Originally Posted by ladyislingering

The thing I love most about this photo is that she's encased in destruction, but her body is essentially untouched. She is at peace, limp and breathless in wreckage.



The story of Elizabeth Short always bothered me. Not only did her killer give her a "Chelsea grin" ... he cut her in half. IN FREAKING HALF. WHO THE HELL DOES THAT. THAT'S HORRIBLE.

I've always been skeptical of and fascinated by the frontal lobotomy. I read a memoir (I think the guy's name was Howard Dully) about how this dude had a lobotomy as a kid because his parents thought he was a little asshole, and how it destroyed his brain and his behavior gradually became worse.



I'm freakishly obsessed with serial killers.

Ed Gein was one of the worst, right next to Jeffrey Dahmer - both emotionally stunted and not terribly bright, both with the taste for human flesh and fashions from human remains. Absolutely disgusting.

Albert Fish, a bit brighter and more calculated in his line of terror, was ultimately worse than both of these freaks - he preyed on children. He once dismembered and ate a child, then wrote a letter to the child's parents, describing how he achieved this (in a sickeningly detailed manner).

Ted Bundy is probably my favorite. He was incredibly bright, well educated, well spoken, good looking, had a lot of friends and close acquaintances, and yes, he volunteered at a suicide hotline, staying up nightly trying to save those who couldn't save themselves. Ted Bundy was a living contradiction in several ways. He was charming, though truly depraved. He was gentle, though shockingly violent. In the end he practically turned himself in - then served as his own lawyer.

Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me" is a fascinating read, too.

Though Ted really had his shit together in terms of organized killing, there was none more sinister and calculating than H. H. Holmes, who rapidly hired and fired several contractors to build a sort of terror hotel. He was the only one who knew the layout of the building. He used this building to systematically torture, kill, and dispose of a confirmed 9 people - though he explicitly confessed to 27 murders).

It's been said that there's an estimated 30-50 active serial killers in the US at any given time. Literally anyone you know could be killing behind closed doors, and that shit is terrifying.