The Long Island Serial Killer, a man whose alleged hobby was turning quiet coastal communities into impromptu graveyards, has been sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in a concrete box. The verdict landed like a rancid oyster in a fine dining establishment satisfying but causing indigestion upon reflection. Rex Heuermann, 61, a portly architect with a penchant for collecting human remains, now faces a future of prison slop and regret.
Meanwhile, across the pond, British police forces have reportedly been studying the FBI’s cold case methodology with the fervour of a connoisseur examining a rare vintage. One can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from Scotland Yard’s filing cabinets, groaning under decades of unsolved mysteries. The bureau’s approach to these antiquated horrors apparently involves a heady cocktail of genetic genealogy, data mining, and what I can only assume is a bit of voodoo involving a chicken bone and a pin.
The Met, never ones to miss a trick, are now apparently sending their finest on secondment to Quantico to learn the dark arts. I imagine them sitting in a darkened room, staring at a whiteboard covered in string and photographs, whispering ‘Tell us about the body in the boot, Clarice.’ It is a truth universally acknowledged that a serial killer in possession of a large mustang must be in want of a life sentence.
And so it has come to pass. But let us not forget the victims, those forgotten souls whose whispers are only now being heard. The press release from the FBI boasted of a ‘holistic and multidisciplinary approach’ which is bureaucrat-speak for ‘we stopped losing the evidence.
’ The British force, with its traditional reserve, is absorbing this like a sponge at a garden party. One can only hope they have the good sense to ignore the American habit of holding press conferences in front of a row of flags. The real question is: will this transatlantic collaboration yield results, or will it simply be another excuse for a taxpayer-funded junket?
I suspect the latter, but let us not be cynical. After all, what could possibly go wrong when you let a former colonial power teach the motherland how to catch criminals? It is a beautiful, terrible irony.
The lesson from across the pond is clear: never give up, even when the trail is as cold as a witch’s teat. The FBI’s cold case unit has become a beacon of hope, a lighthouse for the lost. Now, if only they could solve the mystery of why my gin and tonic tastes like regret this morning.
But that, dear readers, is a case even the FBI might struggle with.
