In my previous posts (here and here) about this particular map, I showed you the sort of groundwork I had laid for the town. Over the weekend I got the chance to flesh out the map a bit more and add some new features to it. I’m actually really happy with it, so it’s likely that all I’ll do now is label everything and place some icons for various points of interest. Here’s what I have so far:

The blue areas are water, the green areas are parks and recreation centers and the red area is the town hospital. Oh, and the darker gray area is an old military base with a runway that’s still in use. So far, I estimate that I have about 24 total working hours on this map and I’m loving e very second of it. The map you see here is actually only 20% of the working size, so it’s quite huge. I like detail and the larger file size allows me to zoom way in to accomplish that.

If anyone is interested in a post on general digital cartography, lemme know in the comments down there. If there’s enough interest in it, I could write up a post or two explaining how it’s done.

The town itself occupies about 7.3 square miles and has roughly 11,000 citizens. I wanted a smaller town so that there would be no police force and so that the sheriff’s department would be small. As far as crime is concerned, here are some basic numbers for the city compared to Oklahoma and the nation:

So as you can see that while the number of violent crimes comparatively speaking is relatively low, there are some interesting things going on the Property Crime department-specifically Burglary and Arson, so I don’t think there will be any shortage of criminal activity happening in a town this small for my protagonist. I should point out that I’m using these numbers a guideline, and not necessarily going with them.

Because I also wanted to map the area, I looked at the actual city a was a fan of the layout. My fictional town, at least in my head, resides in Virginia (I don’t know if I’ll ever actually name the state), so the way the town is laid out, is pretty common to VA as well. Anyways, here is the work I’ve done on the map so far, which is to say that I’ve done is stitch the town together, where 1 inch on the map is equal to 1,000 feet. I did it this way so I could put in some small details, without risking too much quality when zoomed in.

Click on the picture for the full size version.

What I actually plan on doing is importing this image into Adobe Illustrator and tracing it as a vector image so that there will definitely be no loss on the quality as you zoom in. I’m not looking for this to be a super detailed map, so essentially the finished product will probably look a lot like the picture does right now in terms of the style. I’m going to post my progress with the map here as it happens, so keep watch for that.

Anyways, I just wanted to share that with ya…that is all.

So, what happened is that two kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, arrived at school on 20 April 1999 like it was any other day, except that they were armed to the teeth with guns and homemade pipe and propane bombs. They first set out a bomb a short distance from the school and set it on a timer in the hopes that it would draw emergency vehicles away from their intended target. It actually failed to do what they wanted it to do, but they continued with their plans.

They entered the school through the cafeteria carrying duffel bags with the other propane bombs they had made and set the timer on those, placing them at various points within the cafeteria They made their way back to their cars where they armed themselves with pipe bombs, two semi-automatic guns (TEC-9 and Hi-Point Carbine) as well as two shotguns (Savage 67H pump-action shotgun and a Stevens 311D double barreled sawed-off shotgun). When the bombs failed to go off, they went in and started shooting.

They shot 12 people in their initial assault in and near the cafeteria, and as they made their way towards the library, they tossed pipe bombs along the way.  When they arrived at the library, which is where most of the killing happened, the two boys found many students and staff hiding. After asking where the jocks were, they started their assault again, this time shooting 22 more people.

A short while later, after having wandered the halls a bit more, shooting aimlessly and detonating more bombs, the boys returned to the library where they took some pot shots at the police that had arrived and then, finally, turning the guns they carried on themselves. Both boys died of a single gunshot wound to the head. The whole ordeal had barely lasted an hour, but it left 36 dead or wounded.

Why?

I actually wrote an essay on this for my high school paper a little while after it happened. Many people blamed musicians such as Marilyn Manson and similar artists. I personally argued against this explanation, because you know what? I listened to the same music and played the same video games as they did (Doom and Wolfenstein 3D), and hell, I still do – sorry, I’ve been and continue to be a Marilyn Manson fan. These musicians don’t tell their listeners to go out and shoot up a school or kill themselves – no, they, especially Marilyn Manson, tell kids to embrace their diversity. Am I an all-black wearing goth person? No. I wear normal clothes that I buy from Wal-Mart just like everyone else and so do a majority of Manson’s fans. At least after a while anyways. My essay was heavily edited and didn’t reflect this sentiment, the result of which was that I never wrote for the paper again.

So if not music or video games, what then?

It’s really hard to say. The media did their best to portray these kids as pure evil, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Personally, I tend to think it was a combination of the parents and the bullying they received at school. I’m not saying that the boys had no fault in what they did, because almost certainly they knew what they were doing, but like I’ve said elsewhere, there is a reason that people do bad things.

