Originally Posted By ecdc I deliberate left off "Cannibal Cop" in the title because LP is a family site. And, well, yuck. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/gilberto-valle-guilty-cannibal-cob-convicted-eat-women_n_2860378.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...378.html</a> I'm curious about this, however. There doesn't seem to be any indication, so far as I've read, that this guy actually intended to carry out any of these crimes. He seems instead like a disgusting guy who gets sexual gratification from truly disgusting fantasies. Sick, upsetting even, but is it a crime? (I do think his accessing of police records is, and he should be punished for that.) I know that just planning to commit a crime can be a crime - for example, hiring a hit man. The prosecutor repeatedly stressed how this was "not normal" and "you just don't do that." Is there evidence he really was going to do these things, or is this a case of collective outrage being disgusted and emotion saying, "Lock him up and throw away the key!"
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I was leaning towards "you can't lock some one up for fantasizing, however disgusting the fantasy," but as the trial went on, more came out about concrete steps he was taking. From the link: "Prosecutors countered that an analysis of Valle's computer found he was taking concrete steps to abduct his wife and at least five other women he knew. They said he looked up potential targets on a restricted law enforcement database, searched the Internet for how to knock someone out with chloroform, and showed up on the block of one woman after agreeing to kidnap her for $5,000 for a New Jersey man, now awaiting trial." (snip) "The jury, which deliberated for just over two days, heard Valle's potential victims testify that they were trading innocent-sounding emails and texts with him, unaware he was supposedly scheming to make meals out of them. The government also sought to drive home the point that Valle was more of a threat because he was a police officer." So this wasn't just a general fantasizing about kidnapping, killing, and eating women. He was looking into specific women, using a police database, corresponding with these specific women, researching how to use chloroform, and even apparently agreed to kidnap a woman for money for somebody else. I don't know that you give somebody life in prison for it, since nothing was actually carried out... but it looks like it could have been more concrete than mere fantasizing. (I say "could" because I really haven't been following it closely, even though it's NY and all over the news - it's one of those lurid stories I have taken to intentionally NOT finding out all about.)
Originally Posted By ecdc >>showed up on the block of one woman<< I had heard the other stuff, but not that. I guess it's easy to see activity that happens in one's home at one's computer as just acting out the twisted fantasy, but to leave and troll the block where some woman lives does seem to signal an intent. Or, at the very least, an increasing inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Did I mention, ewww?
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 I always think that shows like CSI or Criminal Minds stretch it a little with plots they come up with, turns out they might not even scratch the surface of what goes through people's minds.
