I am back from my hiatus, just in time to read that Mel Gibson decided that he didn't alienate enough people by getting drunk and going on an anti-Semitic tirade and that he should get drunk and rail against blacks as well. Just to make sure that everyone got the message that he is a complete tool, he decided to throw in a few death threats and sexually disgusting comments, with some misogyny to wrap things up nice and tight.
Seeing the story make me sit and ponder "What on earth is he thinking?"
But before he could answer, I read about John Mark Karr, the guy who claimed to have killed JonBenet Ramsey, and his fresh legal troubles. A former fiancee' (aged nineteen) accused the teacher of pressuring her to find little girls who would become members of a Karr-centered cult. Only, Karr is now known as Delia Alexis Reich. Oh, and he dresses like a woman but is still really a man.
Where oh where to begin?
First of all, what possesses a person to publicly confess to a heinous crime that he did not commit? He had to know that all sorts of scorn would be heaped upon him for the murder, as JonBenet was all of six years old when she was sexually assaulted and strangled in her own home on Christmas Eve. And he also had to understand that the physical evidence would not jibe with his tale and that he would be proven, eventually, to not have been involved in the crime. A more efficient legal system might have drawn and quartered this freak before he had the chance to be proven "innocent." But this being the civilized world and all, the Colorado legal system had to go through the motions of determining whether Karr/Reich is a cold-blooded child murderer or a self-absorbed attention whore who would exploit the grief of the Ramseys to have the whole world pay attention to him, however briefly. Sadly, Colorado does not provide the death penalty for the latter, so Karr/Reich was released.
Secondly, what kind of woman finds herself attracted to this kind of guy? If there is one man on all the planet who should not be able to find a date, it would be John Mark Karr. But, no. He apparently has quite a few female fans. So do many serial killers on death row. Some of these men awaiting their executions actually find women on the outside to marry. Scott Peterson, convicted of murdering his wife and unborn child, was on death row scarcely an hour when his first marriage proposal came in. His first day at the prison, the warden received three dozen phone calls from female admirers, asking for his mailing address. (I know a lot of you old timers are thinking to yourself "Back in my day, the serial killers and mass murderers asked the women to marry them, not the other way around!" Yes, things change and this younger generation has no respect for the old ways.)
Let's say that you are some lonely woman and you strike up a "relationship" with a murderer on death row and eventually marry the guy. How does that work? When you go to Wal-Mart and do your bridal registry, what does that look like? "Cartons of smokes (good for bartering), Dull-tipped knife sets (will pass through security check but can later be sharpened down and used as a shank), Balloons, small (useful for smuggling in drugs)"? And after you tie the knot, do you show your friends of pictures of yourself in a lei when you honeymoon all by yourself in Hawaii? When people ask you "What does your husband do?" do you answer "Time"? And what if one day he gets released and he is no longer the scandalous but distant bad boy who gives you notoriety and attention, but is the ex-con sleeping under your roof? He killed a whole bunch of people to earn that trip to death row and being confined in a ten by ten cell for the past twenty years hasn't exactly afforded him much opportunity to develop healthy interpersonal skills. So, you do what any good wife would do and try to get him sent back to prison. Send him to the store for a pack of cigarettes and tell him to rob the place while he's out. If he gets away with it, you get free cigarettes and maybe some Choc-O-Diles. If he gets killed or (better yet) sent back to prison, you are safe while still holding onto that air of notoriety. It's a real win-win.
But what if things don't work out between you two when he gets released from jail? If you decide to file for divorce, what sort of argument could you make to the judge? "He's just not the man I married? He's cold and emotionally distant? He doesn't show me that he loves me often enough?" Helloooooooo. You married a serial killer!
What are these women thinking?!
To be continued...
