The Gangs of Toronto and the Call For Reform

Downtown Toronto 1857 — Looking North Up York Street from King to Osgood Hall at Queen Street

The political dynamics of Toronto of the 1850s were radically different from those of the 1830s.  The old Family Compact-Tory-Reform issues had faded in the 1840s, despite the occasional flare-ups like the Rebellion Losses Bill riots.  Mackenzie, once a fugitive from the hangman, had returned to Toronto and lived out the rest of his life in relatively docile retirement on Bond Street.  Change in Toronto began to take a form beyond the context of municipal partisan politics.  

Toronto essentially remained a large trading village until 1850.  But with British abandonment of colonial trade protection policies and the collapse of the imperial trading route through Montreal and the St. Lawrence, Toronto found itself looking towards the Erie Canal and New York.  In 1853 the first railroad in Toronto went into service.  By 1856 there were three railways and Toronto was connected to the US networks.  The mere existence of the railways lead to a huge manufacturing industry for rails, railway stock and engines, apart from the rise of factories manufacturing goods to put on those trains.   

The ethnic balance within Toronto’s mostly British stock was destabilized by the 1850s.  The population of Toronto swelled from 23,000 in 1848 to 30,000 by 1850 as a result of mostly Irish Catholic peasant refugees escaping the ongoing famine.  The new Irish presence was not warmly welcomed in Toronto.  Many arrived in Toronto under the most horrendous circumstances, and Toronto authorities did everything possible that they not remain in the city.  Larratt Smith, a rising young city lawyer wrote his relatives back in England about the Irish immigrants in Toronto:

They arrive here to the extent of about 300 to 600 by any steamer.  The sick are immediately sent to the hospital which had been given up to them entirely and the healthy are fed and allowed to occupy the Immigrant Sheds for 24 hours; at the expiration of this time, they are obliged to keep moving, their rations are stopped and if they are found begging are imprisoned at once.  Means of conveyance are provided by the Corporation to take them off at once to the country, and they are accordingly carried off “willy nilly” some 16 or 20 miles, North, South, East & West and quickly put down, leaving the country to support them by giving them employment…John Gamble advertised for 50 for the Vaughn plank road, and hardly were the placards out, than the Corporation bundled 500 out and set them down…The hospitals contain over 600 and besides the sick and convalescent, we have hundreds of widows and orphans to provide for.

From 1841 to 1848 the percentage of Catholics in Toronto rose from 17 to 25 percent.  The new Irish immigrants were a tougher and more volatile people, hardened by the brutal life they experienced in Ireland.  They were the source of some of Upper Canada’s first violent labour unrest, rioting on the Welland Canal dig where many were employed at a subsistence wage. Some of the first big mob sectarian clashes in Ontario between the Protestant Orange and Catholic Green unfolded in the Niagara region around the canal construction during the 1840s. 

As Toronto began to gradually nudge its way towards industrialization, many of the new Irish immigrants began to settle in the city seeking out unskilled employment. Although these types of statistics are not available for the early 1850s, those nearing the end of the decade and early 1860s give us a glimpse of Irish urbanization.  According to a Toronto Catholic Archdiocese census in the early 1860s, forty-five percent of Toronto’s Catholics were unskilled labourers.  The Irish, both Catholic and Protestant, also represented 67.3 percent of all arrests in 1858.  Irish women, in 1860, corresponded to 84.4 percent of all female arrests, despite the fact that Irish composed a little over 25 percent of Toronto’s total population.

Parallel to this, we begin to see emerging riots and clashes between Orange Protestant and Green Catholic factions increasingly displace the old Reformer vs. Tory brawls.  Between 1852 and 1858, six major riots between Protestant and Catholic militants unfolded in Toronto.  The city’s Orange-dominated constabulary was of little help in quelling these disorders with any semblance of impartiality.

 The 1850s would witness the first union organizing of unskilled workers as well as increasing militancy from skilled trade unions in the face of increasing mechanization and deskilling in manufacturing.  In Toronto there were at least fourteen strikes between 1852-1854, a level of labour militancy not to be seen again until the 1870s.  The news filtering back to Toronto of riots and revolutions throughout almost all of Europe in 1848, in which monarchies and governments fell, must have made local authorities contemplate the efficiency of the Toronto Police. 

The nature of poverty was also beginning to change.  Previously impoverished peoples were migratory and seasonal. With industrialization they were now becoming permanently settled in increasingly densely populated quarters of the city like Macaulaytown in Toronto’s St. John’s Ward.

Not only had the nature of the poor changed, but the nature of the wealthy and those in between as well.  The rise of industrial manufacturing in Toronto created not only a new wealthy class, but also a larger property-owning middle-class, eligible to vote.  The introduction of omnibuses in the late 1840s, and later street railways in 1860, segregated Toronto into neighborhoods by income and inevitably by class.   The perceived threat to Toronto’s middle-class property owners was gradually being shifted from that of spontaneous riots, rebellions, and occasional external incursions, to a more permanent and geographically fixed source from within the city, whose identification gradually began to shift from ethnic to one of class; a focus on the threat from “dangerous classes” of unskilled working poor and destitute unemployed.    

Toronto was going to need something more than the type of English parish watch it currently had for a Police Force.  The conditions in Toronto during the 1850s began to resemble more those of highly urbanized London, England in the 1830s when the London Metropolitan Police was founded.  There was a gradually growing middle-class consensus in Toronto that began to place police reform on a higher priority than Toronto’s political autonomy from the Province.  This was clearly being felt in the chambers of the Toronto City Council.

In 1850, City Council debated the viability of establishing a nightwatch no less than five times, but postponed any final decision.  There is some evidence, that like in Detroit, downtown businesses in Toronto were beginning to finance their own private nightwatch.  City Council debated appointing that watch as special constables and paying them a municipal salary.

The need also to extend the constable’s individual powers was evident as City Council called on:

A law to extend the power of Constable in making arrests of parties guilty of breaking the peace on the authority of persons not magistrates who shall give the constables sureties to appear and prosecute the accused parties before the police magistrates.

The City wanted police magistrates to be granted:

            Powers to suppress bawdy houses and to register Gambling Houses.

Power to make byelaws [sic] for the purpose of regulating Boarding houses and for the summary punishment of Tavern and Boarding House proprietors who may be guilty of Fraud or imposition on Immigrants or Travellers.

A Law to punish persons for using grossly insulting language calculated to provoke breaches of the peace.

The nature of these desired measures, indicate that there was a broadly based concern with public order.

Individual identification numbers were issued for the first time to be worn by constables on hats and collars.  By 1855, the Toronto Police exceeded fifty constables and by 1857 there would be six sergeants as well, supervising the force across the two divisions into which the city was divided.

Rare view of Toronto looking east along King Street from Yonge Street.  Circa.  1860 – US Civil War Era.
On the left in the distance one can see the roof of the second St. James Cathedral (1850), which 
burned down in 1849 and would not get back its familiar tower and spire until 1874. 

