Joker = Heath Ledger was found dead in his fourth-floor apartment at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, New York City, on the day of the Full Moon, January 22, 2008.
I've written extensively of the Name Game (e.g. Lafayette = little fairy, little enchantment), of the specialness of time and place and their ties to weirdness. I've penned words on the Phantom Clowns, a phase I coined in 1981, to capture the strangeness of killer clowns out to abduct young people, even before the seemingly free-floating head of Stephen King's It (below) terrorized the masses.
It seems as though there is a Zorro - Phantom Clown connection, as well; see my 2005 posting, "The Naked Zorro".
As the years pass by, if there's one movie which may become a magnet for the Macabré (the dance of death), it would surely seem that The Dark Knight shall join films such as the original The Omen, which tops all other films in having the most cinematic decapitation in history.
Batman and Zorro
A word definitely needs to be inserted about the movie showing on McLean's Greyhound bus. It was The Legend of Zorro.
Zorro and Batman are linked in the fictional literature ~ symbolically, historically, and closely.
In the column, "Batman Begins and the Comics, Part : Sequential Culture #34," (17 June 2005/updated 9 Aug 2005) Julian Darius writes:
"The death scene has been depicted countless times, but none as memorably as in the flashbacks in [Frank Miller's graphic comic Batman:] The Dark Knight Returns and Year One. The most startling change [in director Christopher Nolan's 2005 Batman Begins] is that the family emerges from the opera before being killed: in the comics, it has been a movie. Though the particulars have changed, the film tends to be a Zorro film. In the first chapter of Year One, it was The Mark of Zorro. In the silent flashback version in The Dark Knight Returns, only 'Zorro' is visible on the movie theatre's marquis, though the elderly Wayne seeing The Mark of Zorro on television triggers the memory."
The sequel to Batman Begins is, of course, The Dark Knight, based on Frank Miller's use of that name in his graphic novels.
Wikipedia also talks of this link between Batman and Zorro, under its discussion of the 1940 film, The Mark of Zorro:
"In the DC Comics continuity it is established that The Mark of Zorro was the film which the young Bruce Wayne had seen with his parents at the cinema, moments before they were killed in front of his eyes by an armed thug. Zorro is often portrayed as Bruce's childhood hero and an influence on his Batman persona. There are discrepancies regarding which version Bruce saw, The Dark Knight Returns claims it was the Tyrone Power [1940] version whereas a story by Alan Grant claimed it to be the silent [1920] Douglas Fairbanks original.
In the animated series Justice League Unlimited, a flashback of the fateful night establishes that for DCAU continuity, the young Bruce and his parents also were attending The Mark of Zorro, though there is nothing to indicate which version."
The version of the film being shown on the decapitation Greyhound bus trip was The Legend of Zorro, a 2005 sequel to 1998's The Mask of Zorro, both directed by Martin Campbell, and both starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
In the previous movie in the series, The Mask of Zorro, there is a fictionalized version of a famous beheading.
The tale that merges reality with fiction within the movie is the one of JoaquÃn Murieta, (1829?–1853), a real-life California bandit, who was born in Mexico.
From 1849 to 1851, Murieta worked in the California gold mine fields. After he and his family were mistreated by American miners and driven from their claim, he became the leader of a band of desperadoes. For two years, his robberies and murders terrorized California, until the legislature authorized Captain Harry Love, deputy sheriff of Los Angeles County, to organize a company of mounted rangers to exterminate Murrieta's band.
Surprised at his camp near Tulare Lake, Murrieta was shot, decapitated, and most of his followers were killed or captured. Murrieta's head was displayed for all to see afterward.
In The Mask of Zorro, Matt Letscher plays Captain Harrison Love, who kills Zorro's brother, and shows the brother's head in a jar.
