The Kim Wall Murder Serialized: Ethics & Aesthetics in High-Profile True Crime

In the 1940s, federal restrictions on the importation of U.S. publications spurred the growth of a Canadian pulp magazine industry, one branch of which was true crime. These cheap consumables, adorned with bawdy and violent cover imagery as well as sexually explicit advertisements, sometimes featured Canadian murder cases. True crime stories featured edgy dialogue and gumshoe argot but they remained within, and helped to define, the boundaries of heterosexuality, the racist moral hierarchies, and the certitude of explicable crime. Far from presenting authority figures in a dim light, Canadian true crime tales were written from the perspective of law men, the local police officers and the Mounties who doggedly gathered evidence and trailed unrepentant criminals. Writers took readers on journeys to morally dark places, particularly the remote north and the far west, where civilization along settled Euro-Canadian models had barely taken hold well into the twentieth century. Terrible murders, committed by ruthless criminals (typically Native men), threatened to rock the foundations of Canadian civilization but true crime reassured readers that the cops, the courts, and the gallows could and would always set it right. The industry declined by the 1950s, not on account of a moral-clean-up campaign but as a result of the pulp novel industry’s growth and the revocation of wartime importation bans.

Reviewed by: Habitual Offenders: A True Tale of Nuns, Prostitutes and Murderers in 17th-Century Italy by Craig A. Monson Sheila Coursey Craig A. Monson, Habitual Offenders: A True Tale of Nuns, Prostitutes and Murderers in 17th-Century Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2016) xvii + 323 pp. Craig A. Monson's Habitual Offenders provides a third installment to his previous Nuns Behaving Badly (2010) and Divas in the Convent (1995; 2012), both examinations of transgressive nuns in seventeenth-century Italy. Habitual Offenders focuses on a single murder case in Bologna, in which two nuns, Suor Laura Vittoria Regi, and Suor Silveria Catterina Pasi, were murdered after a planned flight from their convent. In relating the local scandal, political intrigue, and criminal investigation of the case, Monson seeks to provide "a microhistory of crime and punishment in seventeenth-century Bologna, one that puts faces on people 'of the ordinary sort' from Italy's backstreets and back stairs, seldom encountered in historical narratives" (4). Monson describes the events of Habitual Offenders as a "morality play" (53) and his presentation of this intensely complicated crime narrative is inherently theatrical; he even presents a "cast of characters" list in the beginning of the book, ranked by primary, secondary and tertiary importance (which is very [End Page 242] helpful). The first portion of the book is dedicated to introducing these primary characters: the resilient and unruly former prostitutes Suor Laura Vittoria Regi and Suor Silveria Catterina Pasi, and the host of male paramours investigated for their murder, principally the mercenary Donato Guarnieri, the clergyman Carlo Possenti, and the novus homo Giovanni Braccesi. The second section details the various moving parts of the crime's discovery and introduces the ruthless prosecutor Giovanni Domenico Rossi, who begins a relentless and often morally questionable pursuit of those complicit in the murder. The final section moves between Rossi's months-long interrogations of Braccesi, Guarnieri and Possenti, punctuated by graphically rendered torture sessions and witness testimonies. Along the way, interlocking side-plots of feuding Bolognese families, dissolute Counts, and tension in the papal enclave add supplementary drama and color to the story, if occasionally making the arc of the central plot hard to follow. Monson's unorthodox but engaging narrativization of the case is also addressed in his introduction, where he a explicitly lays out his methodology for "suggestively reconstructing" over two thousand pages of trial record into a three-hundred-page book. The near-cinematic dialogue that drives Rossi's investigations and interrogations stems from Monson's wealth of archival resources, from the intricately detailed court transcripts to the Roman avisi gossip sheets, ambassadorial dispatches, and contemporary chronicles, As Monson notes, "the detail in the original sources left little need for me to make things up" (8). The scattered "perhaps'" in each chapter allow the reader to track where those narrative embellishments or hypotheses occur. While Habitual Offenders does indeed provide a microhistory of seventeenth-century Bologna, (especially in relation to the papal politics surrounding the recently appointed Innocent X) the marketing of Monson's book seems to place it within the realms of true crime, especially its eye-catching pulp-esque cover. Indeed, Monson's narrative style, uninterrupted by secondary critical engagement (which is instead present in his footnotes) clearly anticipates a broader public audience engaging with this narrative as a particularly fascinating historical cold case. Monson's goal to give voice back to the victims of Suor Vittoria and Suor Laura and "make a place for them in history" echoes the narrative missions of Sarah Koenig in Serial or the recent documentary The Keepers, which likewise investigates the unsolved murder of a nun as a gateway into institutional malfeasance and predation in the Catholic Church (290). Much like these other true crime works, Habitual Offenders ends wrestling with lack of narrative closure and epistemic certainty. The convergence of archival history and true crime is an underrepresented genre, and Monson excels in it. However, the pivots from winking sensationalism to earnest empathy are sometimes jarring. Suor Laura and Suor Silveria shift from fascinating primary characters to evidentiary cadavers, or "nonspeaking roles," as Monson terms it, with somewhat unceremonious narrative bonhomie (92). Even the wonderfully punny title...

