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Westley Allan Dodd

Westley Allan Dodd

Westley Allan Dodd was a serial killer and child molester from Seattle, Washington. His execution on January 5, 1993, was the first legal hanging in the United States since 1965. Dodd began sexually abusing children when he was 13 years old; his first victims were his own cousins. All his victims (over 50 in all) were children below the age of 12, some of them as young as 2 years old. Dodd became more deranged the older he became (he wrote about wanting to castrate his victims and eat their genitals). When he was arrested, the police found with him a homemade torture rack, as yet unused. Dodd was sentenced to death for molesting and then stabbing brothers Cole (11) and William (10) Neer in a Vancouver, Washington, park in 1989 as well as for the separate rape and murder of Lee Iseli (4). Less than four years elapsed between the murders and Dodd's execution. He said that he "should be punished to the full extent of the law, as should all sex offenders and murderers." He refused to appeal his case or the capital sentence ("I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone within the prison. If I do escape, I promise you I will kill and rape and enjoy every minute of it"), and chose hanging as the method of his execution "because that’s the way Lee Iseli died."

External links

- [http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/dodd/movies_1.html?sect=2 Long article about Dodd's history, crimes, and how he was caught] Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan Dodd, Westley Allan Dodd, Westley, Allan

Serial killer

Serial killers are individuals who, on multiple occasions spread out through time, murder victims who are generally unknown to them beforehand. murder] Their crimes are committed as a result of a compulsion that, in many but not all cases, has roots in the killer's (often dysfunctional) youth, as opposed to those who are motivated by financial gain (e.g., contract killers) or ideological/political motivations (e.g., terrorists, democide). Many times, this compulsion is linked to the individual's sexual drive.

Defining serial murder

The term "serial killer" was coined either by FBI agent Robert Ressler or by Dr. Robert D. Keppel in the 1970s (the credit for the term is still disputed); "serial killer" entered the popular vernacular in large part due to the well-publicized crimes of Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") in the middle years of the decade. The term allows criminologists to distinguish those who claim victims over a long period of time from those who claim multiple victims all at once (mass murderer). A third type of multiple killer is a spree killer. The following are brief definitions of these three types:
- A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time with cooling-off periods in between. In between their crimes, they appear to be quite normal, a state which Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare call the "mask of sanity." There is frequently—but not always—a sexual element to the murders.
- A mass murderer, on the other hand, is an individual who kills three or more people in a single event and in one location. The perpetrators sometimes commit suicide, meaning knowledge of their state of mind and what triggers their actions is often left to more speculation than fact. Mass murderers who are caught sometimes claim they cannot clearly remember the event.
- A spree killer commits multiple murders in different locations over a period of time that may vary from a few hours to several days. Unlike serial killers, however, they do not revert to their normal behavior in between slayings. All of the above types of crimes are usually carried out by solitary individuals. There have been examples in all three categories whereby two or more perpetrators have acted together. Author Michael Newton states that this happens in about a third of the cases. Lee Boyd Malvo and John Muhammad are prime examples. Both are known for the Beltway sniper attacks. Serial killers are generally, but not always, male. Noted female exceptions include Aileen Wuornos, Myra Hindley and Erzsébet Báthory. Serial killers are specifically motivated by a variety of psychological urges, primarily power and sexual compulsion. They often have feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, sometimes owing to humiliation and abuse in childhood or the pressures of poverty and low socioeconomic status in adulthood, and their crimes compansate for this and provide a sense of potency and often social revenge, by giving them a feeling of power, both at the time of the actual killing and also afterwards for power-control killers. The knowledge that their actions terrify entire communities and often baffle police adds to this sense of power. This motivational aspect separates them from contract killers and other multiple murderers who are motivated by profit. For example, in Scotland during the 1820s, William Burke and William Hare murdered people in what became known as the "Case of the Body Snatchers." They would not count as serial killers by most criminologists' definitions, however, because their motive was economic. Of course, people do things for multiple motivations. This ignores the other, more miniscule serial killer categories, visionary and missionary types, and barely covered the lust killer. The above stated definition covers only power-control killers, and hedonistic killers. A visionary killer is motivated to commit their series of murders by delusional visions and/or thoughts (e.g Richard Chase). These are highly disorganized generally and lie in delusion rather than sexual urges. The missionary killer has an object, such as the Zebra Killers or KKK members, their series of kills has an actual object and is not rooted in sexual urges. The hedonistic lust killer does not care generally about the attention or the actions pre-mortem, but wish to kill solely for use of the body post-mortem like Ed Gein. In many cases, a serial killer will plead not guilty by reason of insanity in a court of law. This defense is almost uniformly unsuccessful. In most U.S. jurisidictions (i.e., the states), the legal definition of insanity is still generally based upon the classic common law "right or wrong" test delineated by an English court in the 1843 M'Naughten case. The M'Naughten rule, as it's generally known in the legal profession, hinges upon whether the defendant knows the difference between right and wrong at the time of the offense. With serial killers, extensive premeditation, combined with lack of any obvious delusions or hallucinations that would hinder the defendant's ability to elude detection after commiting multiple murders, make this defense extremely difficult. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a serial killing as: "involving the killing of several victims in three or more separate events." This definition is especially close to that of a spree killer, and perhaps the primary difference between the two is that a serial killer has a cooling-off period. They will commit a murder and temporarily feel sated until they feel their homicidal urges resurface. The time period between murders can vary between a few days to several years and will often decrease the longer the offender goes uncaught. For example, Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his second victim nine years after his first, but his last eight victims were murdered in a span of just seven months. Spree killers, on the other hand, do not have a cooling-off period and are in a state of constant hunting until they are caught or killed, even though their murder spree may sometimes extend to a period of several months. Serial killers frequently have extreme sadistic urges. Ones who lack the ability to empathize with the suffering of others are frequently called psychopathic or sociopathic, terms which have been renamed among professional psychologists as in i had hot anal sex with your mom on your bed, orantisocial personality disorder. Some serial killers engage in lust and torture murder, loosely defined terms involving, respectively, mutilation for sexual pleasure and killing victims slowly over a prolonged period of time.