Batman and Mothman
A synch headnote about Mothman: it is a headless creature specifically seen in the Point Pleasant, West Virginia, area from 1966-1967. At first called a "big bird" by locals, an Ohio newspaper's copyeditor, who was a fan of the "Batman" series on television at the time, coined the name "Mothman" for a headline. It stuck.
There is no "Mothman" character in any of the Batman TV programs. It appears the copyeditor merely came up with the invented name because of the sound of the word.
The Mothman Prophecies, a 1975 book by John A. Keel, was made into a 2002 movie, directed by Mark Pellington.
One of the most dramatic scenes was the re-creation, of the 5:04 PM, December 15, 1967, collapse of Point Pleasant's Silver Bridge during rush hour. A total of 46 people perished, and 44 bodies were recovered. Several seemingly related deaths have ended up on the "Mothman Death Curse" list.
For more background, see Mothman and Other Curious Encounters.
As the movie began screening on January 25, 2002, one group of the original witnesses, the Mallettes were attending a funeral in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Stephen Mallette, who was one of the first four witnesses, was mourning the passing of his brother, Charlie, due to a brain tumor. Charles Putnam 'Charlie' Mallette, 43, of Point Pleasant, died Thursday, January 22, 2002, at his home. (This happens to be the same date as Heath Ledger's death date, six years later.)
Over 80 people are on the list, including, on July 30, 2004, Jennifer Barrett-Pellington, 42, wife of The Mothman Prophecies director Mark Pellington, who died suddenly, in Los Angeles, after a short illness.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The Dark Knight Curse
A Batman beheading? Have people so quickly forgotten a recent tragedy?
Heightened awareness of decapitations has occurred in the last few days due to the incidents in Brazil, Dubai, Greece, and, of course, the bus event in Canada (during the showing of The Legend of Zorro). Also, please note it is in the earlier The Mask of Zorro, that features Zorro's/Diego’s brother’s beheading. In that Zorro movie, the decapitation is done by a sadistic, psychotic Texian Army Captain named Harrison Love.
There remains no explanation of why the name "Badger" became the code word given to suspect Vincent Li of Edmonton, Alberta, by the law enforcement officers
Chronologically, it should be mentioned that these news items were proceeded by a Batman-related beheading.
On Saturday, June 28th, at Six Flags Over Georgia, 17-year-old Asia Leeshawn Ferguson of Springfield, South Carolina, scaled two six-foot fences and passed through restricted areas posted as dangerous to visitors. Ferguson jumped the fences and was then decapitated by the Batman roller coaster. (It should not be lost on people that the victim of the Canadian bus beheading was a young man who told his friends he "loved being a carny." Tim McLean was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton.)
Then comes The Dark Knight.
On August 5, 2008, The Boston Herald reporter Stephen Schaefer asks, "Is The Dark Knight cursed?"
It was only a matter of time until the mass media would catch on to this "curse." People have been mumbling about it since Heath Ledger died. As those watching for the curse of threes have noticed, Ledger died, Christian Bale was arrested and now Morgan Freeman has been in a tragic car crash.
Schaefer writes:
The twilight language and name game is all around, and I have written extensively on this theme before.
As an update, blogger Todd Campbell, after reading the above, has forwarded the following photographs to my attention, from the movie. He has a post on this now.
What do we find these photos have revealed?
Embedded within the movie (or, at least, certainly in the trailers, as shown in these photos first published by Entertainment Weekly) is the Heath Ledger character, the Joker, using the Joker/Death card as his "business calling card," as pictured, shown holding a decapitated head. (If factual, the powerful nature of these images only being in the trailer and pre-release publicity photos but not in the actual film is significant. The trailer carries the keys to mass public programming to "sell" the motion picture.)
Schaefer writes that The Dark Knight joins a grim list of "cursed" films.
The Superman hex struck Christopher Reeve, who shot to fame after starring in the 1978 movie, after he broke his neck in a horse riding accident. Television's original "Superman," George Reeves died in an apparent suicide in 1969.
