Serial Killer

What makes human people do inhuman things? That question hangs heavy over America in this anxious year of school and workplace shootings. The debates are full of easy, policy-oriented answers like loose guns, bad parenting and violence in TV and the movies -- but literature has already been addressing this question for centuries. The results could strike the chattiest talking head dumb.Imaginative writing, especially fiction, has infinite potential to delve into the human heart and suggest how particular worlds work on particular minds to inspire acts of evil.

It's roughly a week before the Baltimore Rock Opera Society debuts its most ambitious production to date, and musical director John DeCampos is "freaked out" from the pressure. He is not alone. "People are getting stressed out. Sometimes people are getting short with each other," DeCampos, 30, said. "There's a general nervousness about the show. " It's hard to blame him. Founded in 2007, the BROS has established a reputation in the local arts scene as a do-it-themselves theater ensemble guided by metal, beer and over-the-top silliness.

Deb pops the big question tonight. Dexter, will you ... murder your girlfriend for me? Okay, so Deb doesn't actually ask Dexter to do it. Nor does she know that Dexter is lying in bed next to a very naked Hannah at the time. But she does imply that it is up to Dexter to have justice prevail. To be fair, Hannah did just kill Deb's sort-of boyfriend Price and there is no evidence of it so she will be free on the streets. But just earlier tonight, Deb told Dexter that he couldn't kill Isaac, who was being released from jail after it was discovered that the blood evidence in the case against him went missing.

No network midseason show has generated more buzz than "The Following," which premieres Monday night on Fox. There are three reasons for that: First, Kevin Bacon is the star, and he's better than most network television actors. Here he plays an angry, burned-out ex-F.B.I. agent with a drinking problem who is called out of retirement when a serial killer escapes from prison. Second, because the serial killer worships Edgar Allan Poe, the series is drenched in all things Poe. Baltimore, being filled with Poe Lovers, is a prime target for the Fox publicity campaign.

If you're going to do it, this is the way you have to do it. The question is, why do it at all?But John McNaughton didn't worry about that; he went ahead and did it. His "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," the Charles' Halloween treat for bad boys and girls, is deeply unsettling and very scary. It's a still life with weapons of one of those spectacularly misconfigured human mutants who occasionally blow into the headlines, make us tuck our children in every night for a week, and then vanish into legend.

The last person you may ever want to spend an evening with is Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer of boys and young men. Although the world learned what went on behind the door of Apt. 213 on N. 25th St. in Milwaukee after a would-be victim escaped in 1991, no one has ever really learned what went on in Dahmer's head. Joseph W. Ritsch, co-founder of the recently formed Iron Crow Theatre, has attempted to peer into that psyche. His new play, "Apartment 213," is an absorbing, if not entirely satisfying, work.

It says something profoundly depressing about society that the classiest person in Nick Broomfield's documentary "Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer" is Aileen Wuornos. She's even better behaved than Broomfield! And she probably could have made a better movie!The film, screening at 7 and 9 tonight and tomorrow at the Baltimore Museum of Art under the auspices of the Baltimore Film Forum's First Look series, is a jaundiced, amusing look at a horrifying subject relevant today: a feeding frenzy of cash-mad parasites swirling around a notorious act of murder.

LONDON - Even in the annals of macabre British crime, there is nothing approaching the tale of Harold Shipman, the Dr. Death of Hyde who may be the country's most prolific serial killer. The bearded, bespectacled physician, convicted last January of 15 murders, might have killed as many as 297 people during a 24-year medical career, according to a British government-commissioned report that was released yesterday. Dispensing death through lethal doses of diamorphine, the medical term for heroin, Shipman killed 15 elderly women patients from his practice in Hyde, a struggling old mill town of dreary brick rowhouses, steep hills and 35,000 people in an area of Greater Manchester.

WASHINGTON -- Seven weeks after a manuscript by the serial bomber known as the Unabomber was published, investigators say they have been deluged with thousands of leads from the public, but are no closer to solving the baffling 17-year-long string of bombings.But the authorities are revising important assumptions about the background and motives of the criminal whose 16 bombs have killed three people and injured 22 others.Interviews with investigators and academics who are closely following the case suggest that the 35,000-word manuscript is the work of a man whose profile more closely fits that of a serial killer than a domestic terrorist with a political agenda.

CHICAGO - The Chicago FBI acknowledges a lapse in failing to alert Illinois officials that its investigators found a knife in the home of a suspected serial killer - notification that could have sent him back to prison before he is alleged to have killed four more women. Paul Runge, 31, a truck driver and former shoe salesman, was charged Thursday in the killings of six women and a girl. Four victims, police said, were slain in Chicago in early 1997, more than a year after the search of his home.