Psychology and development

Most serial killers have dysfunctional backgrounds. Frequently they are physically, sexually or psychologically abused as children. There can be a close correlation between their childhood abuse and their crimes. For example, John Wayne Gacy was often beaten by his father and derided as a "sissy" and accused of being homosexual; in adulthood, Gacy would rape and torture boys and denounce them as being "faggots" and "sissies". Gacy was married to a woman and identified himself as a heterosexual. Carroll Cole, on the other hand, was abused by his mother, who would engage in extramarital affairs and force Cole to watch, beating him in order to ensure he did not tell his father. In adulthood, Cole murdered any "loose" woman who reminded him of his mother, in particular married women who were looking for sex behind their husbands' backs. Some serial killers are seemingly not subjected to any abuse in childhood, although they may have been illegitimate or put up for adoption, or just passed around from relative to relative, creating feelings of being unwanted and rootless. It is often impossible to know exactly what happened in any individual's childhood, so some killers may deny having been abused, while others may falsely claim they were abused in an attempt to gain sympathy or tell psychologists what they want to hear. The element of fantasy in serial killer's development cannot be overemphasized. They often begin fantasizing about murder during—or even before—adolescence. Their fantasy lives are very rich and they daydream compulsively about dominating and killing people, usually with very specific elements to the murderous fantasy that will eventually be apparent in their real crimes. Some killers are influenced by reading about the Holocaust and fantasize about being in charge of concentration camps. In such cases, however, it is generally not the political ideology of Nazism that they enjoy or are inspired by, but simply an attraction to the brutality and sadism of its application. Others enjoy reading the works of Marquis de Sade, who lends his name to the word "sadism" due to his stories, which were packed with rape, torture and murder. Many use pornography, frequently the violent type involving bondage, although they may also read "detective magazines" that feature stories of real-life homicide cases. Others may even be fascinated and aroused by less obviously disagreeable material. Dahmer, for example, was fascinated by the character of Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, and even bought yellow contact lenses to make himself resemble the evil character, while several killers say their fantasies have been influenced by the Bible, in particular the Book of Revelation. Some serial killers display one or more of what are known as the "MacDonald Triad" of warning signs in childhood. These are:
- Fire starting, invariably just for the thrill of destroying things.
- Cruelty to animals (related to "zoosadism"). Most children can be cruel to animals, such as pulling the legs off of spiders, but future serial killers often kill larger animals, like dogs and cats, and frequently for their solitary enjoyment rather than to impress peers.
- Bedwetting beyond the age when children normally grow out of such behavior. However, this triad which was developed in 1963 has recently been called into question by researchers. They note that many children and teenagers set fires or harm animals for many reasons (boredom, imitation of adult punishment of household pets, exploration of a "tough guy" identity, or even feelings of frustration). It is thus difficult to know whether these variables are in fact relevant to serial murder etiology and, if so, how precisely they matter. Most serial killers claim their first victim when they are in their early to mid-twenties, although this can vary, with one killer claiming the first of his victims when he was 38, and another who was just 15 when he admitted to murdering four people during the previous two years. Many experts have claimed that once serial killers start that they cannot (or only rarely) stop. Recently this view has been called into question as new serial killers are caught through methods that were previously unavailable, such as DNA testing. Some argue that those who are unable to control their homicidal impulses are more easily caught and thus overrepresented in the statistics. The rate at which they claim victims can also vary a great deal. Juan Corona murdered 25 people in just six weeks, whilst Fred West and his wife Rosemary claimed 12 victims over a period of twenty years.

Prevalence

There have been conflicting reports as to the extent of serial murder. The FBI claimed in the 1980s that at any particular time there were roughly thirty-five active serial killers in the United States, meaning that the serial killers in question have committed their first murders but have not yet been apprehended or stopped by other means (e.g., suicide or a natural death). This figure has often been exaggerated. In his 1990 book Serial Killers: The Growing Menace, Joel Norris claimed that there were five hundred serial killers active at any one time in the United States, claiming five thousand victims a year, which would be approximately a quarter of known homicides in the country. These statistics are regarded as suspect and unsupported by evidence. Some have argued that those who study or write about serial killers, be they employed in the judicial profession or journalists, have a vested interest in exaggerating the threat of such offenders. In terms of reported cases, there appear to be far more serial killers active in developed Western nations than elsewhere. There are several reasons that may contribute to this:
- Detection techniques in developed nations are better. Multiple victims of one offender are quickly identified as being linked, so the apprehension of the offender comes quicker than in a nation where the police are generally more underfunded and have fewer resources.
- Developed nations have a highly competitive news media, so cases are reported more quickly.
- The United States and Western Europe have avoided the large-scale, state-sanctioned censorship that news outlets in certain nations have, in which stories related to serial murder have been suppressed. An example of this is the case in Ukraine of serial murderer Andrei Chikatilo, whose activities continued largely unreported and poorly investigated by police in the former Soviet Union due to the idea that only supposedly corrupt capitalistic Western countries bred such killers. After the collapse of the USSR, there were a number of reports of prolific serial killers whose crimes had previously been hidden from the West behind the Iron Curtain.
- Cultural differences could account for a larger number of serial killers, not just a larger number of reported cases.

