Murder is horrendous in any circumstances, but there's something particularly gruesome about unsolved murders, especially those that go back years, because of the pictures they wheel out.
This story is dragging up all kinds of cold cases. I remember the photos of Genette Tate in the papers and on TV after she disappeared while out on an errand for her mother in the late Seventies. Seeing the picture of her abandoned bike in a country lane I worried that I might be abducted while out on my paper round. It didn't, but it's stayed with me.
Now she's known to us all by just one photograph. Possibly a school one. Like the ones of Lesley Moleseed and even Jill Dando, it's frozen in time.
Wouldn't it be awful to know that as you're sitting there smiling having your picture taken by the school photographer, or by your dad or a friend, this particular photograph will be the one that will make you famous. Everyone will instantly recognise you - because of your murder.
It's a chilling thought.
4 comments:
I remember Genette Tate's disappearance really well too, F-C. I didn't appreciate how very, very young and fresh-faced she was until seeing that picture many years later - she was only a little bit older than me at the time.
I also seem to remember that there were some nasty, salacious stories printed about her a few months after she vanished, and even back then thinking how upset that must have made her parents.
With you 100% on this one F-C.
Those old photos are truly haunting - the grainy 1960s/70s ones even more so. It is especially disturbing when you maybe get a newspaper or magazine article where the've collected together all those photos of those murdered by a serial killer (eg the Yorkshire Ripper).
And imagine the families. Hunting for photographs goes from a happy experience to one of complete horror. That horror than leads to a kind of limbo for the rest of their lives with, in many cases, no closure. It must be horrific.
You're bang on and I also find the same with World War soldier photos
(particularly WW1)
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