Belgrade Butcher

PART I – ON THE ROAD

The first thing my wife says to them is: “No one is coming to help you. No one will ever come. Get that out of your head. The only person who can help you is yourself.” Her name is Marija, she is an M.D. psychiatrist and has been working for seven years as a licensed therapist for accident victims and a supporter to survivors after serious physical and mental trauma. Some of her patients comment: "But here you are. You came."

Marija replied: "Yes, only to tell you that no one will come." Some of them find it funny, but for most, such an attitude comes as a shock. But that's exactly the point. That is the intention of therapy. After the shock comes the sobering up.

That's what it should be, at least.

Even my wife, however, will not so easily admit that a good number of people under this type of treatment never get over the initial denial. They never take that first step, one towards healing. They remain forever trapped in a bubble of self-delusion and self-pity. For those people, the game is over before it even began. Life ended for them the moment the great terrible thing happened (different for each person), an event that turned their psychological lineup upside down, never to return to its place.

Being quite remarkable at her job it came as no surprise when the Prosecutor's office offered her to work on recovery cases with the victims of the Belgrade butcher (as he was usually called in the media given that other names, such as Gut Wrencher, Vulva Slasher and Cunt Ripper, were as insulting and degrading for victims, as much as inaccurate) two weeks ago. Notwithstanding, I advised her to refuse. In fact, I begged her not to accept it.

The grumpy voice of my colleague interrupts me from such thoughts. "What the hell are you thinking so hard about? You've been quiet for ten minutes, and you pant like a puppy" he asks me. "Hell, I could take my dog Rudy out, instead of you. Ha! He'd be a more interesting company." His name is Krsman K., he is some fifteen years older than me, and he assumes, because of his age and allegedly rich experience in the police force, that he has the right of priority in operating the service vehicle, always and forever. We are in traffic, and we are moving from Despot. 

Stefan towards Cvijićeva and Kralja Aleksandra boulevard. Krsman likes to start his tour via the city's main arteries. To break the clot of crime. His own words.
"I am thinking how much the victims suffered. As well as how much the car stinks from your rolled cigars. And for most part, I ask myself whether we'll ever catch him," I grab the opportunity to use the same teasing technique he finds amusing.
"This is premium imported tobacco from Turkey, you ignoramus," he replies, pointing proudly to the sleazy filter tip holding a small pile of brownish nastiness. "After all, whoever drives a car has the right to light up one from time to time. What can I do? It’s not my problem, you don’t smoke."
"You could be so polite to smoke those stinky cancer sticks on your break. Or open the fucking window wide to let the smoke out, at least!" I hate repeating myself. He heard those cries a thousand times before. So far, nothing has helped, none of the polite ways.

I need to change my approach, apparently. 

"Let me answer your first question. A freaking lot. I mean, like an awful lot. Do you know how many nerve endings are there, on that woman thingy?"

"And you do?"

"Everything can be found on the Internet, my dear colleague, even such a fun fact. With all the illustrations needed," he says as his full lips smirk under the mustache in the style of an old medieval Serbian hero. Krsman lives in his own world that stopped developing and changing in the early nineties. I'll give you an example. He thinks that Tito's police is a model by which all state services should be organized and run today, just like the entire country. "Order, work and discipline" is his motto, especially if the rules of that maxim do not apply to him personally, but to all those he considers different, degenerates – (first and foremost drug addicts, queers, other nationalities, then women, though he would never admit so, and pre-teen children).

"So? How many? I ask. My guess is: He’s bluffing, as he doesn’t have a clue.

"Huh? Ah, yes. A woman's fun button. Believe it or not, that number is an amazing 10,281, according to new research. By comparison, the palm of your hand contains as much as 17,000 nerve endings, but over a much larger area! Just imagine that! How much sensation it can produce. How much enjoyment! No wonder women moan so much during the oh là là action," he laughs uncouthly. "On the other hand, imagine how much pain it can cause…" His face darkens. I know what he’s thinking about. Details from the cases.

However, his brief lesson on the sensitivity of the woman button got me thinking. That part of the female anatomy was not a random target of a serial mutilator who was operating in the wider area of Belgrade, spreading terror and fear among the citizens (far greater fear among the female part, as expected); moreover, in addition to the obvious sexual-sadistic meaning, it also had a deeper, symbolic one. I was firmly convinced of that.

The butcher wants to tell us something with his handiwork.

The unfortunate circumstances of the cases themselves include the fact that three victims (out of a total of seventeen! This figure was certainly a disgrace for the entire Belgrade police force, which showed despicable lack of capability to prevent the crimes) succumbed to the wounds and the psychophysical torture that the malefactor put them through, as well as the fact that there were no concrete traces, witness statements or material remains at the crime scenes (the locations of kidnapping and torture were, in fact, completely different and distant one from another) that could help us indicate the identity of the wrongdoer. Even though members of the ’Murder and Sex Crimes’ Department -  our colleagues and other inspectors - are diligently combing through all sex offenders within a fifty-kilometer radius, we still don't have a single suspect. That is extremely frustrating. 

We turn into Gospodara Vučića street at the location of ’Adiko’ Bank. The two of us, Krsman and I, would sometimes dine at the local ’Tabor’ restaurant or the ’Lulu’ bakery, so we know these streets very well. I am silent again (and I may also be panting, again), so my partner pinches my forearm, which makes my flesh turn red, like an inflamed ulcer.

"Aaaah! Stop acting like a jerk! I screamed at him, knowing very well that's exactly what he wanted - to trigger a reaction.