Some of the old problems addressed in the 1841 Provincial Commission were still plaguing the Toronto Police.  Constables now prohibited from holding liquor licenses, were instead registering them under family member’s or friend’s names.

It would be two riots in the summer of 1855 that would expose the Toronto Police to unanimous condemnation in Toronto and illustrate just how far the new industrial middle-class consensus had replaced the old Orange municipal solidarity in the Toronto City Council as far as it came to the Alderman-appointed constables.  Ironically, neither of the two riots—the Firemen’s Riot or the Circus Riot, were sectarian in their causes.

Toronto’s Fire department was composed entirely of volunteers, who combined their firefighting activities with social and club activities—sort of like weekend sports teams.  On June 29, 1855, a fire broke out on Church Street, and two different firefighting companies responded.  Colliding with each other as they attempted to extinguish the fire, it was not long before the competitive firemen dropped their hoses and began to fight.  A squad of Toronto constables swooped down to separate the brawling firefighters, who then together turned on the police officers and gave them a thorough beating.  In the heat of the moment, the constables ended up charging the firemen with assault.  

Toronto Firemen from Firehall No. 11 at Yorkville Avenue  (circa 1880)

Like the police force, most of Toronto’s firefighters, were also members of the Orange Order.  When the matter came to trial, the Toronto constables had second thoughts about the charges they laid against their fellow Orangemen, and had to be forced into court to testify against their fellow-Orangemen.  Once on the stand, the constables deliberately confused their testimony.  Reform newspapers the time, practically howled with indignation.  The Globe reported that “it is plainly asserted by those who have access to the best information that during the days which have been allowed to elapse since the fire, a compromise has been effected between the constables and the firemen, who are too much birds of a feather long to differ.”   The Examiner denounced the event as “Utterly disgraceful to the administration of civic justice, this case demands the reconstruction of the police force which thus proves itself utterly corrupt.”

Few weeks later on July 13, 1855 both the firemen and police officers, were implicated together in the Toronto Circus Riot.  A circus came to town from the USA.  That night, clowns from the circus visited a King Street bordello and got into a brawl with some local citizens.   The clowns got the upper hand, seriously injuring two Toronto patrons, who were also members of the Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company.  The next day, a crowd of rowdy locals gathered at the circus, and attempted to pull the tent down.  At first the circus people held off the crowd but soon the Hook and Ladder Company arrived, and with their company wagon, pulled the tent down and the circus was overrun.  The clowns escaped, but circus wagons were overturned and set fire to by the firemen. The Toronto police in the meantime stood by and watched without interfering.  Only when the Mayor called the army out, was the rioting halted.  Again, the Toronto Police came under severe criticism when 17 of the rioters were arraigned in court but not one constable could remember seeing the accused at the scene.  The Globe complained, “There are three classes in the city which thoroughly understand one another as hale fellows well met—the innkeeper, the firemen, and the police.  These classes are fed by the Orange Lodges.”  

Corner of King and Yonge Streets (1868)

On the 17^th of March 1858, there was rioting again between Orange and Green factions on the occasion of a St. Patrick’s procession resulting in a stabbing death.  This time it was Chief of Police Samuel Sherwood who refused to testify against a fellow Orangeman implicated in the violence.  Chief Sherwood further deepened the dissatisfaction with Toronto’s police system when in the October of 1858 he unilaterally released a prisoner accused of bank robbery.   Mayor Boulton demanded the resignation of the Chief but City Council refused to support it.  Boulton resigned in protest in November. 

In the next election, a Reform candidate, Adam Wilson was elected—the first Reformer to be chosen to the Mayor’s office in two decades.  In the previous year, George Brown was elected to the Provincial assembly on a Reform ticket as well.  The legislative climate was right for the enactment of police reform in Toronto and in 1858, the legislature of Upper Canada enacted the Municipal Institutions of Upper Canada Act, Section 374 of which provided that in each of the five cities in the colony there was to be a Board of Commissioners of Police.  Section 379 provided that “The Constables shall obey all the lawful directions, and be subject to the government of the Board…” This section was gradually expanded to include other municipalities in the province and is still today the effective regulatory system for municipal police departments in Ontario.

Historians have broadly painted the enactment of the Municipal Institutions Act as an imposition of a Police Board regulatory system by the Province upon a corrupt Toronto City Council attempting to cling to its power over the city’s police.  City Council minutes tell a different story.

In the wake of the Circus Riots a committee of Toronto Aldermen reviewed the conduct of the police.  In the twenty previous years of collective misbehavior by Toronto’s constabulary, City Council rarely censured the police constables its Aldermen had nominated and appointed to the force.  By 1855 the attitude was much different:

The Committee of Council having carefully considered the whole of the evidence brought before them relating to the conduct of the Police Force at the late disgraceful riot on the Fair Green on the night of the 13^th instant are unanimously of opinion:

That the Force did not act on that occasion in a prompt and energetic manner, which might have been expected from any well regulated constabulary but on the contrary displayed an utter [lack] of efficiency and discipline. 

The committee are further of opinion that an entire change should at once be made in the organization of the Force… 

It must be evident to everyone who had had an opportunity of perusing the evidence that there is at present an entire absence of any system of organization or discipline in the Police…   

The committee are decidedly of opinion that the present mode of appointing the Police is highly     objectionable and that the power of appointment ought not to continue to be vested in an elective body like the Council.

First, because it is necessarily more or less liable to this abuse that private or political considerations may have more weight in the appointment of the men than their individual fitness for the Office.

Secondly, Because it is hardly possible that any committee of the Council can or will make that vigorous investigation into the previous character and the physical or moral qualifications of the various applicants, which could and would be made by parties independent of popular control and who would be held personally responsible for their choice.

 The Committee also most strongly recommend that for the future the power of appointing and dismissing the members of the Police Force should be vested absolutely in the Police Magistrate, the Recorder and the Chief of Police.

In the meantime, the Province in 1856 began to consider legislation for a province-wide police force of 350 constables to be controlled by government-appointed police commissioner and two-thirds paid for by the municipalities to replace the local constabularies.  Mackenzie’s Weekly Message warned that the bill was a “new dodge of a Roman Catholic Police from Lower Canada to take the place of our Protestant police.”  The bill was abandoned, however, in May after a ministerial crisis and the resignation of Premier Allen MacNab.

City Council in the meanwhile had petitioned at the same time the Provincial Assembly to instead, “Amend the Municipal law  (12 Vic Chapter 81 Sec 47) so as to place the appointment and dismissal of all the Police Force of Cities except the Chief Constable in a Board to be composed of the Mayor, Recorder and Police Magistrate.” 

The Province finally enacted the necessary amendments in 1858, while Toronto City Council unilaterally made several different attempts at forming a Board of Police Commissioners on its own starting in 1857.

In December 1858, the Provincially sanctioned Toronto Board of Commissioners sat down for the first time and began to make plans as to how to replace the constabulary with a new police force.  On February 8, 1859 the entire force from the Chief down to constable was dismissed and a new one took its place the next day.  Only twenty-four of the old constables would be rehired on the new force of fifty-one men and seven NCO’s.  Toronto’s current police department today traces its regulatory and institutional lineage directly to the 1859 department and regulatory structure governing it.