(In June 2007, a teenager's legs were severed when cables snapped on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky.)
The 1982 horror classic Poltergeist was haunted by the premature deaths of two of its female stars. Vanity Fair celebrity scribe Dominick Dunne's daughter Dominique was murdered by her live-in lover soon after the film was finished. And Heather O'Rourke, the film's child star, died in 1988 at age 12 of cardiopulmonary arrest prompted by Crohn's disease.
I have written of the "Mothman Death Curse" online and specifically in the August 2004 issue of Fortean Times, with a list of over 80-related deaths, some of surprisingly young people and others of elder members of the crew, cast, and aligned associates of the film.
From Batman to Mothman, whether or not there are curses is not important. The fact that they have become part of popular culture and that there is a dark sense that there may be such things in the modern world, in the end, may be what becomes more significant.
Heightened awareness of decapitations has occurred in the last few days due to the incidents in Brazil, Dubai, Greece, and, of course, the bus event in Canada (during the showing of The Legend of Zorro). Also, please note it is in the earlier The Mask of Zorro, that features Zorro's/Diego’s brother’s beheading. In that Zorro movie, the decapitation is done by a sadistic, psychotic Texian Army Captain named Harrison Love.
There remains no explanation of why the name "Badger" became the code word given to suspect Vincent Li of Edmonton, Alberta, by the law enforcement officers
Chronologically, it should be mentioned that these news items were proceeded by a Batman-related beheading.
On Saturday, June 28th, at Six Flags Over Georgia, 17-year-old Asia Leeshawn Ferguson of Springfield, South Carolina, scaled two six-foot fences and passed through restricted areas posted as dangerous to visitors. Ferguson jumped the fences and was then decapitated by the Batman roller coaster. (It should not be lost on people that the victim of the Canadian bus beheading was a young man who told his friends he "loved being a carny." Tim McLean was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton.)
Then comes The Dark Knight.
On August 5, 2008, The Boston Herald reporter Stephen Schaefer asks, "Is The Dark Knight cursed?"
It was only a matter of time until the mass media would catch on to this "curse." People have been mumbling about it since Heath Ledger died. As those watching for the curse of threes have noticed, Ledger died, Christian Bale was arrested and now Morgan Freeman has been in a tragic car crash.
Schaefer writes:
The box-office behemoth, expected to pass the $400 million mark this week, is notorious as being the late Heath Ledger's last completed movie.
Now Morgan Freeman, the 71-year-old actor who plays Batman's techie Lucius Fox, is in serious condition following a car accident in Mississippi late Sunday night.
The Oscar-winning actor was driving his wife's friend Demaris Meyer's 1997 Nissan Maxima when it rolled off Tallahatchie County Highway 32, flipping over several times. Meyer was treated for minor injuries and released.
Freeman, who was driving to his Charleston home, reportedly suffered broken ribs and was air-lifted to Regional Medical Center in Tennessee.
This tragedy follows assault allegations made last month by the mother and sister of "The Dark Knight" star Christian Bale. The 34-year-old Bale denied the charges. He'll be back in court next month.
"The Dark Knight" is dedicated to both the 28-year-old Ledger, who died of an accidental overdose last Jan. 22, and Conway Wickliffe, 41, a stunt supervisor who died in a freak accident in London while setting up a car crash.
The twilight language and name game is all around, and I have written extensively on this theme before.
As an update, blogger Todd Campbell, after reading the above, has forwarded the following photographs to my attention, from the movie. He has a post on this now.
What do we find these photos have revealed?
Embedded within the movie (or, at least, certainly in the trailers, as shown in these photos first published by Entertainment Weekly) is the Heath Ledger character, the Joker, using the Joker/Death card as his "business calling card," as pictured, shown holding a decapitated head. (If factual, the powerful nature of these images only being in the trailer and pre-release publicity photos but not in the actual film is significant. The trailer carries the keys to mass public programming to "sell" the motion picture.)