Serial murder before 1900

See also List of serial killers before 1900 Although the phenomenon of serial murder is generally regarded as a modern one, it can be traced back in history, albeit with a limited degree of accuracy. In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in France, Gille de Rais, is said to have abducted, raped and murdered at least a hundred young boys. The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory was arrested in 1610 and subsequently charged with torturing and butchering as many as 600 young girls. Although both De Rais and Báthory were reportedly sadistic and addicted to murder, they differ from typical modern-day serial killers in that they were both rich and powerful. Based upon the lack of established police forces and active news media during those centuries, it may very well be that there were plenty of other serial killers at that time who were either not identified or not publicized as well. Between 1790 and 1830 Thug Behram allegedly took part in the murder of 931 people by strangulation, later confessing to have personally strangled 125 of this total. He committed these killings as a member of the Thuggee cult, to which between 50,000 and 2,000,000 deaths in India are attributed. The cult's activities prompted a campaign against them by the British authorities in India. As a result of misinterpretation of the original manuscript sources, Behram is often considered to be the most prolific serial killer in history, yet this could be questioned not merely because the number he confessed to personally strangling was far lower than the 931 he is often stated to have killed, but also depending on the precise definition of serial killer, a definition which takes into account not simply numbers killed, but the manner in which they were killed and the killer's motive (see below). Some historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murders throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. It may even be the case that mythological beasts such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers. After all, a werewolf is said to be a normal person who is occasionally overtaken by an animalistic urge to kill people savagely, and such a myth may have made an adequate explanation for cases of serial murder when the concept of psychology was several centuries away from being defined and studied. The idea of historical serial killers motivating the concept of such myths, however, is little more than speculation, although perhaps significantly there are a number of killers who were obsessed with blood and often even drank that of their victims. In his famous 1886 book Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing notes a case of serial murder in the 1870s, that of an Italian man named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a sexual obsession with blood and confessed to murdering six people. The unidentified Jack the Ripper killer slaughtered prostitutes in London in 1888. Those crimes gained enormous press attention at the time because, although there were plenty of murders in Victorian Britain motivated by robbery and theft, it was almost unheard of for someone to kill people simply for pleasure. London was also the center of the world's greatest superpower at the time, so having such dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of such wealth focused the news media's attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. Joseph Vacher was executed in France in 1898 after confessing to killing and mutilating 11 women and children, while American serial killer H. H. Holmes was hanged in Philadelphia in 1896 after confessing to 28 murders.

Types of serial killer

Organized and disorganized types

The FBI has roughly categorized serial killers into two different types: organized and disorganized.
- Organized types are usually of high intelligence and plan their crimes quite methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They will often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. For example, Ted Bundy would put his arm in a fake plaster cast and ask women to help him carry books to his car, where he would beat them unconscious with the cast and spirit them away. Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to voluntarily go with a serial killer posing as a customer. They maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene, and usually have a good knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as by burying the body or weighting it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the media carefully and often take pride in their actions, as if it were a grand project. The organized killer is usually socially adequate and has friends and lovers, often even a spouse and children. They are the type who, when captured, are most likely to be described by acquaintances as "a really nice guy" who "wouldn't hurt a fly". Some serial killers go to lengths to make their crimes difficult to discover, such as falsifying suicide notes, setting up others to take the blame for their crimes, and faking gang warfare.
- Disorganized types are often of low intelligence and commit their crimes impulsively. Whereas the organized killer will specifically set out to hunt a victim, the disorganized will murder someone whenever the opportunity arises, rarely bothering to dispose of the body but instead just leaving it at the same place in which they found the victim. They usually carry out "blitz" attacks, leaping out and attacking their victims without warning, and will typically perform whatever rituals they feel compelled to carry out (e.g., necrophilia, mutilation, etc.) once the victim is dead. They rarely bother to cover their tracks but may still evade capture for some time because of a level of cunning that compels them to keep on the move. They are often socially inadequate with few friends, and they may have a history of mental problems and be regarded by acquaintances as eccentric or even "a bit creepy". They have little insight into their crimes and may even block out the memories of the killings. A significant number of serial killers show certain aspects of both organized and disorganized types, although usually the characteristics of one type will dominate. Some killers descend from being organized into disorganized behavior as their killings continue. They will carry out careful and methodical murders at the start, but as their compulsion grows out of control and utterly dominates their lives, they will become careless and impulsive.

Motive types

The organized and disorganized model relates to the killer's methods. With regards to motives, they can be placed into five different categories:

Visionary

Contrary to popular opinion, serial killers are rarely insane or motivated by hallucinations and/or voices in their heads. Many claim to be, usually as a way of trying to get acquitted by reason of insanity. There are, however, a few genuine cases of serial killers who were compelled by such delusions. Herbert Mullin slaughtered 13 people after voices told him that murder was necessary to prevent California from suffering an earthquake. (Mullin went to great pains to point out that California did indeed avoid an earthquake during his murder spree.) Ed Gein honestly believed that by eating the corpses of women who looked like his mother, he could preserve his mother's soul inside his body. He killed two women who bore passing resemblances to his mother, eating one and being apprehended while in the process of preparing the second woman's body for consumption. He also used the flesh of exhumed corpses to fashion a "woman suit" for himself so that he could "become" his mother, and carried on conversations with himself in a falsetto voice. After his arrest he was placed in a mental facility for the remainder of his life.

Mission oriented

These serial killers believe that their acts are justified on the basis that they are getting rid of a certain type of people (often prostitutes or members of a certain ethnic group). They believe that they are doing society a big favor. Robert Pickton of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, is accused of being this type of killer. He is currently charged with the murders of 27 prostitutes from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and is suspected in the deaths of up to 30 more.