Where can a serial killer feel safe? While that isn't a question I would normally ask, seeing as serial killers such as Dexter have proven themselves capable of handling any surprises that come their way, the question arises tonight. Out comes Dexter's more sensitive side, or you could say, his human side. And who would have thought that Hannah, a fellow serial killer, would bring it out. She is kidnapped by Isaac, looking to extract a favor out of Dexter before either of them wins their deadly battle.

Deb pops the big question tonight. Dexter, will you ... murder your girlfriend for me? Okay, so Deb doesn't actually ask Dexter to do it. Nor does she know that Dexter is lying in bed next to a very naked Hannah at the time. But she does imply that it is up to Dexter to have justice prevail. To be fair, Hannah did just kill Deb's sort-of boyfriend Price and there is no evidence of it so she will be free on the streets. But just earlier tonight, Deb told Dexter that he couldn't kill Isaac, who was being released from jail after it was discovered that the blood evidence in the case against him went missing.

“Are you a serial killer?” Well, I'm glad I've never been asked that. Not sure how I would respond ... do veggies count? But how would you feel if you walked into your apartment only to find your sister waiting for you with evidence of your serial killer behavior? Luckily for Dexter, he can't feel. Unluckily for him, Deb has forgotten her intense romantic feelings from last season. After Season 6 ending with Dexter's sister, Deb, discovering that Dexter killed the Dooms Day Killer, it is only fitting that at the end of the premiere she uncovers the rest of his grisly crimes.

I was not downtown during the recent disturbances, but I will take Del. Pat McDonough's word that the groups of young thugs were, in fact, black ("Baltimore and bigotry," May 18). Here is the point I want to make: The fact that they were black had nothing to do with their despicable behavior. In recent coverage of the meth lab bust, did anyone refer to the accused as a group of white drug peddlers? How about Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, or serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, did their "whiteness" have something to do with their behavior?

After yet another summer of TV busts, our staff chimes in about what fall shows they are looking forward to. .... “Boardwalk Empire” for Scorsese and “Glee” for Santana. Luke Broadwater, reporter, The Baltimore Sun .... “Dexter.” It's more than a show about a vigilante serial killer - it's about the outsider in all of us. Michael C. Hall is outstanding as Dexter, but I love seeing the growth of his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter). Anne Tallent, editor, b .... “Community.” It's the freshest, most inventive comedy on TV, and not nearly enough people watch it. If it goes to a premature grave a la “Arrested Development,” I'll be really pissed.

Regarding your story about animal cruelty ("City man is charged with killing one cat and abusing another," Aug. 4), I'm an animal lover who had my 22-year-old cat euthanized three months ago and I'm still crying from the loss. I got her from an animal shelter when she was about six weeks old and she showed signs of abuse. It broke my heart to think that someone would harm a little kitten. I'm against places like PetSmart and other stores that sell pets. Even though they ask customers to complete an application before buying a pet, it's nothing like the background check a rescue organization requires.

LONDON -- Police in southeastern England issued an urgent warning to prostitutes to stay off the streets after the bodies of two more women were discovered yesterday, bringing to five the number found since Dec. 2. All of the women, ranging in age from 19 to 29, are believed to have been working as prostitutes in the Suffolk city of Ipswich, about 70 miles northeast of London. Police are convinced they are dealing with a serial killer. Britain's tabloids have dubbed him the Suffolk Strangler.

Thousands of fliers carrying an ominous message have gone up on light posts in areas frequented by Baltimore's prostitutes. "Warning! Very dangerous man picking up women involved in prostitution," they read. "Please stay away from this man." The pink-and-yellow fliers go on to describe a man that social worker Sidney-Anne Ford, founder of the state's only outreach center exclusively for prostitutes, alleges is responsible for three slayings and at least a dozen assaults within the past 16 months.

It's no secret that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has a high opinion of himself. To his credit, he does consistently produce the best ratings in cable news.  But last night, O'Reilly stepped up claims of his own importance to new levels: He took credit for the capture of the FBI's most wanted American, former Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger.  "This is amazing that 'The Factor' could lead to the capture of a serial killer, Whitey Bulger," O'Reilly...

Baltimore's theater community got even more diverse last year with the arrival of an ensemble devoted to the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists. Iron Crow Theatre Company opened its first full season last fall with "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and the arresting premiere of "Apartment 213," a play about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, written, directed and performed by Joseph Ritsch, one of the troupe's founding members. The season continued in the spring with the decidedly off-beat "Swimming in the Shallows," which included a boy-meets-shark romance.