Sleuths Aloft -

Ed Pilkington recently attended the monthly
luncheon meeting of the Vidocq Society in Philadelphia.

They are a diverse group of crime professionals who get together to pool their knowledge in order to help solve tough cases. After the banquet was over, they watched the presentation of a case for which detectives had come to the end of their leads and were in search of some new ideas and fresh suggestions.

Can't afford a bus ticket to Philly?
Not to worry, because there's hope for you online.

The True Crime Community has a presence on the Internet, too, where it consists of a network of loosely connected nodes of various sorts, including Blogs, Message Boards, and Discussion Groups. Some of these nodes have a special focus, such as: historical crimes, identifying John or Jane Doe cadavers, finding lost children or exploring ongoing criminal cases. And there is some crossover from Fictional Crime to True Crime.

How do you find these nodes? You have to surf the sidebars or link lists of each node until you find the ones in which you are interested or with which you feel comfortable.

Readers of my blog can look on my sidebar, where you will find The Rap Sheet blog, for example. Their sidebar is mostly for Mystery Fiction, but a section is devoted to True Crime. You can start there or perform a search engine query.

Generally, the True Crime Community maintains pleasant relations with professionals in the field, including detectives, reporters, and even some TV producers. It's not a conspiracy, but, sometimes, they consult a bit back and forth.

Every criminal case that gets publicity attracts some crazies. And the more the case is publicized, the more crazies it seems to attract. In the JonBenet Ramsey Case, you may remember, a guy stepped forward to give a false confession. That's not so unusual either. Strangely, serial killers seem to attract marriage proposals from infatuated fans. Sometimes you have to try to keep the situation in perspective; sometimes you may need to step away from it and get some fresh air.

The trial of Amanda Knox has attracted a much higher number of crazies than usual. Just why this has happened could be debated. I speculate it may be because of the Halloween backdrop of concealed identities which included the iconic Scream Mask from a well known teen movie franchise.

Regardless of why this has happened, I am appalled at the mistreatment of reporters that's been going on. Reporters and discussion groups covering that case have been threatened, harassed, and defamed. The people who have been engaging in this feral behavior belong in jail, in my opinion.

Please be courteous to members of the True Crime Community on the Internet. Remember: no one is forcing you to read their discourse. You can change the TV channel and you can change the web sites you read.

I don't update my sidebar links often
enough. I think I should try to do better on that.

:: The Guardian :: Pilkington ::

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