Schaefer writes that The Dark Knight joins a grim list of "cursed" films.
The Superman hex struck Christopher Reeve, who shot to fame after starring in the 1978 movie, after he broke his neck in a horse riding accident. Television's original "Superman," George Reeves died in an apparent suicide in 1969.
(In June 2007, a teenager's legs were severed when cables snapped on the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Kentucky.)
The 1982 horror classic Poltergeist was haunted by the premature deaths of two of its female stars. Vanity Fair celebrity scribe Dominick Dunne's daughter Dominique was murdered by her live-in lover soon after the film was finished. And Heather O'Rourke, the film's child star, died in 1988 at age 12 of cardiopulmonary arrest prompted by Crohn's disease.
I have written of the "Mothman Death Curse" online and specifically in the August 2004 issue of Fortean Times, with a list of over 80-related deaths, some of surprisingly young people and others of elder members of the crew, cast, and aligned associates of the film.
From Batman to Mothman, whether or not there are curses is not important. The fact that they have become part of popular culture and that there is a dark sense that there may be such things in the modern world, in the end, may be what becomes more significant.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Decapitations: Greece and Canada
Malcolm Brabant's BBC News article for August 3, 2008, "Gruesome crime shocks Greek isle" tells that police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a 35 year old knifeman who decapitated his girlfriend and walked around the streets with her head.
The suspect was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and passenger.
The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory.
CNN is reporting late on August 4th that there are rumors the same suspect was involved in a possible beheading of a man north of where the suspect beheaded his girlfriend.
It follows, of course, on the heels of the incident last week on July 30th, on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger.
By week's end, in the following article, "Decapitation Suspect Allegedly Ate Victim," the story grew more disturbing.
The suspect was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and passenger.
The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory.
CNN is reporting late on August 4th that there are rumors the same suspect was involved in a possible beheading of a man north of where the suspect beheaded his girlfriend.
It follows, of course, on the heels of the incident last week on July 30th, on the Canadian bus where a man beheaded a fellow passenger.
By week's end, in the following article, "Decapitation Suspect Allegedly Ate Victim," the story grew more disturbing.
A police officer at the scene of a fatal stabbing on a Canadian bus reported seeing the attacker hacking off pieces of the victim's body and eating them, according to a police tape leaked on the Internet on August 2nd.
In the tape of radio transmissions, officers referred to the attacker, who also beheaded the victim, as "Badger." They said he was armed with a knife and scissors and was "defiling the body."
"Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it," an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on the tape.
The RCMP described the tapes as "operational police communications and, as such, are not meant for public consumption." The tape was posted on YouTube among other Web sites.
The employer of the man who witnesses said stabbed and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus in Canada said that he was in shock to learn that his "model employee" has been accused of the grisly attack.
Vincent Augert, an independent contractor who distributes newspapers in Edmonton, Alberta, said that Vince Weiguang Li, was one of his most reliable carriers.
Witnesses described a bloody killing that occurred as some passenger were napping and others watching "The Legend of Zorro" on television screens inside the bus. Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said there were 37 passengers on the Winnipeg, Manitoba-bound bus at the time.
Shortly after passengers reboarded following a break, the suspect - for no apparent reason - stabbed the man sitting next to him several dozen times as others fled in horror, witnesses said. He then severed the man's head, displayed it and began hacking at the body.
Authorities have not released the victim's name but friends identified him as Tim McLean and said he was headed to Winnipeg after working with the carnival in Edmonton.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Church Shootings
Church shootings in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, have left ten injured and at least two people dead this weekend.
A man walked into a Knoxville, Tennessee, church and opened fire Sunday, July 27, 2008, injuring 7 people, various local media have reported.
The incident took place at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church at 10:15 a.m.
Church members said children from the congregation's summer theater workshop were performing a musical when the shooting occurred. A children's production of "Annie" was taking place at the time of the shooting.
