True crime story out of Idaho grips us all

I share here my annual holiday-time email I send to Rob Ebben whose pen name is Robert Dudley. He's the best-known author on the subject of the Jacob Wetterling abduction/investigation. I have enjoyed my correspondence with Rob. We write about unpleasant subjects but the idea is to find the truth. My email to Rob makes up the rest of this blog post. God's peace.

 

Hello Rob - I have my new original Christmas song here, about the legend or tradition of "Santa Lucia" or "St. Lucy" which is important at Advent-time. It's also very important to Scandinavians. Perhaps you are familiar. When I email you this time of year I usually float some thoughts on true crime matters. So you'll see that below my song link, and of course it's way too long. But I just sat down and decided to start typing. First, here's my song link for "Ballad of St. Lucy." Have a happy Thanksgiving. And Christmas!

https://youtu.be/HObvM-RYh3Q

 

The place of horrific tragedy (wikipedia image)

I usually email further into the holiday season but we've had this incredible "true crime" story fall on our lap. The sad story of the four college kids murdered in Idaho of course. Can a more compelling murder mystery possibly come before us? And so this episode is another example of how the media evolves in the Internet age. A little research on YouTube can get the algorithms pushing enough stuff at you, to occupy you for the better part of a day. 

A good thing? Well, the more attention that gets focused on a matter like this, the better for someone breaking through with an insight I suppose. A book or two to be written on this with time, naturally. That's your stock-in-trade. What might I have to offer? Anyone who delves into this subject will seek a path or two that might be original. So this morning I suddenly wondered: could this be murder-suicide with one of the four killing the other three and then himself/herself? I certainly haven't heard this idea. Absurd? Right now with no apparent resolution in sight, I'm not sure any idea should be written off as absurd. 

An outright invader would have to have aroused screams, right? This is a puzzle wrapped in a mystery. 

My second thought is this: was an unbalanced male aroused to violence because of infatuation? How to characterize the infatuation? Here's where the media treads in rough water. That's a shame because inhibitions based on cultural mores or standards must not get in the way of finding the truth. Our cultural standard now is to not "objectify" women. This is wholly commendable. But in trying to read the mind of a brutal criminal, we must seek the unvarnished truth. 

What I'm about to write here is, well, unsavory, but it jumped to the forefront of my thoughts. I saw the pictures of the two blonde girls. No one in the media dares suggest they had qualities like "gorgeous" or "knockouts" or "drop-dead blondes," but that is exactly what they were, from the perspective of a preponderance of young heterosexual males. How do I know this? I have such impulses myself for characterizing women as such, though I'm a total civil male in terms of my behavior or deportment. 

Vince Bugliosi talked about how normal people can have disturbing thoughts but they have "triggers" in their mind that prevent them from doing anything bad. He said that the people you see in prison do not have those triggers. We all fantasize about beating to a pulp some SOB boss in your work situation. We think it, we don't do it. 

Think of all the men who must drool in private when surfing the "Porn Hub" website. Publicly they'd say such behavior is unsavory. Oh hell, the private side is much different. Just think of all the thoughts floating through Bill Cosby's head all through the years. And demonstrably he set such an example for idyllic family devotion. Hell, it was his brand. So what I'm suggesting is that the two blonde girls among the victims got a guy aroused and infatuated. Perhaps the guy had some contact with them, might have tried to start a friendship. And then, got rebuffed? A year ago I think I was suggesting this scenario to you in connection to the Missy Bevers case. Actually I picked up that theory from a comment on a website - not the main article but a "comment" underneath. And seriously, you can learn more from an occasional comment like this than from a long-winded analysis. 

