The Serial Killer Convention 2/4
Recap: A New York detective took exception to me filming him at a conference on serial killers, and shouted at me to rewind the tape in front of 500 US cops.
Lainey crouched near the body in the woods. I had a nice angle back at her face, and was mildly distracted by the thought of being stung by poison ivy.
“Okay it’s been burnt too badly to even tell the sex. The way the arms are tucked into the chest- what we call the pugilistic pose- actually happens post mortem in a fire.”
The body was a rotten log. Despite drawing a blank with the delegates, I had found Lainey during my prep weeks in the London office. She was a local criminologist and lawyer with TV chops, and had previously attended the conference. Her peppy and informative screen test had restored my faith in this strange mission. She also showed me how to lure the hostesses with their free drinks by slowly feeding quarters into a nearby fruit machine. The house doesn’t always win.
I had no formal training in the shadowy world of documentary casting. But back in the day it became something of a speciality of mine. The general idea, once the contenders had been sifted, was to film a tape that showed not only their versatility, but the pitch you were shilling too. As a wannabe director, it was also the perfect opportunity to demonstrate my own credentials in that department. Everyone was trying to sell something, except the rotten log.
After the tape was in the bag and a few Cap ‘n’ Cokes, Lainey left me to continue my solitary casting mission. Rico continued to ignore his emails, and the other cops seemed to melt away whenever I approached. I had barged into their world, and in an age where a camera was a rare thing indeed, it seemed I had transgressed beyond pardon and parole.
So I was feeling a little down, even homesick, and I had a lingering suspicion that a real serial killer, enjoying the irony and looking for tips, might be in attendance.
I arrived at the best solution: stay in public view. Gambling was an option, but I remain no lover of losing what money I have. So I went for self-education, and watched the remaining talks.
And then this strange adventure took another unwelcome turn. Just before a taxi was booked to rescue me, a veteran male pathologist took to the stage to talk about female serial murderers. The difference between female and male ‘serials’, it transpired, was the age of the victims: they were almost always young children, and often their own.
The pathologist then began to praise the work of a man I knew a little about: Roy Meadow. An eminent British paediatrician, Meadow had become an expert prosecution witness in several murder trials, helped by this eminence and the authority of his so-called Meadow’s Law. The law stated that unless proven otherwise one cot death was a tragedy, two deaths suspicious and three murder.
I was incredulous. Roy Meadow was no longer exalted. His law had been debunked as a pseudoscience, he had been struck off from Britain’s medical register, and a prominent victim of his evidence had very recently committed suicide.
How could this American pathologist not be aware of Meadow’s downfall? It was as if the events of the last few years, and all the women released from prison, belonged not to another country, but another dimension. I felt that this misinformation could have real consequences: the hundreds of US detectives in the audience might have to decide, at some point in their future careers, if the death of a child was a tragedy or a crime. Cops, after all, love upholding laws.
My head was swimming. As a documentary maker, I knew what I had to do.
I had to appraise him of the facts in front of his peers.
As a man of science, I hoped he would understand.