Hedonistic

This type kills for the sheer pleasure of it, although what aspect they enjoy varies. Some may enjoy the actual "chase" of hunting down a victim more than anything, whilst others may be primarily motivated by the act of torturing and abusing the victim whilst they are alive. Yet others may kill the victim quickly, almost as if it were a chore, and then indulge in necrophilia or cannibalism with the body. Usually there is a strong sexual aspect to the crimes, even if it may not be immediately obvious, but some killers obtain a surge of excitement that is not necessarily sexual, such as David Berkowitz, who got a thrill out of shooting young couples in cars at random and then running away without ever physically touching the victims.

Gain motivated

Most criminals who commit multiple murders for material ends (such as mob hit men) are not classed as serial killers, because they are motivated by greed or economic gain rather than psychopathological compulsion. There is a fine line separating such killers, however. For example, Marcel Petiot, who operated in Nazi-occupied France, would classify as a serial killer. He posed as a member of the French Resistance and lured wealthy Jewish people to his home, claiming he could smuggle them out of the country. Instead he murdered them and stole their belongings, killing 63 people before he was finally caught. Although Petiot's primary motivation was materialistic, few would deny that a man willing to slaughter so many people simply to acquire a few dozen suitcases of clothes and jewelry was a compulsive killer and psychopath.

Power/control

This is the most common type of serial killer. Their main objective for killing is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers were usually abused as children, which means they feel incredibly powerless and inadequate, and often they indulge in rituals that are linked, often very specifically, to forms of abuse they suffered themselves. One killer, for example, forced young girls to perform oral sex on him, after which he would spank the girl before finally strangling her. After capture, the killer claimed that when he was a child his older sister would force him to perform oral sex on her, then spank him in order to terrify him into not telling their parents. The ritual he performed with his victims would negate the humiliation he felt from his abuse as a child, although such relief would only be temporary, and like other such killers, he would soon feel compelled to repeat his actions until eventual capture. (The vast majority of child abuse victims do not become serial killers, of course, meaning that such abuse is not regarded as the sole trigger of such crimes in these cases.) Many power/control-motivated killers sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic killers in that rape is not motivated by lust but as simply another form of dominating the victim. Some serial killers may seem to have characteristics of more than one type. For example, British killer Peter Sutcliffe appeared to be both a visionary and a mission-oriented killer in that he claimed voices told him to clean up the streets of prostitutes. Alternatively, another school of thought classifies motive as being either: need, greed or power. That said, all crime can be divided into one of these three categories.

Why are serial killers not caught more quickly?

It is probable that many would-be serial killers are apprehended before they kill the three or more victims required to qualify them as such in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Similarly, it is certain that some are detained under mental health regulations and do not directly answer for their crimes. Others go on to kill many more people over years without being apprehended. Serial killers, despite the media attention, commit only a tiny fraction of all murders in any time period. Murder is usually either a crime of personal relationships and short intense emotion, or an unintended consequence of other crimes. Because of this, most murders are comparatively simple to solve; in most familial deaths, the murderer makes little effective effort to conceal the crime and confesses easily; in other cases, the murderer is usually a local or is known to the police. These assumptions, with which any law enforcement officer naturally approaches a single murder, are barriers to catching a serial killer. Another barrier to serial killers' early capture is their diverse backgrounds, choices of victim, and methods of killing. They almost never have any links to their victims—they pick by whim or impulse, seeking types or opportunity rather than any easily detectable link. As noted above, organized offenders can take steps to minimize the evidence they leave behind, and commit crimes away from their locale. It can take a number of murders before a serial killer is even suspected. Even if a serial killer is known to be operating, it is difficult to catch the culprit. Potential victims can be identified only by broad type, and generic area warnings produce little more than fear and misdirected violence. In addition, police departments are often reluctant to admit they have a serial killer on their hands due to the immediate public pressure on them to catch them that immediately ensues. Law enforcement departments are known to try and "wait it out" hoping the killer will move to another juristiction, rather than publicly admit they have a killer on their hands. The commonality of habitual traits of serial killers allows the construction of a psychological profile. This allows targeted interviewing of suspects, although there are often a large number of entirely innocent individuals who have some match to the profile. Also, some serial killers are skilled at concealing their true selves behind a charming facade. Unfortunately, profiles are built upon historical precedents of known serial killers that sometimes do not accurately model actual culprits. Such problems plagued the hunt for the D.C. sniper John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, whose initial profile indicated a Caucasian male. A different problem plagued the hunt for Aileen Wuornos in Florida's "Highway Killer" case; police initially believed the killer to be male. Regrettably, serial killer investigations sometimes reveal an unsatisfactory side to law enforcement—inertia, incompetence, bureaucracy, mismanagement, agency "turf wars", missed opportunities, racial or gender bias, and other failures can slow down the investigation and, indirectly, allow further murders. Whilst there is a public misconception that serial killers generally want to be discovered, in most instances this is not the case, as serial killers will often go to great lengths to prevent capture or to push police and investigators towards the wrong subjects. There are a number of examples where what police originally believed to be copycat murders turned out to actually be the same person doing all of the crimes, such as Ivan Milat's backpacker murders. The opposite is also often true.

Serial killers in popular culture

Because of the horrific nature of their crimes, their highly varied personalities and profiles, and their terrifying ability to evade detection and kill many victims before finally being captured and imprisoned, serial killers have quickly become something of a cult favorite, and have been featured in many novels, movies, songs, comic books, true crime works, video games and other media. The public's fascination with serial killers led to some successful crime novels and films about fictional serial killers, including: Helen Zahavi's novel Dirty Weekend; Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho; Caleb Carr's The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness and especially Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs and its Academy Award-winning movie adaptation, whose main antagonist, the brilliant cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, is a cultural icon.