Dana Perino (facebook)

It was eye-opening yesterday to see a segment of the Fox News program "The Five," in which the group departed from their standard shtick of right wing politics and dove into the true crime story of Moscow, Idaho. It was eye-opening to see this group return to what I'd call rational thought, a break from the nonstop defensive talk on behalf of Donald Trump. The norm has had a drugging effect, day after day, so I'm really wondering if these people like Dana Perino were actually breathing a sigh of relief because they had a chance to depart from the usual fare. I don't see how they can feel good about themselves, what with their mission being to keep Trump propped up. So there was Jeanine Pirro of all people, suddenly sounding like the pretty sharp legal mind she must truly be, if she has "judge" credentials. So unless she has chemical dependency issues, I think she would have to relish being taken off her leash of following MAGA, viciously attacking political "progessives" all the damn time. For the first time I sat there and listened to her with interest. 

Usually if I check in on Fox News, it's just to see what they're up to. And yesterday there was this revelation that these people need not be led along on that leash constantly. They can join the rest of us in reasoned and insightful conversation. My, they are capable of it! You might say I was overjoyed! There was Jesse Watters, who I normally write off as a snake. He supplied a constructive thought although I wouldn't echo it. Rather than infatuation, Watters felt the murderer was a kid who just felt rejected socially. The kid was jealous of the "popular" four kids who were destined to be killed, Watters suggested. Such thoughts of rejection are commonplace - the kids with such thoughts do not seriously consider murder. 

I humbly suggest that my own "infatuation" theory is more credible. A boy with a crush that cannot be fulfilled can sink to the depths of disappointment. With a normal boy, of course, this simply passes. A boy with a latent psychopathic element would be the exception. So look at those two blonde girls and just be brutally honest. Using what words? Well, "babes?" Slap me, I'm just trying to hit the nail on the head. I'm acknowledging that many males do in fact gravitate to Porn Hub. It has in fact become so mainstream it has gotten parodied on "The Onion." A headline asks "are these really certified stepmothers?" That's kind of funny. 

 

Treading water?

As I type this, frustratingly little progress in the case of the Idaho murders. Perhaps there will be a new raft of podcasts and the like to be consumed later today. I am retired and I have the time to consume. Even if my thoughts are gravitating in the right direction, it won't matter. I'll just have the private satisfaction if I'm right. 

So in the last 24 hours we've heard the "stalker" angle. I believe the authorities are trying to shoot that down. But, my instincts as an old newspaper person are telling me (screaming at me) that such talk is not out of a vacuum. If it wasn't a murder-suicide and not a close acquaintance, seems to me the "stalker" label would be pretty in line. It is in fact a vague term - is it someone who has had no contact with the group, just limited contact, a casual (non-intimate) friend? Well, I think maybe a guy who felt infatuation tried to break the ice with one of the blondes and hit a dead-end. And then because of a latent violent streak, the rest is history. Or was it murder-suicide by a member of the group? It stays on the corner of my mind. As they say, too much just doesn't add up here. So the compelling nature of the mystery deepens exponentially. 

You, Rob, would be a good guy to "write the book" on this. Will something change in the next 48 hours? Who knows? 

"True crime" migrated from the main cable news channels quite some time ago. Cable news became the boxing ring, as it were, for partisan political fighting/mudslinging, ad nauseam. The Idaho case is showing that true crime can indeed "make a comeback." It has just been off in the backwaters for a time. Fox News is not married to politics, in spite of surface impressions over a long time. When Fox discovers that the new topic breaks through to a big audience, guess what? We will undoubtedly see more of it. They'll toss Trump and the MAGA crew aside, readily. 

I still can't believe I'm seeing "Judge Jeanine" in a program suddenly looking like she's "deprogrammed," that she can be straightforward and penetrating with rational views. You might say I should pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming. Yes, revelatory. 