Bullying is horrible-plain and simple. I know that many parents say that it’s a fact of life, and even I have said this to my own child, but it shouldn’t be. I was small when I was in my middle school years and was bullied a lot. It sucked. It was one of the reasons that I gravitated towards bands like Marilyn Manson and Korn. Both of those bands were pretty much born out of being bullied and I could relate. But, by the time I got into high school, my height and weight caught up with everyone else and I had no other issues with anyone bullying me. But that’s not so for everyone. For some, like Harris and Klebold, it never stopped. It got progressively worse and they got progressively more depressed until one day 12 years ago they couldn’t take it anymore.

It’s sad that it had to come to that, which brings me to the other contributing factor – the parents.

Parenting is hard. Every parent in the whole world will tell you that. There are, as they say, no instruction manuals for raising a child, but perhaps at least for some people, there should be. Such is the case with the parents of these two boys. Am I saying they were terrible people? Heck, no, but maybe they could have dedicated a little more of their day paying attention to their children. I’m sorry if that pisses anyone off, that’s just how I feel about it. I mean, how do you not know that your son is building various types of bombs in your garage? We all like to check on our kids when they are young and playing by themselves, but why don’t we do it when they are older? Are they less susceptible to doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing? No. Would it have been so hard to poke a head into the garage and say, “hey, son, whatcha up to?” or asked him about his day when he would come home from school probably visibly upset? I certainly don’t think so.  I obviously don’t know if that would have made a difference, but I don’t think it could have hurt. Parents should always strive to maintain decent communications with their children. It’s often not easy, especially when they are teens, but I think it’s important.

Anyways, that’s enough from me on this subject, but I will close with a quote by, gasp, Marilyn Manson when asked by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine what he would say to those boys if they were right in front of him:

“I wouldn’t say a single word. I would listen to what they have to say, and that’s what no one did.”

I think he hit it right on the head – what do you think?

Believe it or not, figuring out  the time of death for a dead body isn’t an exact science, nor is there one thing an investigator can observe to give a truly accurate time. Rather, it’s only through a collection of many observations that can provide insight into the time of death.

Rigor Mortis

Rigor mortis occurs within 1-3 hours of death and is characterized by a stiffness of the body. While the process is not totally understood, we know that it starts with the smaller muscle groups and works it’s way up to the bigger ones. It starts at the jaw, moves to the elbows and then to the knees and then, and only then, is a body considered to be in full rigor. The chemical process of rigor mortis is irreversible.

Livor Mortis

Livor mortis normally occurs within 8-10 hours after death and is characterized by a discoloration of the body. This is due to the gravitational settling of the blood, which is no longer being pumped through the body by the heart. While this discoloration might be almost immediately apparent (within 20 minutes – 1 hour), the intensity of the discoloration greatly increases within that 8-10 hours I mentioned earlier. The formation of livor mortis may be hindered when pressure is applied to a certain area. For example, if a body is lying on its back, pale areas may be present on the shoulders, the buttocks and the calves.

Algor Mortis

Algor Mortis is a cooling down of the body. Normally, at least in ideal conditions (a 70 – 75°F environment), the body’s temperature equalizes itself with it’s environment within the first 10-12 hours after death. Obviously every dead body isn’t going to turn up in the ideal environment, so other variables have to be taken into consideration. Location temperature is definitely one thing to consider, but body fat and clothing type are other things. Body fat and heavy clothing store heat longer and therefore cause the body to cool at a different rate. Another thing that sometimes leads to erroneous algor mortis calculations is that it’s almost always assumed that the person’s temperature was the typical 98.6°F when death occurred, but several other factors could be in play here as well: fever, drug use, physical exertion or pretty much anything else you can think of that would raise someone’s body temperature, or even cool it down. The proper use of algor moris in determining time of death relies heavily on realizing it’s limitations and taking into account other observations.

Gastric Contents

In other words, what someone ate. If a body was found in the evening and only had breakfast type food in the stomach, a reasonable conclusion would be that they died in the morning or very early afternoon. If the time of the person’s last meal is known, looking at the stomach contents and digestion tracts would enable investigators to narrow time of death because of the rate of digestion, however it should be noted that persons under duress, physically or mentally, may have slower digestion rates. Another important aspect of this to consider would be in finding out where the food in the stomach came from. It could be that the person ate something that is particular to a specific restraunt, which may help nail down when and where the last meal was consumed and with whom.

Crime Scene Investigation

This is where the life stages of certain insects are helpful. An entomologist may be brought in to study these insects because presumably, they have a predictable rate of life and death themselves. Plant biologists are helpful here as well because they can analyze specimens found on the clothing and gastric tracts just to name a few. They look at at twigs, leaves, roots, pollen, fungi, algae, etc. to determine if the body had been moved and it’s origin. Things not associated with the body can also be used to determine time of death such as mail and newspaper pick up, the lights or television on, the sort of food that was being prepared, etc., etc.