Bibliography

- Douglas, John and Olshaker, Mark. Journey into Darkness. Pocket Books, 1997. ISBN 0671003941
- Douglas, John and Olshaker, Mark. Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit. Pocket Books, 1997. ISBN 0671013750
- Lane, Brian and Gregg, Wilfred. The New Encyclopedia Of Serial Killers. Headline Book Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0747253617
- MacDonald, J. M. "The threat to kill." American Journal of Psychiatry 120 (1963): 125-130.
- Norris, Joel. Serial Killers: The Growing Menace. Arrow Books, 1990. ISBN 0099717506
- Ressler, Robert K. and Schachtman, Thomas. Whoever Fights Monsters. St. Martins Mass Market Paper, 1994. ISBN 0312950446
- Schechter, Harold and Everitt, David. The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Pocket Books, 1996. ISBN 0671537911
- Vronsky, Peter. Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. The Berkley Publishing Group, Penguin Group, 2004. ISBN 0-425-19640-2
- Wilson, Colin. A Plague Of Murder. Robinson Publishing, Ltd., 1995. ISBN 1854872494

External links

- [http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/index.html Crime Library's Serial Killer page]
- [http://www.crimeZZZ.net/index.php Serial Killer Encyclopedia]
- [http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/serial.html Serial Killer 'Hit List' at Mayhem.net] Category:Murder

Seattle, Washington

:This article is about the city. For the Suquamish chief, see Chief Seattle. Chief Seattle Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located in the U.S. state of Washington between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, nearly 108 miles (174 km) south of the United States–Canadian border in King County, of which it is the county seat. Seattle was founded in the 1850s named after Chief Seattle, or Sealth. As of 2004, the population estimates of the city given by the U.S. Census Bureau was 571,480, however, in 2005, the city has an estimated population of 573,672 and a metropolitan population of almost 3.8 million. It is sometimes referred to as the "Rainy City", the "Gateway to Alaska", "Queen City", and "Jet City" (due to the heavy influence of Boeing). Its official nickname is "the Emerald City". Seattle is known as the birthplace of grunge music, and has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption. Seattle was also the site of the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization and anti-globalization demonstrations. Seattle residents are known as Seattleites. Based on per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, Seattle ranks 36th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked.

History

Founding

Most of the Denny Party, the most prominent of the area's early white settlers, arrived at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. They relocated their settlement to Elliott Bay in April 1852. The first plats for the Town of Seattle were filed on May 23, 1853. The city was incorporated in 1869, after having existed as an incorporated town from 1865 to 1867. Seattle was named after Noah Sealth, chief of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes, better known as Chief Seattle. David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of the city founders, was the primary advocate for naming the city after Chief Seattle. Previously, the city had been known as Duwamps (or Duwumps)—a variation of that name is preserved in the name of Seattle's Duwamish River.

Major events

Duwamish River, the Downtown Seattle skyline, and Mount Rainier (to the right).]] Major events in Seattle's history include the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, which destroyed the central business district (but took no lives); the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the current layout of the University of Washington campus; the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country; the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair; the 1990 Goodwill Games; and the WTO Meeting of 1999, marked by street protests. On February 28 2001, a state of emergency was declared after the Nisqually Earthquake, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, rocked the region. Damage was moderate, but served as a reminder that the coastal Pacific Northwest — and the area around the Seattle Fault, in particular — is under a constant threat of earthquakes.

Economic history

Seattle has a history of boom and bust, or at least boom and quiescence. Seattle has almost been sent into permanent decline by the aftermaths of its worst periods as a company town, but has typically used those periods to successfully rebuild infrastructure. company town, is the result of a public vote on the "Libraries for All" bond measure approved by Seattle voters on November 3, 1998.]] The first such boom was the lumber-industry boom covering the early years of the city (it was during this period that Yesler Way became known as the first "Skid Row", named after the timber skidding down the street to be milled), followed by the construction of an Olmsted-designed park system. Arguably the Klondike Gold Rush constituted a separate, shorter boom during the last years of the 19th century. Klondike Gold Rush Next came the shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century, followed by the unused city development plan of Virgil Bogue. After World War II the local economy was marked by the expansion of Boeing, fueled by the growth of the commercial aviation industry. When this particular cycle went into a major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading, "Will the last person leaving Seattle — Turn out the lights." Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company announced a desire to separate its headquarters from its major production facilities. Following a bidding war in which several cities offered huge tax breaks, Boeing moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago, Illinois. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's commercial airplanes division; several Boeing plants including the Boeing 737, Boeing 747, Boeing 757, Boeing 767, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 factories; and BECU, formerly the Boeing Employees Credit Union. The most recent boom centered around Microsoft and other software, Internet, and telecommunications companies, such as Amazon.com and RealNetworks. Even locally headquartered Starbucks held investments in numerous Internet and software interests. Although some of these companies remain relatively strong, the frenzied boom years had ended by early 2001.

