Wednesday, February 11

Mez: BAD CHEMISTRY (4#) -

Meredith Kercher Murder -

In his Monday entry at The Seattle Stranger's Slog Blog, Charles Mudede, who has been following this case all along, seems to have been impressed with Filomena's Romanelli's testimony about the strangeness of Amanda Knox taking a shower in a bloodied bathroom.

# A new writer has started a Blog to share her thoughts and observations about the case. And she may have brought a forensic psychiatrist's attention to it, too.

# What's been haunting me lately is the juxtaposition of those two photos I mentioned earlier: the guy with the meat cleaver and the gal with the gatling gun. How do such people find each other when the odds against their random encounter seem so astronomical?

Maybe it's like Gaydar . . . But Gaydar itself is a highly contentious issue. Some people swear by it, while others argue vehemently against its existence.

However it happened, the results may have been disastrous. Contemplating the combination leads me to suspect this case may be an example of Bad Chemistry.

When you combine some chemicals, they explode; when you combine other chemicals, they produce a poison or toxin. It sometimes happens when two people get together, there is a kind of synergy effect which contains an amplifying factor, bringing out the more malignant aspects of each one's personality. Each individual while separate and alone might never transgress the boundaries of normal social behavior into crime; but together, the results become deadly.

Maybe this murder was simply the result of Bad Chemistry. And do you really need an extra motivation on top of that? Maybe not. We may never find one. Perhaps, in the end, that one will have to suffice.

# There was a famous case in the US which is
often referred to by the title of the movie based on it:

Compulsion - "In 1924 Chicago, two rich college students, Judd Steiner and Arthur Strauss, decide they can commit the perfect murder and get away with it. They kill a young teenager... Based very closely on the Loeb-Leopold murder case."

There have already been a number
of well known cases of Bad Chemistry.

...