The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life.

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life and similar reference works used in the film industry are just what we need for the JonBenet Ramsey case. For those of you unfamiliar with such reference works let me just give a brief explanation of them. They are the works that would be consulted to maintain realism on movie sets and in dialog. Today a young woman might walk into an office and announce that she was a secretary but in the early part of the twentieth century she would have announced that she was a typewriter. Not secretary, not typist, ... typewriter! Such things might be cut out of a film now or the dialog might be altered for current audiences but the director usually wants realism as a starting point. Its the same way with the background of location scenes. If the action takes place near a sidewalk fruit market, the display baskets will be appropriate to the time period and the price signage will be in prices that were in effect at whatever time the action is taking place. Advertisements in the background are appropriate to time and place, movie marquees show what would actually have been reasonable at the time. Such reference works give writers an ability to avoid gross errors. Knowing what an average wage was for a cowboy is just as important to a writer as knowing how far a horse may be ridden in a day or how much a plate of beans would actually cost in a saloon. Fashions and hair styles have to be appropriate to the time, as does architecture. Oh sure there can be exceptions, sometimes notable ones. Recent movies shot in Las Vegas have featured casinos that have been somewhat transplanted in time or location. I've previously mentioned in this blog the movie In The Heat of the Night (see: I Said Check It, Sam). Well, the action supposedly takes place in Sparta, Mississippi on a hot Summer night, but early in the movie Shagbag is seen chasing a suspect through what is obviously Fall foliage and obviously not Mississippi. Sometimes things simply don't get noticed or sometimes costs outweigh a desire for realism. Even today, studios tend to "not want the picture good, they want it Tuesday".

I just wish we had such a reference work for the world of criminals. What would it tell us if we could consult a Writer's Guide to Everyday Life of the Criminal? I wonder if its really reasonable for a pedophile to be willing to kill a six year old girl after but a few moments of jolting her with a stun gun. I wish we had a reference work which would tell us the length of time that a pedophile considers "bondage play" to be sufficient. I wish I had a reference work that would provide ready access to reliable facts and figures about crime and criminals.

I've based a fair amount of my conclusions about this case on assumptions that I have no way of verifying. It strikes me as strange that a man would be thought of as satiated by two lousy jolts from a stun gun. Was he disappointed or was he elated? Whats the matter? You object to my referring to the stun gun use on a six year old girl as "two lousy jolts"? Well, the whole point of this blog post is realism from the point of view of the criminal, so lets get real! If we are to solve this case we have to cast off our sensibilities and take a look at this crime from the viewpoint of the evil vile perpetrator who did these unspeakable acts.

I have at my desk ready reference works that will tell me just how many homicides the famed cowtowns of the Old West had. (Quite frankly, there were relatively few homicides and ofcourse not one instance ever anywhere of any gunfight at high noon). Our impressions are based on all the Westerns (known in the trade as "oaters") that we've seen. Yet our impressions are sorely lacking any relationship to actual history. Hangings, even outright lynchings? Sure, but check your history books and you will find that most were quite rightful according to time and place. Mining law districts in California, Nevada and Colorado may not have had formal peace officers but they did have both law and justice. Far less law than we have today and far more justice than we have today!

It is relatively easy to wade through reference works about real life and to then discard our media-fed myths. Ofcourse there are some tempting paralells to be drawn. I often wonder if the financial journalists of yesteryear were in fact any better than the financial journalists of today. In olden times we had newspapers that advertised cans of Gold Paste that were to rubbed onto your clothing prior to your rolling down a California hillside. At the bottom of the hill, you merely washed your clothes and retrieved the gold. Perhaps we can make comparisons to present day wealth acquisition where it was thought that all one had to do to obtain wealth was to go to a swank Palm Beach party and give your money to Bernie Madoff. Perhaps the quality of journalism never changes.

Nevertheless, we do have reference books that feature the nuts and bolts details of the real world rather than the world of myths and fantasies.

But what do we really know of pedophiles? Do they really prefer long-term relationships to one-night-stands? Its rather obvious they don't limit themselves in that regard. Some young children have been forcibly kidnapped and promptly disposed of. I recall one San Diego pedophile who apparently disposed of his victim promptly and then went treking all over the Mohave desert for a few days. His crime appears to have been impulsive and may have resulted from having been rejected by an adult female that he knew to fit the description of loose morals. He had lived next to his victim for several years but one night he entered her home and abducted her. Had the pervert lusted after her previously? I've no idea and I'm sure if there is any answer to that question it is an answer that has been mediated by defense counsel and self-interest on the part of the pervert.

So what do you want to know about "the Wild West"? I can instantly look up material on foods, fashions, education, land-ownership, tools, coinage, salaries, education, entertainment. I can show you the menu from a luxurious French restaurant in a Colorado boom town. I can show you the educational achievements of outlaws and miners. I can show you the operas and plays that were available in the places that your movies depict as having only cheap saloons and horse stalls. I can show you the real world because I have ready reference works at my fingertips. I can show you that the Indian did not consider the West to be wild until the arrival of the White man. I can show you that many women taken captive by Indians and then rescued, chose to return to their Indian tribes. I can show you battles that were contemporaneously described as victories that are now described as massacres. I can show you battles where Indian chiefs and military officers were close relatives. I can end your false mental images in a few moments with such reference works.

But where are our reference works on criminals? Oh you say there are profiler interviews by trained psychologists. Well, self-serving statements in prison by people who have not much in the way of entertainment are not really valid. I've not seen any validation studies. Most of what prisoners say is quite removed from the truth the moment anyone but other prisoners are around. And even in the company of other prisoners, cons tend to be guarded in their comments. So don't quote criminology texts to me. It just won't wash. Data is indeed available, but data-quality is simply too important to me to rely on some of the hogwash that I have seen bandied about. Cops get lied to all the time, tabloid television shows even reveal criminals not only lying before they've been shown a videotape but after they've been shown a videotape of their crimes.

So was it a neighborhood pervert? Was it a long-term grudge? Was it a momentary impulse? Was it a planned and carefully re-written ransom note or was it a bit of pure whimsey concocted on the spot in one sitting? So is a burglar alarm decal something an intruder even notices? Does entry via a basement window imply prior skillful entry? Does anything less than extreme activity as far as the perversions go indicate a psychological hesitancy or an ulterior motive? Does a walkway devoid of footprints show careful attention to detail or simply show that the BPD would have been wiser to use stretch plastic wrap on the walkways and apply their stun guns to it to reveal the remnants of footprints?

How is it we can get facts and figures on the wild west but not on the ransom note? I can tell you that cackleberry was a term for an egg, but can't tell you about attache case in the ransom note. I can tell you that rawhide was a derogatory term in the West, but can't tell you anything at all about the vocabulary of the ransom note.