Killer

“ Unless she went to them and said: "There is a remorseless slayer loose in the city and some night ... soon now perhaps, very soon ... another woman may be found slain, more horribly slain this time, her throat slashed from ear to ear." It may have been only a solitary crime, brought about by uncontrollable rage. But how can you know, how can you be sure ... when I myself suspected nothing and we were such close, good friends?
There is nothing ordinary about a killer, nothing predictable ... even a killer with completely innocent eyes, who can smile and order a cocktail and say: "Heads I pay. ”

“ He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived. ”

“ Mystery films which dealt with criminal violence in a somber setting never failed to excite her. The psychopathic young killer, haunted, desperate, self-tormented and guilt-ridden, had a strange fascination for her, whether in books or on the screen, and she experienced a pleasure she would not have cared to discuss as she watched the net closing in, the noose swinging nearer ... ”

“ Was the gun that caused the bulge—how could she doubt that it was a gun?—about to go off, or did he merely mean to frighten her?
Surely, she told herself, that was not a sane question. What possible good would it do him to frighten her if he didn't mean to kill her? If the bulge was made by his hand alone did he think that fear alone would bind her to silence? Could he possibly be counting on that?
No, no—it was too wild a hope, too slim a threat to cling to. No man who had killed once would ever show that much restraint, would bother to resort to such trickery. It was not the way of a killer. ”

“ And then again anything may happen. Psychologically it’s a pretty how-de-do. To throw half a dozen killers together, even civilized ones (in fact the more civilized the more interesting) , makes for a strange medley. ”

“ Fearful, from all they had observed, that murder had been committed, they now ran with all their speed in the direction which the two persons had taken; and having arrived at a dark and lonely spot, to which they were attracted by groans of agony, they beheld, by the faint light of the moon, whose rays now penetrated through the thick foliage above their heads, the form of a man elegantly attired, stretched upon the earth and weltering in his blood, while by his side lay the pistol with which the fatal and cruel deed had been committed, and which the assassin had left behind him. ”

“ We are next treated to an artistic study of murder in low life, the murderer being in hot pursuit of a young female in a nightgown, whose hair sets out straight as porcupine's quills from her head, and within an inch of the itching fingers of her pursuer, while behind him are laid out in an ascending scale the dead bodies of an old man, an old woman, and a child, the same being the victims he has just finished off. ”

“ He that has committed murder, though he flees for his life, shall be continually haunted with terrors, shall himself flee to the pit, betray himself, and torment himself, like Cain, who, when he had killed his brother, became a fugitive and a vagabond, and trembled continually. 2. The duty of the avenger of blood, whether the magistrate or the next of kin, or whoever are concerned in making inquisition for blood, let them be close and vigorous in the prosecution, and let it not be bought off. Those that acquit the murderer, or do any thing to help him off, come in sharers in the guilt of blood ”

“ Our theory is that the murderer is a man who knew the deceased, and had been frequently in the back room, so as to assure himself of the position of things. Last night he must have entered the alley--at what hour we are not prepared to say, as the time of the murder can only be determined by medical evidence--and opened the window by slipping the blade of his knife between the upper and lower parts, and pushing back the latch. ”

“ That night, gentlemen, a murder was committed of a deeper and darker dye than guilt ordinarily wears: a murder which in centuries hence will stand amongst the blackest chapters in the gloomy annals of crime. ”

“ Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your attention—that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as this—let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of murder as this. ”

“ All people who have read anything, have read of the irresistible fascination that the scene of the murder has for the murderer, of the way in which the victim "haunts" the slayer, and of how the truth that "murder will out" is really based on the fact that the murderer is his own most dangerous accuser by reason of his life of terror, remorse, and terrible hallucination.
My case is in no wise parallel.
I am absolutely without fear, regret, remorse, repentance, dread or terror in the matter of my killing Sergeant Burker. ”

“ Murderers come into my shop, I won’t say every day, but often. My dear friend, the world is full of them. You will ask, if that is so why are so comparatively few murders committed? For this reason, very few people have the motive for slaying a fellow man or woman. I myself cannot remember a single time in my life when the commission of a murder would have benefited me much, and when that murder could have been committed by me with reasonable chance of not being discovered. ”

“ To wake once more to killing, killing, killing.
Give me the hunter's hand, the patriot's fervour
To hold death naught, or for my land to serve her,
Slay and still slay, with heart that holds no sorrow
For these dead men and all their carnal horror.
Was I not one who loved my land for growing
Sweet, eager life, and pretty things all blowing?
How glad these hands to give their toil, how willing,
That now, O God ! grow strong in killing, killing. ”

“ We have not been permitted to lift the veil, and show you the perpetrators of this horrible murder—a murder most atrocious in its inception, brutal and cowardly in its execution a crime which in many respects stands without a parallel. But the blood of a pure and honourable man, shed in the streets of your city, calls aloud to Heaven for vengeance, and I trust the cry will be heard and answered ”

“ In fact, it was reserved for this incredible monster and his associate fiends to reduce murder to a system, and to establish a regular traffic in the bodies of their victims. Ordinary homicides slay from passion or revenge; the murders they commit are the product of an ungovernable and overmastering impulse, which hurls reason from her seat, and, in the wild conflict of guilty passion, precipitates them into the commission of acts which are no sooner done than they would perhaps give the universe were they undone. ”

“ Murderers! The angry hum of a bullet past his ear roused a fury in his soul that was elemental, primal, and he cursed now under his breath. Murderers... six feet of earth... in cold blood... or if they winged him, the car, amuck, slanting from the road to up-end itself, would do their bloody work for them... Bookie Skarvan... some day, if he lived through this... Bookie Skarvan... it was strange that all their shots had missed... even if the back of his car was a protection... ”

