Open Writing

A few years ago, my neighbor for a time was a single woman who probably was in her fifties, but looked younger. At least that was the fleeting impression I got in the brief conversations I had with her. In the course of a year, I probably saw her three or four times, usually as she was leaving her home or returning. The only personal details I ever learned were that she was a teacher and that she went somewhere every weekend. Where she went or why remained a mystery.

Initially, I made an effort to be sociable, but she never picked up the telephone when I called, and messages left on her answering machine went un-answered, so after a while I stopped trying. Eventually I moved away and so my mystery lady remained just that. At one time I might have thought this experience was remarkable, but not any more. Growing up in England in the 40’s and 50’s I was used to the convention that people “kept to themselves,” but even so, I knew a lot about my neighbors, and not just the ones next door. My experience in America has been mostly quite the opposite.

But now, contemporary life almost daily throws a spotlight on a family or a neighborhood where abnormal events have taken place, not that I’m suggesting that my mystery lady’s behavior had any dark implications. Almost always, the reaction of people in the vicinity of the media glare is either that they didn’t know the individuals involved, or that they knew them but did not think they were anything other than friendly and normal.

In many cases where nefarious activity is the reason for media attention, even people living in the same household claim to have no knowledge of anything untoward taking place. Probably the classic example of this was the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, where, in 1999, two students murdered 12 fellow students and a teacher, and injured 23 others before killing themselves.

The perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold had made pipe bombs in their garages, and had collected two sawn-off shot guns, a 9mm automatic rifle and a 9mm pistol that they hid under their beds, along with the ammunition. They were well known as being a couple of outcasts at school, and had literally advertised their intentions in emails and on the Internet, yet no one suspected a problem, not even their parents.

In 2006, it came to light that a $3 million Westchester, New York, home, owned by an ultra-orthodox rabbinical school, was being used for prostitution with sadomasochistic overtones. The lessee, Sandra Chemero, who operated the establishment, was arrested on charges of prostitution, and on weapons possession for having a stun gun. In newspaper interviews, neighbors in this up-scale suburb said they were surprised to hear of the goings-on in the house. "That's life. There are all kinds of people with all kinds of quirks. I'd be more worried if they were selling drugs,” said Theo Anker, 65, a retired stockbroker!

Serial killers are a group that it would seem are able to appear innocuous, even to their victims. The self-named B.T.K. (Bind, Torture, Kill) murderer, Dennis Rader, was found guilty of ten murders between 1974 and 1991 in Park City, Kansas. At least one of his victims lived in his neighborhood. Over the 30 years that he carried out his crimes, he was married, and fathered two children. He was an usher and one time President of the Lutheran church he attended, where he was held in some esteem.

Jeffrey Dhamer who confessed to 17 murders he had committed between 1978 and 1991, lived alone in an apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He cooked and ate parts of his victims, and his apartment contained a number of body parts when the police raided it, so wouldn’t you think his neighbors might have had a clue that he wasn’t exactly the average guy next door?

Ted Bundy, whose case is credited with originating the term “Serial Killer,” confessed to over 30 killings. Bundy was no brooding loner, and among other things was active as a volunteer in Republican politics. Writer Ann Rules worked with him as a volunteer and believed she knew him. She eventually wrote a biography of Bundy that she titled, “The Stranger Beside Me!”

Since the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster, neighborhoods in many countries have been surprised to find that they are the hosts to terrorist cells, with the UK being one of the most shocking, recent examples. Inside the close-quartered houses of suburban Leeds and London, disenchanted young men planned mayhem and murder. They accumulated the chemicals needed to carry out their plans, and carefully made suicide videos. Meanwhile, their parents, classmates, teachers and religious leaders claimed not to have known about their intentions.

Newspapers and TV pictures at the scene of such revelations generally show similar images of bewildered neighbors standing in the street, looking forlornly at the home that has recently housed such collectively evil and extreme passions. Almost irrespective of the country, the scene looks the same, and the interviews are carbon copies. “They seemed like such nice people. We didn’t know much about them, but they always said “hello” and never caused any trouble.” How much trouble do people have to cause to get noticed?

Postscript

Just as I completed this column, the news broke that a Korean student, Cho Seung-Hui, had shot and killed 31 fellow students and a professor at Virginia Tech., on April 16, 2007, finally killing himself. As in many such cases, there were signs of an impending tragedy, but no action was taken because the authorities felt there was insufficient cause. Typically, his parent’s neighbors thought of him as a friendly, normal young man.

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