Well this was not precisely what I wanted to read over my cup of tea this morning. In a nutshell,
An aspiring horror novelist was arrested after police discovered his girlfriend’s torso in his closet, a leg in the refrigerator and bones in a cereal box, the city prosecutor’s spokesman said Thursday.
Nearby they found the draft of a novel titled “Cannibalistic Instincts,” said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
Read the article if you want the grittier details. This is the second such article I’ve read in the last several months. I already commented on the first one here, where a Polish author was convicted earlier this year of a murder he evidently wrote about verbatim.
The whole thing is kind of creepy. I mean I’ve heard of authors doing some odd things in the name of research. One author I’ve corresponded with was going to see how much damage a stick of dynamite would do to a cinderblock wall, but the police intervened before she found out. I can’t think of what the strangest thing I’ve ever done in the name of research for a book. Most of my research has been limited to books and articles and finding people to interview about various professions or ask questions. I’ve certainly never committed murder to see what it’s like. As much time as I have to spend crawling around in my antagonists’ head (which often leaves me wanting to take a shower and dump a gallon of soap in my brain), I cannot fathom someone actually committing murder in the name of research. It makes me think of Stephen King’s The Secret Window. I’ve never read the book, but saw the movie and Johnny Depp does a fabulous job as always. Creepy. Of course it could be that these men (though I suppose there could be women, even though the vast vast majority of murders are committed by men), commit the murders and then are sufficiently fascinated enough that they want to write about it, or in the case of the Polish guy, gloat about the “perfect murder”. I could believe that. Because it’s usually stupidity or arrogance that gets a murderer caught. Naturally, I immediately turn my brain to how I could use this in a story someday…