"Come on, don't sulk like some little girl. I just wanted to demonstrate to you how sensitive human skin is, even in such a relatively uninteresting place as a man's forearm. So, one can only imagine how much the injury hurts, down there..."

"Stop it. I don't want to hear anything of the sort! I protest. Fortunately for me, Krsman can sometimes recognize when he has gone too far and restrain himself. Sometimes... but not always.

"Why are you wearing long sleeves anyway? At this heat?“ he asks.

"Mind your own business." I find the short-sleeved shirts that codger wears over his bearish torso to be an expression of extreme distaste.

In my head, I'm thinking about the case. The butcher left the same message in several places where he abducted his victims. It said: "I took away a gift they didn’t appreciate", pasted on white A4 type printing paper. The letters are cut from newspapers. To Krsman, the message sounds self-explanatory. The psychopath simply tells us how much he hates women, is his interpretation.

This one confuses me. Why would he leave the message in the first place? When you think about it, it didn't make much sense. Maybe, but just maybe, the effort involved in putting it together was a message itself, a more meaningful one. The message is a palimpsest. If there is a meaning, any meaning, it is at a lower, deeper level. What do I believe it means? I think that messages left at the crime scenes are some kind of subterfuge, a form of distraction or a sick game. Besides, it indicates to me that the guy has a God complex. He took away their gift. In other words: God gives, God takes away. Perhaps the butcher saw himself as a righteous man, one on a mission?

No, it just leads us astray...

"Okay, then let me answer the question of whether we will catch him," I hear a voice that takes me back to my own body and the police vehicle. "I believe we will. No, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name is Krsman."

"You seem to think about it a lot. About him," I state.

"You have to get into the mind of the killer to understand him, boy. You need to predict his steps if you want to catch him," he says, keeping his tone serious.

"You watch too many American crime series. Besides, if you apply the same logic, he can enter the mind of an average policeman, inspector, yours or mine, in order to predict the steps of the police and thereby prevent his arrest."

 "Pff, it doesn't work like that. I'm telling you, he's ours! We will catch him!“ he shouts. "It's just a matter of time."Hmm. And what do you base such an optimism on?“ I can't help myself. I know very well this question only gives him a new opportunity to express ridiculously outdated, infantile or just plain chauvinistic thoughts about life and the world around us. He is full of them, much like the ass of our superintendent is full of hemorrhoids. "I will remind you that we still have no leads and…"

He interrupts me with an impatient wave of his hand.

"I know, I know, but that bastard is bound to make a mistake sometime. Come to think of it, it's a matter of probability. He's had a lot of luck so far. And when I say a lot, I mean way, way more than an asshole like him deserves. One of the deceased girls saw him, she saw his face! Unfortunately, her death prevented us from getting a better description. He's getting more and more sloppy with each new attack he makes. You saw the scene in Rakovica Forest… Man, what a mess! I bet he was in a big hurry.”

I grind my teeth in anger. Every word that comes out of his mouth infuriates me. He doesn't notice my rising discomfort and continues: "All we have to do is wait for him to make a mistake. Then he's ours, the son of a bitch! He'll pay for everything he did to those… those women."

He can't even bring himself to call them by what they really are. Prostitutes. Whores. I took a better look at him. I bet he is using the services regularly, the revelation comes to me. At that age, with a shaky marriage pressing him down, no children, with a successful and self-actualized wife in the house, the kind that doesn’t smell of cooking, I’m putting my bet there is no sex for him, or oh là là action, don’t mind me saying. Yes, his wife kicked him out of bed a long time ago. Now, he only has them. Street girls.

I remind myself of the Butcher's victim's profile. At least half of them - that is eight out of seventeen - have practiced for years, the oldest profession there is. Over time, we found out that they were selling their services through websites and business escort services.

The internet, man. World Wide Web. Perfect environment for dealing with all kinds of crime.

For the remaining six victims who did not have such a clear and easily detectable connection to prostitution, but we have discovered a well-founded suspicion that they solicited their bodies in exchange for money or some other material gain, during their studies. The pattern was almost identical. Those girls came to the big city from some hellholes in central, western or southeastern Serbia (considerably fewer from Vojvodina). They escaped from poor or broken families lacking in support or love.

Finally, all the girls have one more thing in common. They are beautiful. But not in usual terms of it, no. They are truly magnificent creatures. I saw the pictures, I studied their social media profiles. Finally, I met some of them in the flesh. Believe me, every one of them would make a man blush and turn around to feast his eyes. Or at least that's what would have been the case had it not been for the tragic events. Before attacks and injuries. Before trauma. Before those seductive fairies retreated into their own shells of isolation and self-pity.

We are reaching Autokomanda and entering Vojvode Stepe street now.

PART II – THE CALL

"What do you think, is it something, like, religious?" I hear the voice that I hate, loud and clear.

"What do you mean?"

"What he does to them. That sicko. You know, I read that among certain primitive tribes there's a practice of female genital mutilation, female circumcision, if you will. Little girls who don't even realize what's going to happen to them, are hurt by their parents, close relatives, or religious leaders. And do you know why they do this to them? Apparently, the body equals sex and sex equals sin, according to their religion, which is usually some extreme variant of Mujahideen faith, mixed with local voodoo-juju bullshit. Can you believe it? Girls are marked for life and disabled from enjoying sex. Can you imagine how this affects their psyche? In fact, according to the United Nations data, over 200 million girls and women suffer the consequences of this type of mutilation. It's chilling. Man, where is this world going? And the Islamists, what fanatics they are! What’s your take?“