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According to the WARREN COMMISSION REPORT,  Appendix XIII: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, SOVIET UNION, Oswald’s journey from the USA to the Soviet Union went as follows through Helsinki Finland:

“On September 4, [1959] the day on which he was transferred out of MACS-9 [Marine Air Control Squadron] in preparation for his discharge, Oswald had applied for a passport at the Superior Court of Santa Ana, Calif. His application stated that he planned to leave the United States on September 21 to attend the Albert Schweitzer College and the University of Turku in Finland, and to travel in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, England, France, Germany, and Russia. The passport was routinely issued 6 days later.

“Oswald went directly home after his discharge, and arrived in Fort Worth by September 14….  

“On September 17, Oswald spoke with a representative of Travel Consultants, Inc., a New Orleans travel bureau; he filled out a “Passenger Immigration Questionnaire,” on which he gave his occupation as “shipping export agent” and said that he would be abroad for 2 months on a pleasure trip. He booked passage from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, on a freighter, the SS Marion Lykes, scheduled to sail on September 18, for which he paid $220.75. On the evening of September 17, he registered at the Liberty Hotel. The Marion Lykes did not sail until the early morning of September 20…. 

“The Marion Lykes carried only four passengers. Oswald shared his cabin with Billy Joe Lord, a young man who had just graduated from high school and was going to France to continue his education. Lord testified that he and Oswald did not discuss politics but did have a few amicable religious arguments, in which Oswald defended atheism….  No one on board suspected that he intended to defect to Russia.

“Oswald disembarked at Le Havre on October 8. He left for England that same day, and arrived on October 9. He told English customs officials in Southampton that he had $700 and planned to remain in the United Kingdom for 1 week before proceeding to a school in Switzerland. But on the same day, he flew to Helsinki, Finland, where he registered at the Torni Hotel; on the following day, he moved to the Klaus Kurki Hotel.

“Oswald probably applied for a visa at the Russian consulate on October 12, his first business day in Helsinki. The visa was issued on October 14. It was valid until October 20 and permitted him to take one trip of not more than 6 days to the Soviet Union.  He also purchased 10 Soviet “tourist vouchers” which cost $30 a piece. He left Helsinki by train on the following day, crossed the Finnish-Russian border at Vainikkala, and arrived in Moscow on October 16.”

 ISSUES AND QUESTIONS ABOUT THE JOURNEY: 

Oswald’s USSR entry visa was issued in twenty-four hours (or less), not forty-eight hours as previously alleged.

Since the beginning, everyone has been questioning the rapidity with which Oswald’s visa was issued.  It was generally held that Oswald requested his visa on Monday, October 12, the first business day after his arrival in Helsinki. His passport shows that his Soviet entry visa was issued on October 14, a mere forty-eight hours later.  Normally, tourist visas took approximately five to seven days to be issued. This unusually rapid issue of Oswald’s visa is sometimes cited as evidence of Soviet facilitation of his entry into the USSR.       In fact, the situation appears even worse that that:  the visa was issued in twenty-four hours or less!    Lee Harvey Oswald’s 1959 visa application form is still held in Russian archives, but KGB Colonel Oleg Nechiporenko reproduced a photographic copy of it in his 1993 book, Passport to Assassination .   In the photo it can be seen that the form is dated and signed by Oswald on  October 13, one day later than previously thought. It is unlikely that the Soviet Consular bureaucracy would have allowed Oswald to make a mistake on the dating of the application form.  He signed and submitted it on 13 October and within a mere twenty-four hours, the Soviet consulate approved and stamped Oswald’s entry visa into his passport.

HSCA Report  Findings on the Issue of Oswald’s Visa:

“The relative ease with which Oswald obtained his Soviet Union entry visa was more readily amenable to investigation. This issue is one that also had been of concern to the Warren Commission. In a letter to the CIA dated May 25, 1964, J. Lee Rankin inquired about the apparent speed with which Oswald’s Soviet visa had been issued. Rankin noted that he had recently spoken with Abraham Chayes, legal adviser to the State Department, who maintained that at the time Oswald received his visa to enter Russia from the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki, normally at least 1 week would elapse between the time of a tourist’s application and the issuance of a visa. Rankin contended that if Chayes’ assessment was accurate, then Oswald’s ability to obtain his tourist visa in 2 days might have been significant.

“The CIA responded to Rankin’s request for information on July 31. 1964. Helms wrote to Rankin that the Soviet Consulate in Helsinki was able to issue a transit visa (valid for 24 hours) to U.S. businessmen within 5 minutes, but if a longer stay were intended, at least 1 week was needed to process a visa application and arrange lodging through Soviet Intourist. A second communication from Helms to Rankin, dated September 14, 1964, added that during the 1964 tourist season, Soviet consulates in at least some Western European cities issued Soviet tourist visas in from 5 to 7 days.

“In an effort to resolve this issue, the committee reviewed classified information pertaining to Gregory Golub, who was the Soviet Consul in Helsinki when Oswald was issued his tourist visa. This review revealed that, in addition to his consular activities, Golub was suspected of having been an officer of the Soviet KGB. Two American Embassy dispatches concerning Golub were of particular significance with regard to the time necessary for issuance of visas to Americans for travel into the Soviet Union. The first dispatch recorded that Golub disclosed during a luncheon conversation that:

MOSCOW had given him the authority to give Americans visas without prior approval from Moscow. He [Golub] stated that this would make his job much easier, and as long as he was convinced the American was “all right” he could give him a visa in a matter of minutes * * *.

“The second dispatch, dated October 9, 1959, 1 day prior to Oswald’s arrival in Helsinki, illustrated that Golub did have the authority to issue visas without delay. The dispatch discussed a telephone contact between Golub and his consular counterpart at the American Embassy in Helsinki:

* * * Since that evening [September 4, 1959] Golub has only phoned [the U.S. consul] once and this was on a business matter. Two Americans were in the Soviet Consulate at the time and were applying for Soviet visas through Golub. They had previously been in the American consulate inquiring about the possibility of obtaining a Soviet visa in 1 or 2 days. [The U.S. Consul] advised them to go directly to Golub and make their request, which they did. Golub phoned [the U.S. Consul] to state that he would give them their visas as soon as they made advance Intourist reservations. When they did this, Golub immediately gave them their visas * * *.

“Thus, based upon these two factors, (1) Golub’s authority to issue visas to Americans without prior approval from Moscow, and (2) a demonstration of this authority, as reported in an embassy dispatch approximately 1 month prior to Oswald’s appearance at the Soviet Embassy, the committee found that the available evidence tends to support the conclusion that the issuance of Oswald’s tourist visa within 2 days after his appearance at the Soviet Consulate was not indicative of an American intelligence agency connection.  Note: If anything, Oswald’s ability to receive a Soviet entry visa so quickly was more indicative of a Soviet interest in him.”