Geography and climate

Geography

Starbucks Seattle is located between Puget Sound and Lake Washington. West beyond the Sound, Seattle faces the Olympic Mountains; across Lake Washington beyond the Eastside suburbs are the Issaquah Alps and the Cascade Range. The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Some of the hilliest areas are quite near the center, and Downtown rises rather dramatically away from the water. The geography of Downtown and its immediate environs has been significantly altered by regrading projects, a seawall, and the construction of an artificial island, Harbor Island, at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway. The rivers, forests, lakes, and fields were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. Today, a ship canal passes through the city, incorporating Lake Union near the heart of the city and several other natural bodies of water, and connecting Puget Sound to Lake Washington. Opportunities for sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking are close by and accessible almost all of the year. An active geological fault, the Seattle Fault, runs under the city. It has not been the source of an earthquake during Seattle's existence; however, the city has been hit by four major earthquakes since its founding: December 14, 1872 (magnitude 7.3); April 13, 1949 (7.1); April 29, 1965 (6.5); and February 28, 2001 (6.8). See also Nisqually Earthquake. Seattle is located at 47°37'35" North, 122°19'59" West (47.626353, −122.333144)¹. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 369.2 km² (142.5 mi²). 217.2 km² (83.9 mi²) of it is land and 152.0 km² (58.7 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 41.16% water. See also: Seattle neighborhoods, List of Seattle parks, Bodies of water of Seattle

Climate

Seattle's climate is mild, with the temperature moderated by the sea and protected from winds and storms by the mountains. The "rainy city" receives an unremarkable 35 to 38 inches (890 to 970 mm) of precipitation a year, less than most major Eastern Seaboard cities, e.g., New York City averages 47.3 inches (1200 mm), but Seattle is cloudy an average of 226 days per year vs. 132 in New York City. Most of the precipitation falls as drizzle or light rain because Seattle is in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains. Average low temperatures range from the mid/upper 30s (just above 0 °C) at night in winter to the mid/upper 70s (mid 20s °C) for summer highs. Seattle's hottest temperature ever recorded was 100 °F (37 °C) on July 20, 1994 and the coldest temperature ever recorded was 0 °F (-17 °C) on January 31, 1950. 80 miles (130 km) to the west, the Hoh Rain Forest, in the Olympic National Park, records an annual average rainfall of 142 inches (3600 mm), and the state capital, Olympia, south of the rain shadow, receives 52 inches (1320 mm). Snow falls on occasion, but rarely sticks very long. Sunnier "California weather" typically dominates from mid-July to mid-September, arriving later and leaving earlier than in Portland, Oregon, to the south. The [http://www.komotv.com/weather/faq/convergence_zone.asp Puget Sound Convergence Zone] is an important feature of the Seattle area's weather. In the Zone, air arriving in the area from the north meets air flowing in from the south. Both streams of air originate over the Pacific Ocean; airflow is split by the Olympic Mountains to Seattle's West, then reunited by the Cascade Mountains to the East. When the air currents meet, they are forced upward, resulting in convection. An active Convergence Zone results in rain at the very least (snow in the Cascades), and sometimes more severe weather such as thunderstorms and hail. Usually the Zone forms north of Seattle in the Edmonds/Lynnwood area, but depending on the relative strengths of the winds it can range as far south as Pierce County or as far north as Skagit County. Serious exceptions to Seattle's raininess can occur during El Niño years, when the marine weather systems track to the south, affecting California instead. During the drier summer months, the region's water comes from its mountain snow packs, so El Niño winters not only produce substandard skiing, but can result in water rationing and a shortage of hydro-electric generated power the next summer.

Demographics

As of the U.S. Census of 2000, Seattle had a population of 563,374 and in all the Greater Puget Sound metropolitan area is home to almost 3.8 million people. The population today is approximately 73.40% Caucasian, one of the highest percentages of Caucasians for a major American city. The city also has one of the nation's highest percentages of multiracial ancestry: 4.70% claim ancestry from two or more races. [http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm] According to the 2000 U.S. census, 13.71% of Seattleites are Asian Americans, 8.44% are African Americans, 1.10% are Native Americans, 0.50% are Pacific Islanders, and 6.84% are from other non-Caucasian backgrounds. The median income for a household in the city is $45,736, and the median income for a family is $62,195. Males have a median income of $40,929 versus $35,134 for females. The per capita income for the city is $30,306. 11.8% of the population and 6.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 13.8% are under the age of 18 and 10.2% are 65 or older. Seattle has seen a major increase in legal and illegal immigration in recent decades. The foreign-born population increased 40% between the 1990 and 2000 census. [http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm] Although the 2000 census shows only 5.28% of the population as Hispanic or Latino of any race, Hispanics are believed to be the most rapidly growing population group in Washington, with an estimated increase of 10% just in the years 2000 to 2002. [http://www.theolympian.com/home/specialsections/Census/20030918/103142.shtml] It is estimated that 1.25% of the population is homeless, and that up to 14% of Seattle's homeless are children and young adults. Many people in Seattle are involved with social causes; among the larger local groups nonprofits dealing with poverty and related issues are the Fremont Public Association [http://www.fremontpublic.org], the Asian Counselling and Referral Service [http://www.acrs.org/index.htm], and the Seattle Indian Center [http://www.seattleindiancenter.org/]. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of whose near-term results is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing. [http://www.metrokc.gov/mkcc/news/2005/0905/Ten_Year_Plan.htm] In 2005, Men's Fitness magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the U.S.