(1995). Media Hype, Celebrity, and Death: A Century Before the Simpson Case. Justice System Journal: Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 207-210.

This dissertation explores American true crime literary and visual narratives and focuses on historical cases involving Italian American women and the cross-cultural relations between Italy and the United States from the late-nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. I investigate the influence of true crime narratives on the popular imagination, with attention to the construction of ethnicity, class, and gender. The focus on Italian American women functions as a case study to discuss the impact and persistence of racialized assumptions and cultural stereotypes in American literature and cinema and explores the resistance of women to the dominant narrative. Starting from a systematic analysis of newspapers from the late-nineteenth century, and moving to literary and visual texts, I identified signs and elements belonging to markers of ethnic identity in Italian American culture and in cross-cultural relations between Italy and the United States. From the popular press and the age of mass migration (1880-1924) to the transnational murder case of Meredith Kercher as adapted in American novels and documentaries, I focus on four specific moments in the history of Italian immigration to the United States and I identify four sensationalized true crime stories that reshaped the popular imagination about Italian Americans and Italy. Since implicit bias and prejudice still exist even in the most recent adaptations of those crimes, it is crucial to discuss and reconsider the dominant narrative and argue for a counter-narrative in which nonwhite female characters reclaim their own central role as main protagonists.

Isolation and unnatural death of elderly people in the aging Japanese society

6. The Unbearable Straightness of Violence: Queering Serial Murder in True Crime

Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual property. Plagiarism has been a problem in academic settings and appears to be on the increase, now moving into areas including the medical and scientific fields as well as industry, manufacturing, military, and legal briefs. The ethical implications can have serious consequences for organizations, individuals, and society, resulting in harm being done to others in favor of expediency. In this scholarly essay, the authors explore and discuss the ethical implications of plagiarism and the increase of ghostwriting in a free society through the writings of Kant, Popper, Kostenbaum, Plato, Whedbee, and others. The conclusion is that the act of stealing is not the true crime; rather, it is the act of deception that inflicts moral harm on all parties by damaging the reputation of self and others, insulting others’ intelligence, and harming the integrity of all. The intended audience is students in their first year of a doctoral program.

In this slim volume with an attention-grabbing title, Kali Nicole Gross draws upon the sensationalism of a murder case from the 1880s to pull readers into a nuanced exploration of the meaning of race and gender in late nineteenth-century urban America. While it picks up on many of the themes of her earlier book, Colored Amazons (2006), this monograph will likely prove more accessible to nonspecialists as it focuses on the details of a single murder case and a small cast of characters. Indeed, the book uses many of the hallmarks of the “true crime” genre. For example, Gross includes the biographical background and descriptions of the physical appearance and distinct mannerisms of the witnesses, officers, and suspects involved in the case. She also reveals the story for the reader slowly, much as it unfolded for the general public in 1887. Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso, however, is very much the work of a seasoned historian. Gross skillfully weaves in deeply informed historical context on the shifting standards of policing, the association of blackness with criminality, urban race relations, the deeply rooted violence of racism, and conceptions of black women's sexuality.