My commentary on visa issue: Oswald’s filing his visa form a day later than first suspected, is consistent with the findings of the HSCA Report.  Oswald probably spent October 12 arranging his Intourist booking without which he could not have been issued a visa.  It is conceivable that Oswald might have first gone to the Soviet Consulate in Helsinki on the morning of the 12th, and there been told of the exact procedure necessary for a visa.  He then would have had to locate a travel agent in Helsinki and make his bookings.  Furthermore, he would have had to pay in advance for his booking and might have been required to proceed to a bank to convert his US currency into Finnish currency ( many European businesses do not accept US dollars due to strict currency regulations — especially in the 1950’s.) Banks in Europe close early as well.  The combination of all these factors might have prevented him from submitting his application form until the following day, October 13. 
     That might also explain why the usually frugal Oswald purchased “Deluxe Class” travel arrangements.  They would have been immediately available and would have instantly earned him expeditious treatment at the Consulate.  The rapid issue of Oswald’s visa is probably more indicative of the USSR’s historic hunger for hard-currency earnings than any intelligence shadow-play.

The Mystery of Oswald’s Flight from London to Helsinki. 

In responding to Warren Commission requests, the CIA wrote that they could not identify any direct flight from London to Helsinki that would have allowed Oswald to arrive in time to book into his Helsinki hotel on the evening of October 10, 1959. [CE 2677]  That gave rise to infinite speculation of Oswald perhaps taking a military flight from London to Helsinki–again suggesting evidence that there was some sort of intelligence function behind Oswald’s journey. This defies logic. Presumably any intelligence mission that Oswald was on was clandestine. After having Oswald take a slow boat to LaHavre, a ferry to Southhampton, a public train to London, would an intelligence service then suddenly expose him by putting him on a military transport for the final hop to Helsinki?  Moreover, Finland was not a NATO country where a discreet military flight could be hosted.       The solution is probably more prosaic. While there were no direct flights within the required time span, there were connecting flights. In 1994, Fred Huntley, Consultant Archivist, British Airways Archives and Museum Collection, Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, wrote to researcher Chris Mills stating that there was a choice of two other flights from London, one via Copenhagen (08:05) and the other via Stockholm (08:50). Either of these could have been utilized by Oswald, and both would have been offered if he had arrived in the early hours of the 10th trying to book a flight. These flights would have arrived in Helsinki at 17:05 and 17:35 respectively, thus giving Oswald ample time to book into his hotel in Helsinki on the evening of October 10.

What is mysterious, is why the CIA did not identify nor collect the passenger lists for these flights, which would have still been available in 1964. (Or if they did, why were they not submitted to the Warren Commission?)  Was there a sensitive name on the same flight with Oswald?

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One of the theories that circulates around the JFK assassination has to do with the premise that Lee Harvey Oswald was substituted by another person either before or during his voyage to the USSR. This theory was given birth by J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI in his now famous June 3, 1960 memo. In it, Hoover wrote, “Since there is a possibility that an imposter is using Oswald’s birth certificate, any current information the Department of State might have concerning the subject will be appreciated.” [CD 1114]But Hoover was not referring to some sort of science-fiction replicant double, capable of even fooling Oswald’s mother and brothers. What Hoover was talking about was the possible use of Oswald’s identity papers by Soviet operatives. While the use by Soviet intelligence of identities of real people (usually of infants who died in their childhood) is well documented, I am not aware of a single case where an actual person was substituted by a Soviet agent in a way where their past life and identity was taken over and then continued by the Soviet substitute. That is something out of James Bond movies like Thunderball. 

All Hoover meant was that a Soviet operative who might loosely fit Oswald’s age and appearance, might enter the country using his identification and set up an entirely new life, nothing to do with the real Oswald’s past. Such an operative would do everything in his power to stay clear of even the remotest contact with anybody who might have known the genuine Oswald, let alone go live in Oswald’s brother’s house immediately upon his entry into the USA. This interpretation is further supported by an earlier May 23, 1960 FBI report that sparked Hoover’s original memo. Special Agent Fain, reporting on his interview with Marguerite Oswald, Lee’s mother, about her concerns over Lee’s fate in the Soviet Union, wrote: “Furthermore, since Oswald had his birth certificate in his possession, another individual may have assumed his identity.” [NARA JFK RIF 124-10010-10010]  Fain’s meaning is much clearer than Hoover’s memo with its unfortunately ill choice of the word “imposter” which spawned a bunch of wacky Oswald substitution theories.  Those theories have little to do with reality of intelligence methodology. Aside from operations like the World War II episode where an imposter posed as Field Marshall Montgomery in public events and posed press photographs leaked to the Germans, allowing the real Montgomery to prepare an offensive elsewhere, I am unaware of any intelligence operation where an actual person has been entirely substituted by another, like in the Prince and the Pauper or The Man in the Iron Mask.

Nonetheless, there was the haunting photograph of Oswald posing with his wife Marina, the only known full-length photo of the couple, where the 5’11” Oswald (according to his passport) is barely taller than the 5’3″ Marina.  This photo is often cited by the Oswald substitutionists. There it was, in black and white:  the height discrepancy was undeniable and Oswald is toe-to-toe with Marina who is wearing flats. How could the 5’11” Oswald (or 5’9″ as other records indicate [USMC photo for example] ) appear to be in the photo only one or two inches higher than the 5’3″ Marina? It is a photograph that traveled with me to the Soviet Union.

By the end of my first two trips, I thought that I had solved the mystery, and I published my solution in the Third Decade. I wrote that the woman in the photo was not Marina, but Lucy Petrusevich, a friend of Marina’s who resembled her. But I was wrong, and I deeply regret my mistake. I myself fell in the very trap that I accuse many JFK researchers of falling into: fitting witness statements and theories to pre-conceived ideas. My preconception was that the kind of substitution that some theorists propose does not exist, and I hungrily grasped at any data to support my preconception.

This is what happened:

On my first trip to the Soviet Union, one of the things I did was to show witnesses photographs, and ask them for any comments or memories that the images might spark. I noticed that several people when looking at the photo of Oswald and Marina, said, “Oh, that is Alek (as Oswald was known in Russia) with Marina’s best friend, Lucy.” Another person came right out and told me that there was a famous photo of Oswald with Lucy that was mistakenly described as Oswald with Marina. Unfortunately, Lucy Petrusevich was away on vacation that summer and I could not contact her.

Several months later, on my second return to Minsk, I made interviewing Lucy a priority. By then she was anxiously awaiting our arrival to tell us her story. According to her, a number of photographs were taken that day on the embankment of the river near Oswald’s apartment. (It is not a bridge, as it is sometimes described.) At one point, Lucy claimed, Marina snapped a photo of her with Oswald, and that is the photo we see.  Lucy said that she and Marina looked almost identical, except that she was a little taller than Marina.  That could have explained the height discrepancy.