Decomposition plays a huge role in all this as well, but since there is so much information to convey on that one area, I will do it in next week’s post.

For those of you who missed the last mystery I posted, I will give you another chance to win 2 hours of my time in helping you set up a WordPress blog either on WordPress.com or your own domain – or even still, if you already have one of those, I’ll help you optimize it – by solving a mystery using the “How To Determine Time of Death” posts when I finish them. I’m doing this to create some interest in the NF book I’m currently working on that has to do with that very thing. So, until next time, happy killing! Fictionally that is…

The good Doctor was not like a lot of his other serial killer counter parts. He had patience. He had charisma. He had accomplices.

Like H.H. Holmes, Engleman killed for financial gain using his female accomplices as bait. Most of his victims were his own patients, always men, that he chose based on their financial status. The women that worked for him, in his scams anyway, were to seduce and eventually marry the intended targets. After a while, Engleman would kill the husband and split the insurance money with the widows. He enjoyed the planning, the killing and disposing of the remains, all because of the money it would net him. He felt no remorse for his actions – a sociopath through and through.

His first arrest came in 1980 for his final killing, the owner of south St Louis dental laboratory, Sophie Marie Barrera. He owed money to her, in an official dentist-y capacity rather than because he killed her fake husband. In any case, he didn’t want to pay the money he owed to her, and she threatened to sue. Up to this point he hadn’t really cared about killing anyone and Sophie was no different. It was a car bomb he’d had someone help him rig up that killed her.

During the trial, one of the former dental hygienist he had coerced into helping him came forward and offered testimony which indicated that Sophie had not been his first victim. By the time it was all said and done, Engleman was convicted of two murders and had pleaded guilty to three more, earning him 5 life sentences in a Missouri prison. After spending almost twenty years incarcerated, Dr. Engleman died of a diabetes-related condition.

Wikipedia lists his victims and methods of killing as:

• 1958: James Bullock, 27, clerk. Shot near the St Louis Art Museum. Was married to Engleman’s ex-wife Edna Ruth, who upon Bullock’s death collected $64,000.
• 1963: Eric Frey, a business associate of Engleman at Pacific Drag Strip, which was owned by the dentist. Struck him with a rock, pushed him down a well, and used dynamite to blow him up afterwards. He then divided the insurance proceeds with Frey’s widow.
• 1976: Peter J. Halm. Shot in Pacific, Missouri. His wife, Carmen Miranda Halm, a former dental assistant trainee who had worked for Engleman, ordered the hit to collect life insurance on Halm.
• 1977: Arthur and Vernita Gusewelle at their farmhouse near Edwardsville, Illinois. Arthur shot; Vernita bashed to death. Murdered their son Ronald in East St Louis 17 months later so his widow Barbera could claim the millions in life insurance she had taken out on her husband, the sole heir to his parents’ oil business. Barbara Gusewelle Boyle subsequently sentenced to 50 years’ jail for the murder of her husband. She was released from the Dwight Correctional Facility on October 10, 2009.
• 1980: Sophie Marie Barrera, owner of south St Louis dental laboratory. Killed in a car bomb explosion. Engleman owed her over $14,000. Accused by her son, Frederick Barrera, of her murder.

This is very chilling and would make me think twice about going to the dentist’s office – luckily for me I’m broke and would not be a target for such things – I hope.

What’s you take on this guy? He was a dentist, probably making a decent amount of money, so why do it? Do you think it was to get more money, or do you think he killed because he liked it? Lemme know!

Applewhite and Nettles would go on to start their own religion based on Christianity apocalyptic teachings and elements of science fiction. Based on their new religion, they started up an inspirational bookstore, which failed to further their cause. After that enterprise failed, they started traveling around the country with their spreading their new belief system.

They believed that the Earth was about to be recycled and that humanities only chance of survival was to leave. Applewhite figured
that there were a couple of ways to leave the Earth. One way was to accept the ‘Next Level’ when it was offered, which is the cult leader’s way of saying “kill yourself”. And the other way was to ”[hate] this world, even our flesh body, to the extent to be willing to leave it without any proof of the Next Level’s existence”. To be eligible for membership in the ‘Next Level’, Applewhite instructed his growing flock to shed themselves of their possessions and live communally. This of course led the members to depend on their leader more and more.

Later the two  decided that they were extraterrestrials and that they would help the “Ancient Astronauts” fill their flying saucer crews when the time came to leave the planet. Only the individuals who joined Heaven’s Gate would enjoy the membership required would be allowed to escape human suffering.

