PRISONER EXPRESS

The first time I noticed these cops, they had somehow scrounged up a few minutes on a morning kaffee-klatch show to talk about (gasp!) serial killers. (Normally I don't waste much time watching cops "put their bang down," but the extreme length of commercials and the high speed of the remote lets us monitor all the channels at once. Also, movement of the story line is slow and often repeated due to the low education and short attention spans of youth. These two conditions also assist the alert and intelligent in gathering much information quickly.) These cops' stories were mildly interesting because they were selling the idea that up to 40 persons in widely scattered locations had been murdered one at a time, by drowning, over the course of a year or two. The victims were all male, all college-age, all had been drinking at parties, and all had been near water.

Apparently, there are a lot of people who watch TV to enjoy the illusion of being Sherlock Holmes-type "sleuths." I'm not one of them. Why some foolish kid got himself killed, particularly by drinking and swimming, is of minimal or no interest to me. Rather than entertaining, I find it annoying that this type of sensory pollution is clogging up the airwaves. I knew, or had hoped, that a couple of job-hunting cops couldn't get on TV merely because they fiddled with their crime computer until it spat out a list of deaths that fulfilled whatever parameters they'd typed in.

No, that wasn't the case, but the truth was even more annoying. When I heard and saw their gimmick, I nodded sagely to myself, thinking, "These two goofs are one-shot wonders. I'll never have to see their pious mugs on TV again, because they and the kaffeeklatch "klan" (the "M and J Show") have seriously overestimated the stupidity of their audience." These cops wanted to vend the ridiculous notion that a "gang" of serial killers was operating in a multi-state area and was taunting the poor, over-worked detectives by marking some of their murders with "smiley faces" somewhere in the general vicinity of where these cops supposed some of these corpses were tossed in the water. Their premise was so nebulous and counter to human psychology that it made me wonder if they'd invented it while inebriated.

The primary objection is that these cops, whether they knew it or not, were initiating a 180-degree switch from the primary characteristic that cops and psychiatrists have been selling--er, profiling--since the "study" of serial killers began. In short, 40 years of study has told them that serial killers are people-hating, psychopathic "loners" who do not work in gangs. The cops would have had an easier sale of their product by speculating the usual satanic cult, or concocting a new, more scary, outrageous cult than trying to buck proven statistical trends.

This is what I kept expecting them to theorize, but they didn't even put in a drug connection. Apparently they expected to limp on by with only the one breathless theme: "sneaky murder-gang drowns young, white, drinker/swimmers just to piss off cops!" Lame as this was, it sold beautifully. These two cops were able to parley their carnivalesque attraction into two more TV appearances on more serious venues, one in prime time. Meanwhile, the serial killer cop from Illinois, Drew Peterson, still runs loose. He cleverly killed his first wife years ago with the help of his pal, the medical examiner. Her head got bashed in and her lungs were dry, but just put the corpse in a dry bathtub and suddenly she drowned too! His second wife vanished months ago, leaving this monster her kids, after suffering abuse herself, the same day she was going to ask for a divorce and the same day she told Mom and friend, "If I disappear, hubby killed me." Somehow the cops are baffled. They just can't connect these dots, even after they dug up the first wife's corpse and got an honest coroner to uncover the poorly staged murder. Cops know all about how to murder and escape all consequence. And they get better with practice. Plus, the killer-cop's cronies don't want him to get caught. This is why they'll never find second-wife's corpse. Not a single cop will whisper the obvious or go check the cop-dog kennel. Wife two is just laying there in plain sight, after squeezing out of these dogs' butts. The trouble is, only cops can visit the cop-dog kennel, and they're not saying even if they do see.

Digging deeper, we find that cops learn throughout their careers how to make crime pay by studying, and sometimes imitating, the criminals that they are sent to chase. Peterson no doubt was caught by his cop-cronies, who worked with him every day, knew by his deeds how scurrilous he is, heard him complain about his wives, saw him control and abuse them, yet chose to say nothing. The coroner wasn't stupid either. Cops and coroners are work-cozy. The coroner knew the gossip about Peterson, probably bought all the slut-stories Peterson vended about wife one, probably wasn't so incompetent that he failed to correctly perform the lung-water/blood-oxygen test, and, for friend's sake, lied on the death certificate about the cause of death. Most importantly, he, as a matter of professional pride, could not resist telling the only real suspect in her death, "You're not fooling me, Peterson, but I only know your wife through what you've told me or I've heard from our mutual pals, and I thus hate her too. Plus, you're a coworker and thus a "friend" and I can't be absolutely positive that you killed her though this is the obvious, statistically correct conclusion. So, I'm going to just turn my head, pretend I don't know anything, be silent, and not do the right thing. In fact, for no discernable reason, I'll even protect you by lying about the cause of death. But this is the only time I'll do this, so don't try to kill anyone else on my watch!"

Just a wink and a sideways glance is all it took for Peterson to realize, "Good God! The damned coroner can send me to prison. Next time nobody knows! Next time there's not going to be a corpse! No corpse, no blackmail, no prison!"

Whether it's killing your wives or just starting new careers as super cops, cashing in on selling sensationalist pap and fearful titillation to the TV rubes, there is always going to be somebody who digs a little deeper. Somebody finally got tired of seeing Peterson smirk his way through TV interviews telling his ridiculous story of "she ran away with another man." All cops collect illegal guns, and today they suckered him down to the cop-cave to answer a gun charge. I hope it's a one-way trip, but it won't be. Even though his co-criminal, the obliging coroner, has no doubt snitched on him by now. The two New York cops have not yet been laughed off the stage, but there is hope that they will be, soon. Even better will be when somebody who knows them digs a little deeper, into their garages perhaps. They will find some of the spray paint that was used to draw some of their smiley faces. Another bane of cops recently is cop-camera footage. Maybe these two glory-chasing, out-of-work cops will be seen on tape "linking" more smiley faces to their 40 carefully selected drink-drowning. Give these arrogant shits enough TV time, then cut them off cold turkey. I guarantee you that their murder-linking spree will grow and spread until such a tape is made. The tales of smiley-face gangs of serial killers will vanish off TV, and these insipid cops will be digging deeper...for a place to hide!