Sensationalist journalism

A lovely girl linked me to a piece on Yahoo! (frankly, what is there to Yahoo! about?), claiming that the serial killer currently indulging his whim may be Dexter come-to-life. Fascinating. There have been three links between murders and the series so far (thanks Wikipedia), each time where the killers have identified with (or have been alleged to identify with) the character, but seemingly that is as far as it goes.

Key traits of Dexter

• he is compelled to kill

• he is sadistic, but only towards his victims (not their families)

• his body-disposal is highly ritualised, involving dismembering, dividing the sub-components, and putting them in black bags before throwing them in the sea

• his victims are almost exclusively guilty people who have fallen through the bars in the legal system

Traits of the Gilgo Beach killer

• one can probably presume he is compelled to kill

• he is sadistic towards at least one family, post-mortem

• he hasn’t been caught yet

• he is capable of using common sense

The current NY murders have been of four prostitutes, their bodies found dumped on Giglo Beach. One of the family lawyers suggests that, after hearing the content of the calls, the murderer harbours ‘feelings of anger towards prostitutes’ (New York Times). Not a trait of Dexter, and a well researched bit of journalism, showing that the murderer is sensible, and has very little in common with Jeff Lindsay’s killer.

Perhaps Brett Michael Dykes needs to concentrate on writing something formative, rather than getting a ride on someone else’s work and allowing people who can’t question something dished out to them to further misunderstand their world.