In the mid-90s the group of a little over 40 purchased alien abduction insurance and moved into a 9,200 square foot commune in an upscale neighborhood in San Diego, California, which they funded by offering professional website design (which could have helped their own site). On 26 March 1997, 38 of the Heaven’s Gate Away Team were found dead in their San Diego commune. They were found laid out neatly in their bunks with bags over their heads and purple sheets covering their upper body. They were all dressed in identical blue sweat suits and Nike Windrunners and bags over their heads. Each had $5.75 in their pockets, presumably to pay the otherworldly boatman. It would seem the Away Team decided to go the way of Peoples Temple and ‘drink the potion like they did in ancient times’. Cyanide and arsenic were mixed with Vodka to help the travelers find their way to the Hale-Bopp comet space ship to take them away from this world. They started killing themselves on March 25 in groups of 15 over 3 days, well 9 on the last day. The leader, Applewhite, was the third to last to die. The last two, who were women, were the only two not found with bags over their heads.

Of all the Heaven’s Gates followers, 3 did not die that day. Several weeks before the suicides, Rio Di Angelo left the group, with the blessing of Applewhite, to further spread the message of Heaven’s Gate after all the others were gone.  Wayne Cooke and Charlie Humphreys, who had left the group even before Angelo, committed suicide in the same way as the rest of the group did.

What are your thoughts on this group? Why do you think they may have blended the Christian faith and the UFO mythos?

Herman Webster Mudgett was born on May 16, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. His father, Levi Horton Mudgett, was a violent alcoholic and his mother, Theodate Page Price, was a devout Methodist who often read the Bible to young Herman.

As a child, Herman was bullied a lot and upon discovering that he was afraid of the town’s doctor, some of the older kids thought it’d be funny for him to face his fears. When they took him to touch a human skeleton at the doctor’s office, it had the opposite effect. Instead of scarring Herman, it actually fascinated him.

While attending the University of Michigan Medical School in the early 1880s, he began stealing bodies from the school’s laboratories, laying them out ad then claiming that they were the bodies of people he’d had life insurance policies on. After graduating in 1884, he moved to Chicago to pursue a career in pharmaceuticals.  To cover his tracks in various real estate and insurance frauds, he started calling himself H.H. Holmes.

In 1886, Holmes started working at a corner drugstore owned by Dr. E.S. Holton. The doctor’s wife was running the store at the time due to the fact that he was suffering from cancer. After a while, Holmes was able to convince Mrs. Holton to sell him the store. Holmes allowed her to live in the apartment above the store, even after her husband died, though eventually Mrs. Holton mysteriously disappeared. Holmes told everyone that she was visiting friends and family in California and would probably not return because she liked it so much.

Holmes would also purchase the lot directly across from the drugstore, where he built a three-story, block-long hotel. It was opened in 1893 in conjunction with the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was a fair held to celebrate the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The ground floor of the “Castle” as the hotel was dubbed by locals, contained Holmes’ new drugstore as well as various other shops, while the upper two floors contained his personal office and the “hotel”. In reality this hotel was made up of a maze of windowless rooms, doorways and stairways leading to nowhere, oddly angled hallways, and doors that could only be from the outside. In the actual rooms, Holmes fitted them with ducts that he could use to gas people staying in them. During its construction, he fired builders often so that he was the only one that knew the true nature of the building.

After it was completed a short time later, Holmes would torture and kill his employees, lovers and hotel guests. He collected the life insurance policies of his employees, because often, it was required by law for Holmes to have them. When he was through killing them, the bodies were dumped by laundry chute to the basement, where they were dissected, stripped to the bone, and sold to medical schools as skeleton models. He also cremated some of the bodies in two giant furnaces he had installed in the basement for that very purpose. He also had lime pits, acid pits and a stretching rack. Due to his connections in the medical community, it wasn’t hard for him to make money harvesting organs and skeletons.

After the World’s Fair was over, Holmes left Chicago and went to Fort Worth, Texas, where he had inherited property from two railroad heiress sisters. He promised to marry one of them and he killed both of them. He’d started to build another house of torture as he had in Chicago, but quickly scrapped the idea because of the harsh law enforcement climate.

Holmes would go on to kill across the United States and Canada until 17 November 1894, when an ex-cell mate, Marion Hedgepath, blew the whistle on Holmes’ illicit activities. You see, Holmes had promised to include Hedgepath in a few of the insurance frauds he had going, but never paid up. Hedgepath had supplied him with information concerning people Holmes could con (which he also killed for the insurance money).

It’s estimated that Holmes killed anywhere between 20 and 200 people during his spree and in 7 May 1894, he was hung for 27 of those killings as well as 6 attempted murders. Even up to very day he died, Holmes never expressed remorse, nor did he show any concern for the gallows. His neck didn’t snap right away, instead he stayed alive at the end of his literal rope for more than 15 minutes.

His “Castle” mysteriously burned to the ground several years after his death and is now the site of a U.S. postal building. Thomas Edison was so interested in the man, that some of the first phonograph recordings ever made dealt with Holmes’ confessions.

What are your thoughts on Holmes? Are there any serial killers you’d like me to profile in the future?