That's what I said to my husband on the first night we heard the story of the Northwest Indiana serial killer unfold. We had both been following the happenings through the day in the local papers, The Northwest Indiana Times and the Post-Tribune. Then, there it was on the CBS Evening News. We watched the details of the story being reported a mere 20 miles north and an entire world away from our comfortable and safe family room. First there was one girl, not actually that unusual a report from a Motel 6 in the north part of the county. But then there were two, the next a woman with an address in the next town north of ours. Still not unheard of. And then there were seven. Names not yet even released, women not yet even identified. And I wondered, who has been missing these women? Who mourns their loss when they are finally identified? What mother, sister, daughter, girl-friend said, "Gee, I haven't heard from ... in a while?"
As in many crimes and horrific events the first focus is on the perpetrator.
NPR's "Here and Now" discussing "Going Inside the Mind of Serial Killers."
Yesterday's superb diary by viewsaskew, "Looking Back, The Signs Were There" asking why a man known to the criminal system was released to prey on vulnerable women.
Then, serendipitous for me, the Charlie Rose interview with Martin Amis - my takeaway from that: there are some things the rational human mind cannot and should not be able to comprehend. I get that. Not only don't I want to comprehend but I don't want to be able to comprehend the actions of what to me are evil people. Not sick people, like the Newtown shooter. I can actually have a glimmer of understanding of the circumstances of people who do horrific acts as a result of mental illness. But evil people who kill repeatedly without compunction.
But I wonder about the women. These people who didn't live in a vacuum. These women who have now been identified as "sex-workers", victims of human trafficking by WBEZ's excellent reporting. How can young women become so lost that no one even misses them when they are killed? That too is something I never want to understand. The separation from society experienced by these lost women. Being someone who would lose track of a loved one. And I fear there is a whole community of people like this that I will never, could never, would not ever want to be able to understand, living just 20 miles north of me. In a community wracked with stunning poverty, despair, drugs, and homes that should have been demolished decades ago, in which lost women can be killed and hidden. And no one even misses them.