The best scenario would be to see the murder mystery solved in short order. My sense right now is not so optimistic. Such a drastic act with four victims should have left clues that could be acted upon faster. Then we'd be seeing the "mug" of the perpetrator. We'd be discussing the consequences for that person. After so much time has already elapsed? Are we going down a road like with JonBenet Ramsey? Remember when the authorities in Colorado had that pathetic person flown to the U.S.? Remember how seriously cable news, including Greta, took that for a time? This is the same part of the media ecosystem that was mesmerized by "balloon boy" for a day or two. Someday a history will be written of cable news, that odd creature. People within that circle will not want the balloon boy story to be recounted. Or that "suspect" in the JonBenet case. Last name Carr? It has been a while. 

Will anyone in the media now "boldly go where no one has gone" and acknowledge that the blonde victims were hugely alluring in the eyes of most hetero males? That some young male somewhere would have infatuation captivate him to a tipping point? 

OK, no one likes to admit that such thoughts exist, just like most people are not going to acknowledge they are aware of Porn Hub. What a tangled web we weave. Unpleasant thoughts or politically incorrect ones need to be entertained as much as all others, maybe more so, because all that matters in a case like this is getting to the truth. You remember the struggle over many years with the Wetterling saga. And how the media decided that a blogger ought to be celebrated at the end. It just became conventional wisdom. You and I know how off-base that was, even though the blogger was a nice person with good intentions. She was not a journalist. Maybe I should say "she was not an investigator." True. But I put journalists and authors on the same plane with the best of investigators, in terms of having the laser-focued instincts. The insights into human nature. 

Well Rob, just thought I'd sit down on this day before Thanksgiving and "start typing" based on my consumption of speculation from the past day over the Idaho tragedy. 

One more thing ("Columbo")

Oh, I always have one more thought and here it is: we need to question our whole model for "college education," the idea of these beehive places called college campuses where young people congregate who lack the maturity to live safely and responsibly on their own. 

Jon Krakauer (cnn image)

I emphasized these thoughts in the book review I did of "Missoula" by Jon Krakauer. He's an eminent author best known for his climb of Mount Everest. But for "Missoula" he probed what I called the "murky topic" of acquaintance rape. Such irresponsible behavior he wrote about, e.g. a nice young girl who gets wasted at a party, "crashes" at the place and is allegedly violated by a friend. Was it consensual? When alcohol is flowing freely, how can we be certain of all the circumstances? And so I asked: why do we encourage kids to go off to these places where they are in a position to experience such things? 

Krakauer would say it doesn't matter: rape is rape. Well of course rape is heinous. But how do college-age kids initiate sexual activity with each other? Does the male ask the female "can I do such-and-such to your body now?" Well of course not. I sympathize with any girl who feels she was violated, but wouldn't a lot of these kids be better off if they'd stayed home with parents for a few years after college? Why not just go to bed early, avoid alcohol and attend church on Sunday? 

The party of four in Idaho seemed to have been "cavorting." They were "popular." The girls were "attractive." They should have avoided a lifestyle where such traits got assessed at all. Just be real, be responsible, start exploring career paths and avoid the foolishness. I went to college when these places were invaded by the boomer generation and I saw no end to the foolishness. A trademark of our generation was the "loud stereo" (record player). At least this situation has improved in our new digital world, as the quality of one's "speakers" is no issue. But in reviewing the Idaho murders news coverage, the propensity of young people to seek foolish fun seems still to be brimming. Stay home! Stay safe! Is this so hard to internalize? 

Good luck to investigators in Idaho, the U.S. state of extreme right wing politics. Is that relevant? Hell, anything could be relevant. The very future of the college in Moscow ID could be at stake. The parents might decide to keep their kids at home after Thanksgiving. A blessing in disguise, I think it could be. Kids can mine the Internet to advance themselves in all sorts of ways. Teach yourself trigonometry from YouTube. Anything is possible. 

Take a fresh, skeptical look at "college." These are legacy systems that are still good at "selling themselves." They have ties to political office-holders. Change can be glacier-like. but we hope it advances at any speed. 

Condolences to the families of the four Idaho victims. And, happy Thanksgiving weekend 2022 to all! Make way for Christmas.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com