“ I like the line 'Was it murder to kill a dog?' and the one which follows, 'For only a dog I was; or may I say, I am?' Of course the word murder, strictly applied, means the killing of a man by his fellow. I think I comprehend what you mean here, but I would like you to explain it to me."
"Doctor, you compliment me by taking this so seriously. There is a deeper meaning in the words than might be detected by a superficial reader. As you say, the word murder applies only to the killing of a man, by a man. ”

“ In case of death by violence, the nearest relative of the slayer is found and punished. Homicide in obedience to law is therefore common among them. Their law is blood for blood, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. ”

“ Knots of men went hurrying by, and he caught snatches of their talk. There had been a murder—a man was murdered in his bed—it was a woman—a man had murdered his wife—there were two murders—three—the tale went every way, but it was always Murder, Murder, Murder. ”

“ Thus, in treating of murder, it will be necessary to consider the various modes in which it may be effected; as, by hanging, strangling, suffocation, shooting, stabbing, poisoning, and, at the same time, the different kinds of sudden death from natural causes, which may be mistaken for the results of violence. ”

“ Our murderers will assault you with a smile, rob you with a joke on their tongue's end, and give you back car fare when they hold you up, and if they murder you they will do it easy and lay you out with your hands across on your breast and notify the coroner, but your White Chapel murderer wants to disembowel you and cut you up into chunks, and throw your remains head first into something nasty, and if you have money enough on your person to buy a bottle of gin your murderer is as well satisfied as though he got a roll. ”

“ Accompanied by a relative she, with heroic fortitude, followed the sledges in a hackney coach, beheld the preparations that were being made, watched her lover mount the gallows, and saw his lifeless body cut down and placed upon the block to be mutilated, without betraying any extravagant emotion, but when the executioner flung his victim's heart into the flames the sight was more than human nature could sustain. ”

“ Whatever the cause or purpose; whatever of hellish suffering lay behind, that dreadful apparition pictured the very spirit of murder—murder in the dark.
"Perhaps it does, my lad," I answered, my hand on his shoulder, "but when that death comes it will find us plucking the heart out of this mystery. Now come to your senses and listen to me. Two murders have been committed in this house within the last forty-eight hours, and whoever committed them has left no trace. There is a secret passageway leading in here with an opening on this floor. ”

“ A murderer’s hand has been lifted against me while I slept—I have seen blood shed before my eyes, and could not stay the unrighteous hand of the murderer—I have had none to love me but one—no mother ever smiled upon me—no recollection of a father’s caress warms my heart. ”

“ The exceptional treatment of hanging and then burning the body of the criminal was owing to the crime being, over and above that of murder, the particularly heinous one, in the eye of the old laws, of petit treason, the murdered person being the master of, and person in authority over, the assassin. ”

“ It is a very simple matter for the police to apprehend the common murderer whose weapon is a knife or a gun, but it is a different thing when they investigate the death of a person who has been the victim of the modern murderer who slays, let us say, with some kind of deadly bacilli. ”

“ No one touched the grey-headed murderer, who knelt down—not to pray, but to look into his son's eyes—and to examine his lips—and to feel his left breast—and to search out all the symptoms of a fainting-fit, or to assure himself—and many a corpse had the plunderer handled on the field after hush of the noise of battle—that this was death. ”

“ Murderers may also be [Pg 15] classified according to the nature of their murderous instinct, illustrated by the instrument of destruction that they employ, whether it be the knife, firearms, poisons or other means, and again a classification exists between those who commit murder themselves and those who employ agents. ”

“ My other leg got across a feller’s shoulder and stuck so I went down on my head, and my hands touched th’ murdered body; they was all blood. Which helped me up; that, an’ hearing near me a call, low an’ quick; ‘A cop!’ and the chorus singing: ‘Kill him!’
“So I come up standin’, an’ striking out, blind, with th’ stick. But I began to look around, careful, to get th’ lay. There was one gas-jet, rear. By it I made out th’ feller that did th’ murder. He was being fought over; some, th’ friends o’ th’ dead man, desirous to kill him: others, his friends, to save him. ”

“ This slaying was to be an exposition of the ego. Without other cause. Emotionless. With no hope of gain, financial or otherwise. No female involved. Nothing. Just a killing, a plain open and shut case of homicide for no earthly reason imaginable to the police. It would be amusing to watch those flatfoots sitting around trying to sift a motive out of the thing. ”

“ The hunted fugitive who struck through our hearts to slay him, should stand beside his stately bier to see how powerless are bullets and blades to take the real life of any noble man!
LETTER III. THE MURDERER. Washington, April 27th.
Justice is satisfied, though blinder vengeance may not be. While the illustrious murdered is on the way to the shrine, the stark corpse of his murderer lies in the shambles. The one died quietly, like his life; the other died fighting, like his crime. ”

“ I have committed no crime — what has been done, that you are going to murder me?" was my reply. My master then asked me why I had followed the young lady and her brother, who went from the house the evening before, and murdered her? Astonished and terrified at the charge of being a murderer, I knew not what to say ”

“ The victim was an unobtrusive young man, caught up and dragged off as a wild beast to the slaughter, without any further notice than was necessary to prepare to walk from the jail to the scene of murder. ”

“ A certain land-agent was shot at and badly wounded one night as he went home, and we’ve never yet found out who his assailant and would-be murderer was. But I haven’t the slightest doubt that nearly every man and woman in that place knows who he was—only they won’t say, because their chief regret is that the victim wasn’t finished off. ”