I naively challenged Lucy, pointing out that the coat the woman was wearing in the photo was identical to one that Marina is seen wearing in other photographs. (Naively, because in the USSR’s command economy, there was not a wide choice in coat styles — every woman in the entire city might have been wearing the same type of coat.) Lucy, without hesitation, immediately came back with a response to my challenge. She stated that it was a warm spring morning when she left her house and she did not put on a coat. By the time the photographs were taken, it became cool, and she borrowed Marina’s coat. “Yes, yes, that’s me,” Lucy said, gazing down at the photograph.

Because there had to be some sort of rational explanation for the height discrepancy, other than the substitution theory, I finally accepted Lucy’s story, and regrettably published it. It was a mistake.

I had secured Lucy’s agreement to videotape an interview with her at a later date at the exact location where the photo was taken. Six months later I returned with a film crew to do that interview. As we were setting up for the shoot and I was positioning Lucy, our Russian field producer, Olga, suddenly called our attention to something strange. When Lucy stood at the same position that Marina stands in the photo, Lucy appeared to be much taller than she really was. The concrete ground at the embankment gently sloped upwards near the barrier!  Anybody standing there would have their heels lifted higher.  

In the famous photo, Marina was standing on that slope. If one takes a closer look at Marina’s feet in the black and white photograph below, one sees how they are slightly pointed downwards: one can see the top of her shoes and instep.  Marina’s right heel is raised higher than the toe and slopes downwards.  Her left toe is at the same level with Oswald’s, but the her heels are higher.  While the shaded slope is not as easily visible in the photograph, once one knows it is there, one can make out its subtle angle. The height discrepancy, however, between people is dramatically visible even if the slope is not.  That is why Oswald appears to be nearly the same height as Marina.  It is not Oswald who is too short; it is Marina who is boosted higher a few inches!

[above] Lucy Petrusevich in the red dress with Olga, our Russian field producer.  Lucy appears to be taller from one photo to the next as she stands near the spot Marina stood next to Oswald.

I should point out, that the two color photographs are not exact matches for the original Oswald – Marina photo.  There was no way of determining the exact camera position in the original photo, nor did I know the exact lens used for the original photo. Judging by the difference in the foreshortening of the background between our photos and the originals, the original photo was probably shot by a wider angle lens than ours.  Nevertheless, these factors do not affect the height altering phenomena we discovered at the location.  No matter what lens or position we were at, the woman in red appears taller when she moves closer to the wall of the embankment. 

Lucy Petrusevich testimony, although sincere, was worthless. She remembered wrong. Had I had access on the road in Russia to Volume 25 of the Warren Hearings, I would have seen CE 2605 and CE 2621 — a photograph of both Marina and Lucy taken at the same location and presumably the same date. Both women are wearing coats, and while the women appear vaguely similar, the woman with Oswald is clearly Marina, not Lucy. The ill-fitting coat Lucy wears is perhaps borrowed from Marina, but it appears to be the same model of coat, except belted up.  Probably all the women of Russia were wearing the same coat that year. In the meantime my theory was out in print with all its implications (that for example, Marina snapped the photo of Oswald with Lucy, and therefore, the famous Oswald “Backyard Rifle” pictures are not the first time she took a photo, as she testified.) While I was right that there was an explanation other than substitution for the height discrepancy, I was wrong about the reasons.

It is very easy to be misled by witnesses, especially those who sincerely believe in what they are stating. Even a slight element of truth, such as Lucy perhaps forgetting her coat at home, can lead to confirm much greater and graver errors. Had Lucy not so easily responded to my challenge over the coat, I might have hesitated before accepting her story. Had I been more patient and less inclined to fit data to my preconceived theory, I might have taken the time to search through the Warren volumes for the obscure sequence of photos taken that day. One of the things I discovered about investigating this mystery, is that one mostly comes up with repetitive, meaningless, and boring details. After all the expense and energy to travel to Russia, locate witnesses, only tiny slivers of new information were emerging, doing nothing more than giving a subtle coloring of a slightly different shade to banal and insignificant details already widely known. With day after day of this, one become desperate to find something new and dramatic and grasps at the slightest promising element.

If the facts cannot be sustained, a good researcher must be prepared to ruthlessly challenge and smother to death the results of their own hard and begin again. But it is against human nature to destroy the valuable fruits of one’s labor, especially after great investments of time, hope, energy, and money. That is probably why there is so much useless crap out there dealing with the assassination.  A lot of it is wishful thinking and my own experience showed me why.

ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS

There are two parts to the essay assignment:  the outline and the essay. The outline should consist of one double-spaced page with a description of your proposed essay, an argument if you have one and/or your approach to the subject and its significance to the course if not immediately evident.  (Approximately 250 words.)

A one or two page annotated bibliography  of six sources at least should accompany the essay description. This should consist of the author, title, publisher, city, and year of publication of the book, journal article, or other source and a short commentary on what the source offers to your essay.  Outlines submitted with no annotations to the bibliography will be heavily penalized. Sources should be current academic monographs or academic journal articles — not popular works like Time-Life Books, Complete Idiot’s or Dummies Guides, Colliers Children’s Encyclopedia, Encarta, Wikipedia, Historyplace.com, etc. Journalistic works with citations are acceptable. In general, if your source does not provide detailed references in the form of footnotes, endnotes or specific page references, it is unsuitable as a source.  If you intend to include websites, provide their URLs in the proposal for approval. 

You will be assessed on the uniqueness of your topic and on the depth, currency and academic quality of your sources.  The use of academic journal articles, many of which are available online through the Ryerson Library is highly encouraged.  If you are not familiar with academic article databases like JSTOR and Project Muse, go (run!) immediately to a librarian at the Ryerson Library and ask them to show you how to use these databases.  You can access them from home and many (but not all) articles are available for downloading in full text. A link on the course website also provides you an introduction as to how to enter the online journal interface.

You may at any time after submitting a proposal, change your approach, your sources, and even completely change your essay topic without submitting a new proposal but I strongly suggest to check with me first on topic changes. Part 2:  The Essay (30%)

Essays should be 2,500 words in length (approximately 10-12 pages not including your title page and bibliography and appendix if any.)  Standard 12 pt font, cursive or non-cursive, double spaced text, standard 2.5 cm margins, 11” X 8 ½” paper.  Pages must be stapled (no binders or paperclips), paginated, and submitted with a cover page containing no art or decorative elements.  The cover page must have:  your name, student number, course number, section number and essay title.  Essays not conforming to these standards will not be accepted and late penalties will be imposed until the essay is resubmitted in the required format.

Essays must be based on a minimum of six sources (not including course texts but seminar readings are acceptable), and should not include, encyclopedias, textbooks, or general or popular histories, or unapproved websites, (2 marks deducted for every Wikipedia or like citation) etc., as described above in Part 1.     

Paragraphs are to be indented without any additional spaces between paragraphs, unlike in this course outline, for example.  Any relevant images, maps, graphs included in the essay are to be placed into an Appendix at the back. 