Government and politics

fittest neighborhood. Rescued from Eastern Europe, some argue that the statue is a leftist political statement instead of historical art]] Seattle is a charter city, with a Mayor-Council form of government, unlike many of its neighbors that use the Council-Manager form. Seattle's mayor and nine city council members are elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. The only other elected office is the city attorney. All offices are non-partisan. The city government provides more utilities than many cities – either by running the whole operation, such as the water, sewer, and electricity services, or by handling the billing and administration, but contracting out the rest of the operations such as trash and recycling collection. In most neighboring cities, for example, electricity is provided by either a private company such as Puget Sound Energy, or a county public utility district. See the Utilities section for more details. As with most U.S. cities, the county judicial system (courts and jails) handles felony crimes — the Seattle Municipal Court deals with parking tickets, traffic infractions, and misdemeanors. Seattle does not have its own jail, contracting out inmates it convicts to either the King County Jail (which is located downtown), the Yakima County Jail, or (for short-term holdings) the Renton City Jail. In 2004, there were only 24 murders in Seattle, the fewest since 1965. Violent crime has declined by nearly 42% since 1994, to a rate of approximately seven per 1,000 people. Auto theft has increased about 44% in the same period; the SPD has responded by almost doubling the number of detectives in the auto theft detail, and is starting a "bait car" program. A Money magazine table, using 2001 statistics, ranked Seattle 18th highest in crime rate in the U.S., with 80.5 crimes per 1,000 citizens. Seattle's politics lean famously to the left compared to the U.S. as a whole, although there is a small libertarian movement. Only one precinct in Seattle, located in the famously exclusive Broadmoor area, voted for Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In partisan elections, such as for the State Legislature and U.S. Congress, most elections are won by Democrats, with Greens getting more votes than in many other cities.

Official nickname, flower, slogan, and song

In 1981, Seattle held a contest to come up with a new official nickname to replace “the Queen City”, which had been used since 1869 and was also the nickname of Cincinnati, Toronto, Buffalo, Bangor, Maine and Charlotte, North Carolina. The winner, selected in 1982, was "the Emerald City". Submitted by Californian Sarah Sterling-Franklin, it referred to the lush surroundings of Seattle that were the result of frequent rain. Seattle has also been known in the past as the "Jet City" though this nickname, related to Boeing, was entirely unofficial. (This nickname is made reference to in the song "Jet City Woman" by Seattle progressive metal band Queensrÿche.) Seattle's official flower has been the dahlia since 1913. Its official song has been "Seattle the Peerless City" since 1909. In 1942, its official slogan was "The City of Flowers"; 48 years later, in 1990, it was "The City of Goodwill", for the Goodwill Games held that year in Seattle.

Seattle mayors of note

Among Seattle's notable past politicians is Bertha Knight Landes, mayor from 1926 to 1928. She was the first woman to be mayor of a major American city. Another, Bailey Gatzert, was mayor from 1875 to 1876. He was the first Jewish mayor of Seattle, narrowly missed being the first Jewish mayor of a major American city (Moses Bloom became mayor of Iowa City, Iowa in 1873), and has been the only Jewish mayor of Seattle so far. See List of mayors of Seattle for a list of Seattle's mayors going back to 1869. See also: Current leaders of Seattle, Washington

Sister cities

Seattle is internationally partnered with a number of sister cities to promote global cooperation, cultural exchange and economic collaboration. See List of Seattle sister cities for a complete list.

Economy

Five companies on the 2004 Fortune 500 list of the United States' largest companies, based on total revenue, are currently headquartered in Seattle: financial services company Washington Mutual (#103), insurance company Safeco Corporation (#267), department store Nordstrom (#286), Internet retailer Amazon.com, (#342) and coffee chain Starbucks (#425). Many Seattle residents work for companies based outside of Seattle proper. Airplane manufacturer Boeing (#21) was the largest company based in Seattle before its 2001 move to Chicago. Because several production facilities remain in the region, Boeing is still a major Seattle employer. Other Fortune 500 companies popularly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco Wholesale Corp. (#29), the largest company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Microsoft (#46) is based in Redmond. So was the cellular telephone pioneer McCaw Cellular, which in 1994 became AT&T Wireless (#120), before being absorbed in 2004 into Cingular. Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company (#95), is based in Federal Way. And Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer PACCAR (#250) and international mobile telephony giant T-Mobile's U.S. subsidiary T-Mobile USA. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the region, joining current biotech companies such as Corixa, Immunex (now part of Amgen), and ZymoGenetics. The effort has public support and some financial backing from Paul Allen. See List of companies based in Seattle for a more detailed compilation. In 2005 Forbes magazine ranked Seattle as the most overpriced city in the US based on median home prices and median incomes.

Education

Seattle has an educated population: of Seattle's population over 25, 47% (vs. a national average of 24%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher; 93% (vs. 80% nationally) have a high school diploma or equivalent. In fact, Seattle has the highest percentage of college graduates of any major U.S. city. In addition to the obvious institutions of education, there are significant adult literacy programs and considerable homeschooling. Like most urban American public school systems, Seattle Public Schools have been subject to numerous controversies. Seattle's schools desegregated without a court order, but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a demographically divided city (the south part of town being much more ethnically diverse than the north). The schools have maintained high enough educational standards to keep white flight (and middle-class flight in general) to a minimum, but some of the area's suburban public school systems — not all of them in wealthy suburbs — have consistently higher test scores. Notably, Seattle schools seem to be failing their minority students, as high academic standards are not realized uniformly by all racial groups in many of the city's secondary schools. The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: four of the high schools are Catholic, one is Lutheran, and six are secular. Postsecondary education in Seattle is dominated by the University of Washington, with over 40,000 students, making it the largest university in the Pacific Northwest. Most prominent of the city's other universities are Seattle University, a Jesuit school, and Seattle Pacific University, founded by the Free Methodists. There are also a handful of smaller schools, mainly in the fine arts and business and psychology. Seattle is also served by North Seattle, Seattle Central, and South Seattle Community Colleges.