Louise McReynolds, Murder Most Russian: True Crime and Punishment Late Imperial Russia. 275 pp. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. ISBN-13 978-0801451454. $35.00. Every scholar of Russian history knows Raskol'nikov well, but history of crime late imperial is still a relatively uncharted territory. Dostoevskii s Crime and Punishment seduced many of us into studying Russian history. Nevertheless, we find ourselves all too often invoking Dostoevskii's fictional hero Raskol'nikov as ultimate symbol of a murderer Russian, whereas names of real murderers like Andrei Gilevich, Ol'ga Palem, or Mavra Volokhova remain obscure for many students of late 19th-century Russia. While Raskol'nikov did serve as a role model courts as well as accompanying writings of criminologists and psychologists late imperial era, names of Palem or Gilevich were no less familiar to contemporary readers. Louise McReynolds's book raises question: what is to be gained analytically when Raskol'nikov is joined by other partners crime? McReynolds concentrates exclusively on murder and follows eminent cases from 1860s through revolutionary era. By tracing sensational murder cases and their multiple dimensions, McReynolds explores how Russians engaged with modern world that they witnessed unfolding around them (3). Each of chronologically organized chapters closely examines a single case, beginning with Mavra Volokhova--accused of having murdered her husband 1868--and ending with a robbery-homicide 1913. McReynolds uses her cases to demonstrate crucial features of perceptions and notions of murder particular, crime general, judicial system, gender and, to a lesser extent, question of liberalism Russia. She by no means intends to feed narrative of doomed autocracy but rather to read each killing as a juncture in a historical road that pointed several directions (11). In a manner reminiscent of Jane Burbank's study of peasant courts and Barbara Alpern Engel's investigation of divorce, she aims to offer a kaleidoscopic view of late imperial Russia, one that stresses many options and possibilities rather than failures and dead ends. (1) Yet end, she subscribes to narrative of failure of rule of law and thus contributes to thesis of Russian Sonderweg. McReynolds attributes this failure to a mixture of distinct Russian cultural features (e.g., fatalism) and structural problems, most notably those created by autocracy. The notion that autocracy staged itself figures of state attorneys and judges is a constant undercurrent McReynolds's study. While lawyers and juries are said to represent people, juries constitute the most institution tsarist Russia (8). Thus courtroom is transformed to a site where autocracy and people meet. Yet these seemingly clear-cut notions of and democratic become blurry course of McReynolds's book. How do we deal with fact that autocracy itself introduced judicial reform of 1864, based on Western ideas of law and striving for zakonnost' (legality) as goal of judicial process? What did actually mean, considering that judges this study, too, could press for legality, as did long-time presiding judge of Moscow Circuit Court P. N. Obninskii, who argued repeatedly for better implementation of zakonnost ' and for a larger role for individual (lichnost') Russian law? (2) Obninskii was not alone among many judges and state attorneys who displayed decidedly liberal views of law and order. (3) They imagined themselves as representing rule of law, and their view, this was tantamount neither to submitting to autocratic rule nor to openly defying autocracy. No doubt, McReynolds knows immanent contradictions autocratic rule faced when introducing an independent court system. …