The essay should have a single descriptive title or a creative title with a descriptive subtitle.  For example:  Generals in Blue:  Lives of the Union Commanders or The Architect of Genocide:  Himmler and the Final Solution, etc.   “History Essay” is not a title.  Marks will be deducted for essays submitted without a title and/or title page. 

 Any paper not conforming to the above standards will be heavily penalized.

Citations

A history essay is like a courtroom argument—it is based on the presentation of evidence conforming to rules of evidence in an expositive argument.  The way hearsay is not admissible in court, Wikipedia for example, is likewise not admissible as evidence in historical discourse.  Just as court evidence is presented in a disciplined system: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, etc, in the historical argument, the Chicago Style footnoted citation is used to lead and guide the reader through the evidence behind the persuasive discourse of the text above.

Some of the journal readings for seminars will have been pointed out to you as appropriate models for the citation style required for your essay.

Essays must have a bibliography and have footnoted citations in the Chicago style (at the bottom of the page).  Parenthetic in-text or inline style citations are unacceptable for a history essay.   A well researched essay integrating multiple sources into its argument contains on average five to six citations per page — approximately 50 to 70 citations per essay.

As a general rule, references should be given for direct quotations, summaries or your own paraphrases of other people’s work or points of view, and for material that is factual, statistical, controversial, assertive or obscure.  You must cite more than just direct quotes.  WHEN IN DOUBT, IT IS BETTER TO PROVIDE A REFERENCE.  You do not need to cite items of general knowledge like, for example:  the sun rises in the east or Elizabeth II is the Queen of England.  

Essays that do not provide specific page references in each citation will be automatically failed without an opportunity to resubmit.  Go to these links for a guide to the required citation format: http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c10_s1.html

http://www.douglascollege.ca/library/chicago.html

Why Chicago Style Footnotes?
http://www.yale.edu/bass/writing/sources/kinds/principles/why.html 

This is an example of the basic required style for citations which are to be inserted at the bottom of each page:
 
¹ Jane Doe, The ABC’s of History (Toronto: Ontario Publishers, 1997), pp. 20-21
² Jane Doe, p. 23

It is not necessary to use archaic terms like ibid or op cit. and their use is even discouraged as word processing drag or cut-and-paste editing can easily displace the logic of these citation terms.   An author’s surname and page number is acceptable for subsequent citations once you have introduced all the relevant reference information in the first citation to that particular source. If you are citing more than one work by the same author, then include the title as well.  Titles are to be put into italics or underlined.  See the above webpages for further details and formats as to how to cite journals, multiple authors, collections, etc. or search “Chicago style footnotes” on Google. To create numerically sequential footnotes in MS WORD 2007 go to the “References” ribbon and select [Insert Footnote]; in earlier version of MS WORD, go to the “Insert” menu and then select [Footnote] item.

Footnotes may optionally on occasion contain additional relevant short comments on the cited source but in general this practice is discouraged.

Bibliographies

Essays MUST provide alphabetically ordered by author’s surname, bibliographies of all works consulted, whether or not they have been quoted directly. An adequate bibliography for this assignment will contain no less than six books or journal articles related to the topic.  General books, dictionaries, atlases, textbooks and/or encyclopedias DO NOT count towards this minimum number of sources, and their inclusion in citations will NOT be considered as constituting research.  Seminar readings are acceptable as citable sources.

An example of a bibliographic entry is as follows:

Smith, John.  History of Canada  (Toronto: Ontario Publishers, 1997).

Submission of Essays

Essays are to be submitted to the instructor on the due date in lecture.

Electronic Submission of Essays

If you find it necessary to submit an essay by e-mail, the following file naming protocol is to be used:

“Last Name_First Name_CourseNumber_SectionNumber_Title”

Any attached file not using this exact naming protocol will not be accepted.

Only MS Word files (preferred) in .doc or .docx format or PDF files will be accepted. 

The submission of files by e-mail will usually be acknowledged within two days.

A hard copy of the essay is to be submitted at the next opportunity.  Indicate on the front of the hardcopy the date you had e-mailed the essay to me previously.  The e-mailed essay will secure your submission date.  Obviously the hard copy is to be exactly identical with the e-mailed copy.  Hard copies of previously e-mailed essays not indicating the e-mail date on the cover will be assigned the date of the submission of the hard copy with no appeal accepted.

Hardcopy Submission of Essays  

Do not slip essays under my door or into my mail-box.  Hard copies may be submitted to the Essay Drop Off Box in the History Department (JOR500). 

I will guarantee essay returns with comments by the day of the exam only to those essays submitted to me on the due date, in hard copy, in required format, in lecture.  All other essays will be marked after the exam and arrangements may be made to get your essay mark by e-mail after the final marks have been submitted.

Late Penalties and Extensions

Extensions may be granted on medical or compassionate grounds but will be automatically penalized three (3) marks regardless. Students requesting an extension should submit an e-mailed request to me before the deadline specifying precisely the date to which they are requesting the extension.  After the due date, students need to provide appropriate documentation relating to the extension request (i.e. doctor’s note, death certificate of relative, police report on their stolen laptop, repair bills for their crashed hard disc, veterinary reports on the contents of Fluffy ’s stomach, etc).  Essays submitted under an extension must have my written response to the extension request attached to the front of the essay.  E-mailed submissions are to be attached as a ‘reply’ to my earlier response to the extension request.  Submissions without my extension approval attached to their front will be penalized as late with no opportunity of appeal afterward. No late work will be accepted after the last day of lecture or extensions granted beyond the last lecture day.  

Two (2) marks per/day are deducted from your essay mark for late submissions, weekends included, until the day the essay is submitted to me.  If I do not acknowledge the receipt of your e-mailed essay within a few days, it is your responsibility to ensure I have received it.  Keep copies of all work, including marked assignments returned to you and e-mails of your submissions until your final course mark is released.  Re-submissions of earlier e-mailed essays “lost” in transmission, should such an unlikely scenario occur, will only be accepted in the form of a forwarded copy of the original e-mail.  There are no exceptions to this.  Outstanding assignments will not be accepted after the last day of lecture.

Earning Marks

The evaluation of your research, content, evidence, originality and argumentation is of primary concern in marking as is the quality of your sources as described above. Equally important is the syntax, style and structure of your work. Marks will be deducted from work containing excessive grammatical/spelling mistakes, typographical errors, work that is excessively long or inadequately short, or which fails to provide properly formatted footnoting/bibliography. Essays that consist of frequent long quoted passages or sentences, even if footnoted, will be severely penalized.  Be selective in direct quotations.  Ask yourself, “can this be said in my own words and then cited?” Is there a stylistic or argumentative reason for quoting the source directly? Be sure to edit and check your work carefully. Do not simply rely on your computer’s spelling or grammar checker.

Grounds for Assignment Failure

Essays which do not supply proper and adequate references and bibliographies as described above or submitted after the final day of lecture will be failed. Any written work that quotes directly from other material without attribution, or which paraphrases extensive tracts from the works of others, is plagiarized will be failed with no opportunity to submit and will result in additional severe academic consequences. Please consult the Ryerson academic calendar for further information on plagiarism. If you have any questions or doubts about how to cite material, please feel free to contact me.

