Is beheading the new black in the sociopathic community?
First Canada, then Brazil, now Greece:
Sun Aug 3, 2008 4:50pm EDT
ATHENS (Reuters) – A 31-year-old Greek beheaded his girlfriend and carried her head round the popular tourist island of Santorini before he was arrested, police said on Sunday.
All in the space of a week, more or less. Are there more beheadings these days or are we just more sensitised to the news reports because of the phenomenon of terrorist beheading videos? Could the apparent increase in beheadings be explained by the perpetrators having seen such videos or might it be that because of the videos, beheading is now considered the ultimate expression of personal up close violence – the gold standard, as it were?
Are murderers just as susceptible to the vagaries of fashion and YouTube as any other social microgroup?
Not enough data to decide – and anyone trying to research the subject is likely to get banged up for downloading terrorist materials, so I doubt an answer from academia will be forthcoming either. All I can say is it certainly looks that way.