Steve Drevik, a church member, described the shooter as a man with long blond hair, who appeared to be in his 40s. He said he walked into the sanctuary and opened fire with a shotgun, shooting indiscriminately. No children are believed to have been hit by the gunfire.
Seven people were transported to an area hospital. The extent of their injuries is unknown.
The alleged shooter is in custody.
Update: A man died in Sunday's church massacre in Tennessee when he stood in front of a gunman who fired on congregation members, a witness said.
Greg McKendry was the only immediate death in the incident at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel reported.
"Greg McKendry stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us," witness Barbara Kemper said.
Capt. Brent Seymour, a spokesman for the Knoxville Fire Department, said police had a suspect in custody, CNN reported.
Knoxville's WBIR-TV reported only six of the injured individuals suffered gunshot wounds in the attack. The seventh injury victim only suffered an ankle injury, the TV station said.
The TV station added that no children were thought to have been hurt and two of the hospitalized victims may be serious condition.
Knoxville's WVLT-TV said the gunman may have been restrained by members of the congregation following the shooting spree.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, July 26, 2008, three men were injured in a church shooting in Canada. Early Saturday morning, Toronto woke up to a murder in the least likely of places: church property. Devon Wynter, 40, was found dead in a hall underneath the Disciples Revival Church. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
Two other men were also injured in the crossfire. One was hit by a stray bullet. The other hurt himself as he raced from the scene. The wound on his leg, believed to be a cut from a piece of glass, was so severe he thought he had been shot.
Both men are expected to be fine.
Sunday church services are going ahead as usual.
Cops have combed the area for clues, lifting fingerprints from the door and even searching a nearby stream.
Police say many of the 500 witnesses on scene (a dance was occurring) have been cooperative. If you have information that could help their investigation, give them a call.
A man walked into a Knoxville, Tennessee, church and opened fire Sunday, July 27, 2008, injuring 7 people, various local media have reported.
The incident took place at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church at 10:15 a.m.
Church members said children from the congregation's summer theater workshop were performing a musical when the shooting occurred. A children's production of "Annie" was taking place at the time of the shooting.
Steve Drevik, a church member, described the shooter as a man with long blond hair, who appeared to be in his 40s. He said he walked into the sanctuary and opened fire with a shotgun, shooting indiscriminately. No children are believed to have been hit by the gunfire.
Seven people were transported to an area hospital. The extent of their injuries is unknown.
The alleged shooter is in custody.
Update: A man died in Sunday's church massacre in Tennessee when he stood in front of a gunman who fired on congregation members, a witness said.
Greg McKendry was the only immediate death in the incident at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel reported.
"Greg McKendry stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us," witness Barbara Kemper said.
Capt. Brent Seymour, a spokesman for the Knoxville Fire Department, said police had a suspect in custody, CNN reported.
Knoxville's WBIR-TV reported only six of the injured individuals suffered gunshot wounds in the attack. The seventh injury victim only suffered an ankle injury, the TV station said.
The TV station added that no children were thought to have been hurt and two of the hospitalized victims may be serious condition.
Knoxville's WVLT-TV said the gunman may have been restrained by members of the congregation following the shooting spree.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, July 26, 2008, three men were injured in a church shooting in Canada. Early Saturday morning, Toronto woke up to a murder in the least likely of places: church property. Devon Wynter, 40, was found dead in a hall underneath the Disciples Revival Church. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
Two other men were also injured in the crossfire. One was hit by a stray bullet. The other hurt himself as he raced from the scene. The wound on his leg, believed to be a cut from a piece of glass, was so severe he thought he had been shot.
Both men are expected to be fine.
Sunday church services are going ahead as usual.
Cops have combed the area for clues, lifting fingerprints from the door and even searching a nearby stream.
Police say many of the 500 witnesses on scene (a dance was occurring) have been cooperative. If you have information that could help their investigation, give them a call.
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