SUGGESTED ESPIONAGE ESSAY TOPICS
(You may submit for approval a topic of your own)

• Discuss the origins and creation of the British

  OR

  Russian OR

  French OR German

  intelligence system prior to WW I

• How important were espionage and the intelligence services to the Allied victory in the WW I? (use specific examples).

• Discuss Pearl Harbor as an example of intelligence failure for both the U.S. and Japan.

• Discuss the role that intelligence played in the German attack on the USSR (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941?

• Discuss the role that partisan or underground organizations had during WW II in ONE  of the following countries/regions: France, Norway, the USSR, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Thailand, Indochina, the Netherlands.

• Discuss the importance of “Ultra” to the Allied victory in Europe during WW II.

• What role did intelligence assessments play in the American decision to drop the atomic     bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

• Discuss Soviet efforts to learn about American atomic bomb research to 1949.

• What role did Venona play in the early stages of the Cold War?

• Discuss US covert operations in ONE of the following cases: Iran 1946-53, Guatemala 1951-55, Thailand 1950-1975, Vietnam 1954-1964, Cuba 1959-1963,

  Congo 1960-1963, Chile 1970-1973,  Indonesia 1964-1966                        

• Discuss

  some of the

  security threats to Canada between 1864 and 1939.

• How important was the defection of Igor Gouzenko in 1945?

• Discuss Canada’s role in American intelligence operations during the Cold War.

• Discuss the role of women in espionage during the 20^th century, using specific examples. 

• Discuss the roles that intelligence services might play in this “post Cold War” era.

• Discuss the development and importance of intelligence services in, or involving the crisis or conflict in ONE of the following countries during the Cold War OR during the 1990s & 9/11: Iran , Pakistan, Israel, Northern Ireland , East Germany , South Africa , Canada.

• Produce a biography of a notable individual in espionage:  an agent, an operative, or a director or founder of a service or agency.

• Describe in detail a case study of a failure or success in espionage.

• Discuss a crisis or policy decision that was sparked by or resolved through intelligence.

• Discuss the relationship between the laws of a particular country and the practice of intelligence.

• Discuss the use of a particular technology in espionage.

• Discuss an issue in intelligence theory, policy, or methodology.

• Discuss the current operation of one or a group of related agencies.

• etc, etc, etc

Grounds for Failure:  The incompletion of the essay requirement or exam requirement will result in failure regardless of your standing in the completed requirements.  Essays which do not supply proper and adequate citations indicating precise page references and bibliographies will be failed.  Essays will not be accepted after the last day of lecture without prior arrangement. Any written work that quotes directly from other material without attribution, or which paraphrases extensive tracts from the works of others, is plagiarised. It will receive no marks and there will be no chance to resubmit. Please consult the Ryerson academic calendar for further information on plagiarism. If you have any questions or doubts about how to cite material, please feel free to contact me.

Plagiarism:  Plagiarism is a form of intellectual dishonesty in which someone attempts to claim the work of others as their own. Work which has been researched and/or written by others, such as an essay-writing agency, internet service, friend, or family member is NOT acceptable. The submission of such work is one form of plagiarism, and it will be dealt with accordingly as academic misconduct. Quoting directly or indirectly from research sources without proper attribution is also plagiarism, and it will also constitute an academic misconduct. The Faculty of Arts policy on plagiarism will be strictly enforced in this course; resulting in a grade of zero for the assignment, a report to the Registrar and the programme department of the student, and possibly other academic penalties. A second violation of the Code of Academic Conduct on a student’s record will result in a recommendation of suspension or expulsion.

Vandana Joshi, “The Private Becomes Public: Wives as Denouncers in the Third Reich” 
Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.37, No. 3 (Jul., 2002), pp. 419-435.    

Beth Griech-Polelle, “Image of a Churchman-Resister: Bishop von Galen, the Euthanasia Project and the Sermons of Summer 1941” 
Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No1 (Jan., 2001),  pp. 41-57.       

My Serial Killers

Other than reading about them and seeing them on TV, my only experience with serial killers is my two brief personal encounters with them before they were identified and captured.  You might think that is what makes me different from you–but don’t be too hasty in your conclusion… I strayed into a serial killer’s hunting grounds as a trespasser and got a bump from a monster.

While my Cottingham encounter in New York was one of those experiences that one can easily write off as coincidence, my second encounter with a serial killer made me wonder.  I questioned the mathematical odds of running into two killers in that manner.  One killer I could easily understand, but two made me ask, how many more might there be out there that I did not know about?  I wondered what the odds were of walking by a serial killer without ever finding out about it–on the street, waiting in line for burger, browsing for books in a true-crime section, or sitting next to one on the train or bus? 

pg. i – xx

The Coming Age of Serial Murder

The death of JFK defined for us the halfway point between Pearl Harbor and 9/11–when bad things stopped happening “over there” and began to occur “over here.”  The statistics may prove something else, but that is when it really started to feel  bad:  in November 1963.  It was precisely around that time, on the second day after the assassination, that the Boston Strangler was ushering in the new times by raping and killing his twelfth victim, a twenty-three-year-old Sunday school teacher. 

pg. 4

Serial Killing: Some Stats’

Eighty percent of all known male serial killers in the United States appeared between 1950 and 1995.  Serial killers between 1975 and 1995 accounted for 45 percent of the total of both male and female killers in the United States between 1800 and 1995.  Between 1960 and 1990, confirmed serial homicides increased by 940 percent.

p. 19

Who is Killing Our Children?

For the record, a study of 1,498 child murders in California between 1981 and 1990 determined that not stranger serial killers, as John Walsh claimed, but relatives, predominantly parents, are the most frequent killers of children up to age nine.

pg. 26

What’s A Life Worth?

Suff killed drug-addicted street prostitutes and left their bodies behind strip mall garbage Dumpsters, posed so as to call attention to their drug habits.  But Suff went on trial in the middle of the O. J. Simpson case; what are thirteen dead crack whores compared to two shiny-white Starbucks victims in Brentwood at the hands of an enraged celebrity?  And how about Joel Rifkin, who murdered seventeen street hookers in the New York-Long Island area?  The media abandoned his story in the rush to cover the deaths of six “respectably employed” train commuters at the hands of Colin Ferguson.  The trial of Joel Rifkin was wrapped up in relative obscurity despite the seventeen murder victims.  We might not even know his name if an episode of Seinfeld had not made it a butt of jokes.

For the press covering serial murder these days it is not the sheer number of snuffed-out lives that count, but their status or visible credit rating–the trade-off comes in at around one SUV in the garage for every five dead hookers in the Dumpster.

pg. 41

The New of Sadism

It is interesting to note that while so many medical, psychiatric, sexual, and philosophical terms refer to ancient Greek gods or Roman-era Latin expressions, sadism is entirely a modern term, taking its name for a late-eighteenth-century persona:  the Marquis de Sade.

pg. 67

A Real American Psycho “The Only Ph.D. in Serial Murder” Bundy was so organized that the police never located the crime scenes where his first seventeen victims were actually killed.  Six of his victims remain missing to this day. Bundy referred to himself as “the only Ph.D. in serial murder.”  

