Originally posted by David Orsam
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Pierre's summary of how the BTK-killer was caught is typically misleading in the extreme, to the point where it is downright deceptive. Dennis Rader did not "directly communicate" his name to the police in a source he sent them. He was tricked by the police to communicate with them by way of a document contained on a floppy disk which, unknown to him, identified the computer from which the document had been last saved, which was in Rader's church. The disk also contained information that the document had been last saved by a user called "Dennis" - again unknown to Rader - but, without knowing the location of the computer, that information on its own was practically worthless to the police.
It's hardly worth stating but Pierre's logic on this point is ridiculously twisted because even if you were a serial killer who desperately wanted to communicate with the police to show them how immensely stupid they were and how smart you were (something which JTR may or may not have wanted to do) you would not necessarily want to tell them your name in any language, "metaphorical" or otherwise, nor would you necessarily want to give them any clues which would enable the police to identify you. In fact, it would be most unlikely that you would want to do this because you might end up being caught, convicted and, in 1888, executed.
If, however, for some bizarre reason, you did want to give the police a chance to catch you by including your name in some cryptic or coded form in a letter then there has to be some reasonable possibility that an intelligent person could work out that name, otherwise you are not achieving your intended aim in showing how stupid the police are. If it's impossible from the letter for anyone to work out the name then there is no point at all in including it. In other words, it has to be possible from the letter to see there is a clue or code to be deciphered and then a possibility for that clue or code to actually be deciphered.
From the example given by Pierre of the GOGMAHON letter, it was simply impossible for anyone reading that letter to have understood that it contained (according to Pierre) the name and address of the next victim and the date she would be murdered. It is only something that Pierre has claimed to have identified in hindsight. He has not shown us how anyone, however intelligent, could have worked it out in advance. Yet he used exactly the same arguments about the GOGMAHON letter as this one i.e. 'What do yo think, David? Do you think the Whitechapel murderer wrote the exact adress to the police?' and 'If he had written the actual names, the police would have been there waiting for him.'
It's hardly worth stating but Pierre's logic on this point is ridiculously twisted because even if you were a serial killer who desperately wanted to communicate with the police to show them how immensely stupid they were and how smart you were (something which JTR may or may not have wanted to do) you would not necessarily want to tell them your name in any language, "metaphorical" or otherwise, nor would you necessarily want to give them any clues which would enable the police to identify you. In fact, it would be most unlikely that you would want to do this because you might end up being caught, convicted and, in 1888, executed.
If, however, for some bizarre reason, you did want to give the police a chance to catch you by including your name in some cryptic or coded form in a letter then there has to be some reasonable possibility that an intelligent person could work out that name, otherwise you are not achieving your intended aim in showing how stupid the police are. If it's impossible from the letter for anyone to work out the name then there is no point at all in including it. In other words, it has to be possible from the letter to see there is a clue or code to be deciphered and then a possibility for that clue or code to actually be deciphered.
From the example given by Pierre of the GOGMAHON letter, it was simply impossible for anyone reading that letter to have understood that it contained (according to Pierre) the name and address of the next victim and the date she would be murdered. It is only something that Pierre has claimed to have identified in hindsight. He has not shown us how anyone, however intelligent, could have worked it out in advance. Yet he used exactly the same arguments about the GOGMAHON letter as this one i.e. 'What do yo think, David? Do you think the Whitechapel murderer wrote the exact adress to the police?' and 'If he had written the actual names, the police would have been there waiting for him.'
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