The following paper presents a case study of a convicted serial murderer. Through data from personal correspondence, police reports, a true crime novel, witness statements, medical examiner reports, court appeals, and crime scene reports from the actual murder cases, and most important, a series of psychological self‐report measures, a case study was developed. Included in the psychological measures were tests of general psychopathology, specific tests of psychopathy, anger and aggression scales, and sociological measures related to family, individual, situational, and community risk factors, as well as previous criminal behaviour, including weapon and drug use. The results of these various measures are incorporated into the life history and criminal activity of the individual. The purpose of this research was to develop a more complete psychological report of a serial killer than any other previously reported. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What role do the acts of murder and dis(re)membering play in contemporary culture's use of the Victorian? This article makes a deliberately provocative intervention in questioning the way in which the genre of neo‐Victorianism raises ethical issues about real lives, the reading and writing of “true crime” and the position of the critic/historian. Beginning with a factual 21st century murder case and the role of Victorian reading matter as a marker of suspicion, even a sign of guilt, in the public consciousness and press reporting of the case, the article moves on to explore the tensions in revisioning reality as quasi‐fiction in a case study of the work of Kate Summerscale, focussing on the slippage between the figures of the writer, the detective and the historian in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher () and The Wicked Boy (). In broadening the definition of “neo‐Victorianism” to include acts of genre‐blurring across the lines between creative non‐fiction and historical fiction, I argue that an approach to the past that destabilises genres and forms without sufficiently self‐reflective or critically engaged perspectives on authorial motives presents a troublingly unresolved ethical dilemma in these works. Invoking the dangers of criminal reading and reading criminally, the article considers what rights the dead have to be redeemed or protected from our contemporary historicidal enquiry, which in its attempt to resurrect the past often itself kills off narratives of redemption and reform.

Fourteen stories. Fourteen more poisons. Just because it's fiction doesn’t mean it's all made-up ... Agatha Christie is renowned for her captivating plots and creative ways of killing off ill-fated victims. And what better way to add intrigue to a story than poison? The surreptitious ways they can be administered and the characteristic symptoms they produce make these killer chemicals the ideal method of murder in a ‘whodunit’. Christie perfected the use of poisons in her plots; her deft and varied use of toxic substances is one of her great strengths as a writer. But how is it that some compounds prove so fatal, and in such tiny amounts? The follow up to Kathryn Harkup's best-selling A is for Arsenic, V is for Venom is a compelling exploration of Christie’s use of poisons and her extensive chemical knowledge. Featuring fourteen more poisons from the works of Agatha Christie, this book investigates the science behind the deadly substances, the history of their use in real-life murder cases, and how feasible was it to obtain, administer and detect these poisons in Christie’s time and today. Combining Christie’s murder mysteries, chemical science and true crime, V is for Venom is a celebration of the use of science by the undisputed Queen of Crime.

Futility is hardly a novel idea in medicine. Its roots in ancient medicine go back at least to the fifth-century BC physician Hippocrates.1,2Yet debates over its meaning and ethical implications are surfacing with growing frequency. Increasingly, physicians seek to limit the lengths to which they must go to sustain the lives of patients who have lost the ability for conscious, interactive, and meaningful functioning. For example, in a recent case at Hennepin County (Minnesota) Medical Center, physicians invoked medical futility to support withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments from a patient, Helga Wanglie, who was irreversibly respirator dependent and unconscious (S. Miles, MD, written communication, March 22, 1991). Michael Belzer, MD, Medical Director of Hennepin County Medical Center, stated that although he sympathized with family members who insisted that everything possible be done, We don't feel that physicians are obligated to provide inappropriate medical treatment that is not in the

Communication disorder and mental health professionals may assume that once novel clinical techniques have been refuted by research, they will be promptly abandoned. Using facilitated communication (FC) for autism as a recent case example, we provide evidence to the contrary. Although FC was scientifically discredited by the mid-to-late 1990s, data we review demonstrate that it is still frequently administered in clinical and educational settings. We examine evidence for FC’s (a) continued use as an intervention for autism, (b) persistence in academic and institutional settings, (c) popularity in online and print sources, (d) promotion in the media, and (e) ongoing risk to caregivers accused of sexual abuse. We analyze the sources of these troubling developments, explore their ethical implications, and offer recommendations for addressing the spread of FC and other fad interventions.

Post-Epileptic Automatism as a Defence in Murder Cases: A Comparison of Two Recent Cases