Harold Schechter > Quotes

“It makes perfect sense that if human beings are raised in warm, loving households; if they are brought up to believe that the world is a secure and decent place, then they will grow up with a healthy relationship toward themselves and other people. - able to give love freely and receive it in return. Conversely, if a person is severely mistreated from his earliest years, subjected to constant psychological and physical abuse, he or she will grow up with a malignant view of life. To such a person, the world is a hateful place where all human relationships are based, not on love and respect, but on power, suffering, and humiliation.”
― Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

“Fish had already told both Wertham and Detective King that, in addition to shoving needles inside his body, he liked to soak pieces of cotton in alcohol, cram them up his rectum, and set fire to them.”
― Harold Schechter, Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer

“In comparing Belle to Jack the Ripper as a murderer driven by bloodlust and employing a signature MO, this anonymous expert accurately identified her as the type of homicidal maniac for which no name had yet been coined: what a later age would call a serial killer.”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“Religion in its fanatic state may be a passion devoid of morality that will take any means to an end.”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“this person saw Mrs. Gunness as “a maniac of the much-dreaded type that includes the White Chapel murderer.” It is “not money” that drives such killers “but the constantly growing appetite for blood, to cut deep and watch the blood flow, to dabble the hands in it, to revel in the odor of it.” One “distinguishing features of these criminals is their invariable use of the same methods in every case. Mrs. Gunness decapitated every one of her victims. In every case she severed the limbs. Always there was the maximum of mutilation.”[9]”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“No, sir!” cried Maxson, clearly incensed at the suggestion that he might engage in an activity as effete as reading fiction. “I want you to understand here and now that I do not read novels, no kind of novels!”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“Definitions vary, but the most useful comes from the National Institute of Justice, which describes it as a “series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually . . . by one offender acting alone. The crimes may occur over a period of time, ranging from hours to years. Quite often, the motive is psychological, and the offender’s behavior and the physical evidence observed at the crime scenes will reflect sadistic, sexual overtones.”
― Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer

“When he died on February 23, 1902, at age ninety-six, he had broken a local longevity record,”
― Harold Schechter, Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal

“She held him spellbound,” he went on, then let out a ragged breath. “So he went to his death.”[”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“disobedience, refusal to work, refusal to answer when spoken to, and a determination not to succeed.”
― Harold Schechter, The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation

“Nelles explained that its inmates “could be divided into three groups”: “those who are feeble-minded,” those “of sound mind whose delinquency is associated with some form of misunderstanding or neglect,” and “those who wrong-doing has become habitual and who are intentionally, deliberately, and willfully guilty of misconduct.”
― Harold Schechter, The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation

“British baby farmer Amelia Dyer, believed to have murdered several hundred infants in her care.[1”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“Frémont failed in his presidential bid, losing the 1856 election to his Democratic opponent, James Buchanan.”
― Harold Schechter, Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal

“Trilby’s face appeared on dolls, fans, writing paper, puzzles, and there were ice cream bars made in the shape of her feet.”
― Harold Schechter, Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of

“Lake San Cristobal, thousands of silver seekers swarmed to the area in a matter of”
― Harold Schechter, Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal

“It’s cold here; I have a sparrow in a box with his foot frozen off; I’m afraid I’m going to have to kill him as I cannot keep him in that box & he can’t possibly live if I turn him loose. This is a tough world for lots of people, including sparrows.10”
― Harold Schechter, The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation

“In other words, serial killers are, by and large, sexual psychopaths of a particularly depraved variety—deviants who can only achieve orgasmic release by making other people die.”
― Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer

“Why did they have to keep the heat on in Ed Gein’s house? So the furniture wouldn’t get goose bumps.”
― Harold Schechter, Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho"

“American values as self-reliance, rugged independence, a reverence for the land, a belief in the importance of hard work and self-sacrifice, and a willingness to fight when necessary for home, family, and community. And”
― Harold Schechter, The Pirate

“Largely because of its emphasis on gore, the Illustrated Police News had the highest circulation of any publication in Victorian England.”
― Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

“In Chicago, the appetite for every juicy tidbit about the case was fed by the yellow papers, which—when no actual news was available—cheerfully dished out wild rumor, lurid gossip, and even rank fabrication.”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“Asked at one point why he had slain so many of his neighbors, Unruh replied: “I’d have killed a thousand if I’d had bullets enough.”[55]”
― Harold Schechter, Rampage

“There had, of course, been notorious murders in Indiana before. Perhaps the most sensational was the 1895 case of Reverend William E. Hinshaw. A much-admired figure in the village of Belleville, Hinshaw was accused of killing his wife, Thirza—who had discovered his affair”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“to the place soon to be known throughout the nation as the “murder farm.”[4]”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“metamorphosed into a creature as evil as any mythical Hulder: “a woman,”
― Harold Schechter, Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men

“The wayward morality of the country’s “flaming youth” was blamed, at least in part, on their easy access to enclosed automobiles, which one outraged critic described as “bordellos on wheels.”
― Harold Schechter, Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster

“set off a marketing frenzy, during which the heroine’s name was bestowed upon a hat, several shoe designs, candy, toothpaste, soap, a brand of sausage, and even a town in Florida.”
― Harold Schechter, Psycho USA: Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of

“publicly raped by a specially trained giraffe, after which she was torn apart by wild animals.”
― Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

“In our nation’s popular culture, country life in the 1800s has often been portrayed as an idyllic experience, one that cultivated such quintessentially American values as self-reliance, rugged independence, a reverence for the land, a belief in the importance of hard work and self-sacrifice, and a willingness to fight when necessary for home, family, and community.”
― Harold Schechter, The Pirate

“The mere possibility that Packer might be set free sent the local press into fits of indignation. “Alfred Packer, known in Colorado as the Man-Eater from his habit of dining upon his associates, desires to leave the penitentiary, the diet there not agreeing with him,” wrote the wisecracking editor of one Boulder paper. “A lawyer has found what seems to be the necessary technicality. It is hoped that the lawyer will not succeed, but if he should, the only just recompense would be to fatten him and feed him to his carnivorous client.”10”
― Harold Schechter, Man-Eater: The Life and Legend of an American Cannibal