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Entire Thesis (pdf)

Chapters:

  1. Summary of Known Information
  2. The Order of Aurelius
  3. An Alternate Theory of Vampirism
  4. Appearance and Habitat
  5. Feeding Habits
  6. Preferred Victims
  7. Sexual Idiosyncrasies
  8. Torture
  9. Other Known Idiosyncrasies
  10. Pre-Death Biography
  11. Summary of Strengths and Weaknesses
  12. Conclusions

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CHAPTER EIGHT: Torture

Killing can be mundane. It does not take a vampire or a psychopath to kill. A husband kills his wife because she betrayed him with an extramarital affair. A mother kills the man who molested her child. A mugger wants money for drugs and stabs a man in the back. A heroin dealer is killed because of a drug deal gone bad. These are all murders. They are indefensible and wrong, but we understand them. We understand the whys and hows. They make some awful kind of sense to us. Oxford-trained psychologist and former FBI profiler, Special Agent Fox Mulder, describes such incidents as 'ponies'.

When asked to elaborate, Agent Mulder explained that 'ponies' are shorthand for violent crimes which are grounded in reality. They have ordinary, comprehensible motivations - greed, anger, revenge, etc. But psychopaths aren't 'ponies'. Agent Mulder classifies them as 'unicorns'. 'Unicorns' may resemble 'ponies', but they are, in fact, something quite different. Their motivations defy us. Ordinary people cannot comprehend hurting others as a way of deriving pleasure for themselves. What shocks and horrifies us are the very things psychopaths seek for entertainment. (1) This is why elements of torture are usually part of their modus operandi.

And vampires?

"Are an entirely different legend," explained Agent Mulder, who also heads the FBI's Paranormal Investigation Unit. "Actually, they are part of several legends, including the Babylonian Ekimu, the Chinese Kuang-Shi, Motetz Dam of the Hebrews, the Mormo of ancient Greece, and the more familiar Nosferatu of Transylvania. Some don't even subsist on blood. For example, the Bulgarian Ubour eats only manure. They are what their natures make them. They do what their natures make them do. This is what separates them from humans. Psychopaths exhibit aberrant behavior. It is aberrant for a human to lack empathy for others, to take pleasure in others' pain. Such is not the case with vampires. Death is what the vampire is. Causing it is not aberrant behavior for their species. If a lion mauls a zebra or a shark attacks and kills a man, we do not say they are evil. They are doing what they need to do in order to survive. It is their nature." (2)

Agent Mulder's views are unique and clearly developed without the Council's vast historical perspective. However, his point is well-taken. Psychopaths are deviant human beings; vampires are something else again. If we attempt to understand their behaviour simply by assessing it as "deviant" by entirely human standards, we will be gravely misled. The analogies to the human psychopath are seductive. Indeed, as I argued in the last chapter, vampires in general provide in many ways a supernatural analogy to a psychopath. However, if we are to understand vampiric behaviour we cannot stop at measuring vampire behaviour on a human scale. Rather, we must attempt to analyse it on its own merits, and so discover what constitutes 'normality' among vampires themselves.

There is no space, in a work of the present scope, for a comprehensive analysis of the vampiric tendency to torture their victims, and I have relied on previous scholarship on the general trend. It is generally accepted, however, that vampires, whatever their possible motivational differences have like human psychopaths a predisposition to torture their victims. William the Bloody, on superficial examination, appears to share this behavioural trait.

However, when presenting specifics of William the Bloody's case for Agent Mulder's professional opinion, his partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, had an interesting observation. "Torture is, by definition, an act which causes pain or horror. It is unclear whether either of these things occurred." (3)

When asked how a spike, driven through the skull, could *not* be about pain, Agent Scully, who is also a medical physician (with a specialty in forensic science), responded, "The brain has no nerve endings. This is why many brain surgeries are performed while only using local anesthesia. Despite our shock at the use of a spike, the pain involved would be no greater than an ordinary scalp laceration. In fact, it's a swift, efficient, and relatively painless method for causing death. Though indisputably lethal, it doesn't quite meet the definition of physical torture." (4)

There even appears to be some question as to the degree of mental torture involved in these cases. The London Times and the Pall Mall Gazette's published accounts of the murder of Mr. Brian Ganning indicate an unanticipated, lethal attack where the railroad spike was used as a weapon. No time or effort was wasted in torture. (5) In the case of Mrs. Winston, her actual murder was not witnessed, but some deductions can made from the description of her body. (6)

Forensic medicine barely existed as a science in the 1880s. More often than not, the coroner's job was that of an elected official, who would testify for the court. It was unnecessary to have any medical training. Therefore, evidence which might be collected from the corpse was frequently missed, ignored, or misunderstood. Victorians simply did not know what they were looking at. While reading the transcripts of the inquest for Mrs. Winston's murder, Ms. Scully noted that, had the coroner understood forensic science, he would have concluded that the spike had been used on Mrs. Winston after she was dead.

Mr. Lipscomb had checked for rigor mortis (stiffness of the corpse). He had used this to estimate the time of death. However, there is no evidence that he ever checked for livor mortis or even knew what livor mortis was.

Livor mortis occurs when blood no longer circulates and therefore accumulates in parts of the body, due to gravity. Livor mortis - especially in Mr. Lipscomb's day - can be mistaken for bruising, which could lead an uninformed person to speculate a beating where none had occurred. Ms. Scully suspects that the 'bruising' on Mrs. Winston's back, which Mr. Lipscomb noted, was not bruising at all. It was nothing more than an indication that Mrs. Winston had been left on the steps of her mansion several hours before the night watchman had found her. Also, the lack of blood from Mrs. Winston's head wound indicates that the spike had been used post-mortem. (7)

More recent incidents with William the Bloody also indicate a possible lack of enthusiasm for inflicting much in the way of torture. Field Watcher Rupert Giles, gave a firsthand account when he found himself in the clutches of Angelus and William the Bloody. Angelus had spent several hours torturing Mr. Giles when William the Bloody arrived. At William the Bloody's suggestion, torture was halted and an alternative method of interrogation was sought. In fact, Mr. Giles made note of Angelus mocking William the Bloody for "not being into the pre-show", which Mr. Giles took as a euphemism for avoiding participation in torturing their victims before killing them. (8)

It is improbable, indeed even preposterous, to speculate that a vampire such as William the Bloody does not enjoy or perhaps avoids torturing his victims. Whatever his idiosyncrasies, William the Bloody is an infamous vampire. It is a given that he both inflicts and takes pleasure in pain and terror. It is, as Agent Mulder said, a vampire's nature. These are the simple, inevitable facts. What is surprising is that there is any evidence at all to provoke questioning or debating this subject. That alone is startling and unique. On the data I have been able to gather, however, he appears to differ from the vampiric norm in this respect.

NOTES

(1) Mulder, Fox. Phone interview.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Scully, Dana. Phone interview.

(4) Ibid.

(5) "London Times" and the "Pall Mall Gazette". 15 March - 2 May 1880.

(6) Scully, Dana. Phone interview.

(7) Lipscomb, Charles. Testimony in the inquest into Bryan Ganning and Genevieve Winston's murder, found in the Metropolitan Police records.

(8) Giles, Rupert. "A Watcher's Diary". (unpublished).