What serial killers from Jack the Ripper to the Boston Strangler are to “then,” Ted Bundy is to “now.”  He is the American psycho:  the very essence of both fact and myth in a simultaneous representation of everything we know and think we know the new breed of serial killers are.  Bundy is special because he was attractive, educated and like us–that is, those of us who represent some kind of middle-class aspirations linked to the promise held out by our belief in a college education and hard work.

pg. 102

“California Apocalypse”

In hindsight one must appreciate both the freewheeling and apocalyptic times that Mullin was living through in the late 1960s and early 1970–and the role California played at their epicenter.  With his bizarre behavior, Mullin must have been invisible in the do-your-own-thing rainbow of the Haight-Ashbury hippie culture that swept out of California and engulfed not only the nation but the rest of the Western world.  But by the early 1970s it turned bad.  Charlie Manson had long before abandoned Haight-Ashbury as a trip gone bad and unleashed his followers to commit a series of horrific murders in Los Angeles before retreating to the remote Death Valley desert.  What was celebrated in the green fields of Woodstock was put to death on the black asphalt of Altamont, where during a Rolling Stones performance of “Sympathy for the Devil,” Hell’s Angels bikers beat a spectator to death in front of center stage.

pg. 150

Women as Serial Killers

So far I have been using the pronoun he when referring to serial killers, simply to facilitate the flow of words.  However, I should be referring to serial killers as he or she, because one of five serial murderers are women.  In fact, they are often more deadly and more prolific than typical male serial killers.  Female serial killers are described as the “quiet killers” because they rarely leave bodies dumped by the roadside which alarm the community.  Their killing careers last twice as long as men’s:  eight years for women to the male serial killer’s average of just over four years.

pg. 209

Teenage Serial Killer

Peter Woodcock’s prize possession was red and white Pee-Wee Herman Schwinn bicycle on which he satisfied his continuing compulsion to wander.  He rode the bike to the far reaches of the city, even during the Toronto deep cold winters.  He evolved a fantasy in which he led a gang of five hundred invisible boys on bikes called the Winchester Heights Gang.  His foster parents were aware of that fantasy and his obsession for the public transit system and compulsion to wander.  But nobody knew exactly what the seventeen-year-old Peter did on his long bike rides in the city.

pg. 252

Learning to Kill Again and Again

When disappointed in the results of his attempt to realize his fantasy exactly as imagined, the killer murders again and again, searching to prefect his desperate attempts to consummate his ideal fantasy.  In many ways, serial murder is a learning experience from beginning to end.

pg. 283

The First Kill

If indeed the serial killer transforms his old self into a new one by committing his first murder, then his second murder is really only the first murder by the newly reinvented self.  That perhaps might account for Brady’s assertion that the second murder is the most exciting.  After that , unless the killer can totally transform himself again, with each murder the satisfaction and excitement decline and dissipate.  The murders gradually drift out of the killer’s fantasy realm into that of his depressing reality from which he first sought escape.

pg. 302

Surviving a Serial Killer

One very important lesson that comes forth from reviewing accounts of people who were approached by serial killers but disengaged from them is never underestimate your instincts or your intuition.  Numerous accounts are given by women who for no explicable reason, other that an intuitive “bad feeling” or “women’s intuition,” refused to walk into a serial killer’s trap.  In reality, female intuition or male “gut feeling” is not a sixth sense.  You have probably perceived something concrete that spell out danger, but your brain has not caught up with your perception–you do not know yet what is you have seen to have analyzed it logically.  That is intuition.

Remember the woman whom Ted Bundy approached on campus wearing a cast and asking to help carry his books to his car?  She reported that as she approached his Volkswagen, she noticed that the front passenger seat was missing.  For some reason that she could not explain, she suddenly felt afraid and she placed the books on the hood of the car and hurried off, feeling embarrassed by her “irrational” anxiety.  It probably saved her life because Bundy had precisely removed the passenger seat to more easily transport his victims, but she had not logically figured that out.

pg. 366

Talking Down a Serial Killer

The FBI suggests that talking is probably the most effective and promising way to defuse a violent situation.

Tell the rapist that perhaps you and he could go for a beer first, suggests the FBI.  This is not as stupid as it sounds.  Any kind of unanticipated reaction can stall the rapist and give the victim time to set the stage for an escape.  Focus on personalizing yourself in the assailant’s perception:  “I am a total stranger.  Why do you want to hurt me?  I have never done anything to hurt you.  What if I were somebody you cared about?  How would you feel about that?”  Keep the dialogue in the present tense, the FBI suggests–serial killers rarely think too far into the future.  Do not use lines like, “You will end up in jail if you do this,” for you might only remind the assailant of the necessity of killing you.  Above all, do not use the popular feminist appeal, “What if I were your mothers, sister, or daughter?”  The assailant might be precisely fantasizing that he is raping and killing his mother, sister, or daughter when he is attacking you.
pg. 377

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONSTABLES IN THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD
[ FOR A MORE DETAILED HISTORY CLICK HERE ]

Fifteen centuries ago, in 438 A.D. the Roman Emperor Theodosius appointed the chief of his royal stables comes stabuli — “Master of the Stable.”  This is the origin of the word “constable” in the English language.   The office of constable was introduced into British common law following the Norman invasion of the British Isle in 1066 A.D.  The constable was responsible for keeping the militia and armaments of the king, and those of the individual villages, in a state of preparedness for the protection of the village communities throughout England.  The office eventually became an integral arm of the military throughout Britain.  During the reign of King Stephen, (1135-1154) the office of Lord High Constable was established, and those who filled this position became the King’s representatives in all matters dealing with the military affairs of the realm.     

Authority for local law-enforcement derived primarily from the Statute of Winchester (1285), which, although essentially a codification of much earlier measures, encompassed instructions on the communities’ obligations regarding the possession of weapons and maintenance of the king’s peace. As a precaution against violent assaults, robberies and other unlawful acts, there were provisions concerning watch keeping. The statute specifically gave the power to constables and watchmen to arrest suspicious strangers, who were to be kept under guard until further investigation by the eyre justices or, as was the norm by the fourteenth century, at gaol delivery. Two constables in each hundred (a subdivison of counties), who were responsible to the county keepers of the peace, were entrusted with the inspection of arms and on two occasions each year were to check that the watchmen were armed according to their competence.  They held the titles of capitales constabularii et custodes pacis—“constable of hundreds and keepers of peace.”           

The enforcement responsibilities accorded constables and bailiffs after the Black Death brought their duties into the economic sphere.  The Ordinance (1349) and Statute of Labourers (1351) appointed them to control the movement, conduct and service arrangements of labourers and servants within their jurisdiction. Workers who left the village could be arrested.  (In nineteenth century Toronto, there remained a category of offence known as “Deserting Employment” applicable to apprentices and servants.)