Culture

Landmarks

North Seattle, Seattle Central, and South Seattle Community Colleges have both caught the "flying fish" at the Pike Place Market, one of Seattle's most popular tourist destinations.]] The Space Needle is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of the television show Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series Grey's Anatomy, not to mention countless films. The Needle dates from the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair. Contrary to popular belief, the Space Needle is neither the tallest structure in Seattle, nor is it in downtown. This misconception results from the Space Needle often being photographed from Queen Anne Hill, where it is closer to the viewer than are the skyscrapers of downtown. The surrounding fairgrounds have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site for many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot and the Bite of Seattle. A monorail runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall -- a distance of about a mile. Other notable Seattle landmarks include the Smith Tower, Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project) (which is at Seattle Center), the new Seattle Central Library, the Washington Mutual Tower, and the Columbia Center, which is the fourth tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River and the twelfth tallest in the nation. (On June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks included the Columbia Center as one of ten targeted buildings.) [http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/betweenthelines/archives/2004_06_16.html] The original Starbucks Coffee is in Seattle's Pike Place Market.

Annual cultural events and fairs

Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout the summer months (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, and Bumbershoot over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets. Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center. As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs; the premier anime convention in the Pacific Northwest, Sakura-Con; and specialized film festivals to a two-day, 8,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride.

Performing arts

Seattle is a significant center for the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras [http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/meet/recordings/] and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. [http://www.danceusa.org/Press%20Archives/pnwballet0402.html], [http://www.pnb.org/pnbschool/philosophy.html] The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished. In addition, Seattle has about twenty live theater venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theater. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill. Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock musicians like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Temple of the Dog, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle. Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue, as were progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana—has signed such non-grunge bands as Sunny Day Real Estate, The Postal Service, and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period include Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), Foo Fighters, Maktub, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), and Sleater-Kinney (Olympia). Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats"), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies; and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch. Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the indie scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings/open mics and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Seku Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world-famous Bumbershoot Arts Festival.

Museums and art collections

Bumbershoot Arts Festival The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, making it the first museum in Washington. The main Seattle Art Museum opened in 1933. Art collections are also housed at the Frye Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Regional history collections are at the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry-specific collections are housed at the Center for Wooden Boats, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include Nordic Heritage Museum and the Wing Luke Asian Museum. In addition, Seattle has a thriving artist-run gallery scene, including 10 year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery. See also: Museums and galleries of Seattle

Other cultural institutions

The Woodland Park Zoo, opened as a private zoo in 1889, is one of the oldest on the West Coast, and has been a leader in innovations in naturalistic zoo exhibits. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977. The Seattle Underground Tour, visiting many of the places that existed mostly before the great fire, is also popular.

Media

Seattle's leading newspapers are the daily Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; they share their advertising and business departments under a Joint Operating Agreement, which (as of 2004) the Times is seeking to terminate or renegotiate. The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger. Both of these consider themselves "alternative" papers; the Stranger has a reputation for a younger and hipper readership, the Weekly has a reputation as more serious and slightly more politically conservative, but both make frequent forays into each other's editorial and demographic turf. There are also several ethnic newspapers and numerous neighborhood newspapers. Seattle is also well served by television and radio. Seattle's major network television affiliates are KOMO 4 (ABC), KING-TV 5 (NBC), KIRO 7 (CBS), KCTS 9 (PBS), KSTW 11 (UPN), KCPQ 13 (FOX), KONG 16/6 (Ind.), KTWB 22/10 (WB), and KWPX 33/3 (i); five of them can be seen across Canada via digital cable or satellite. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 CBC from Vancouver, British Columbia, often as cable channel 99. Leading radio stations include KUBE 93.3, KNDD 107.7, KIRO-AM 710, KOMO-AM 1000, and NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other notable stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP) and KNHC-FM 89.5, owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through internet radio, with KUOW, KNHC, and KEXP being notable web radio innovators. On the internet Seattle is covered by the blogs [http://www.seattlest.com/ Seattlest], [http://seattle.metblogs.com/ Seattle Metroblogging] and [http://www.thestranger.com/blog/ Slog]

Sports

The first major professional modern day sports franchise started in Seattle was the Seattle SuperSonics (known to most as the "Seattle Sonics") NBA team (1967). They were joined by the Seattle Pilots baseball team in 1969. Both team names reflected the local importance of the aerospace industry. The Pilots played in Seattle for only one year at Sick's Stadium, previously home to several minor league teams (most notably the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League), before relocating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their sole season was immortalized in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four. Legal wrangling over the move of the Pilots pressured Major League Baseball to award Seattle a new franchise, the Mariners, in 1977. The Mariners would play in the newly built Kingdome, an indoor sports facility they shared with the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL, who started play the previous year. For a time, all three of the city's major sports teams used the Kingdome, despite ongoing maintenance issues with the venue. After some controversy (voters defeated two funding initiatives), the Kingdome was demolished in 2000 and replaced with Seahawks Stadium (later renamed Qwest Field), built on the same site. By this time, the other sports had long since relocated: the Sonics now use KeyArena exclusively, and the Mariners' new home is the modern, retractable-roofed Safeco Field, built with state money after the city voted down a bond issue to build it. The city's first professional sports championship was brought to the city by way of the PCHA Seattle Metropolitans in 1917. The professional hockey team, which represented Seattle from 1915 to 1924, was in fact the first U.S. team to win the coveted Stanley Cup, beating the Montréal Canadiens. They returned to the Stanley Cup finals twice more. Their first return, again versus Montreal, was in 1919; that series was cancelled due to an outbreak of influenza with the two teams tied at 2–2–1. The Metropolitans last went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators. The Seattle SuperSonics last won a modern-day championship, the NBA crown, in 1979, with Lenny Wilkens as coach. It is the only major sports championship Seattle has won. In addition to professional sports, the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Seattle Pacific University field teams in a variety of sports, including football and basketball. Their teams are known as the Huskies, Redhawks, and Falcons, respectively. The Husky football team has a following that ranks with those of the major professional teams in the city. In 1991, the Huskies shared an NCAA Division I collegiate football championship with the Hurricanes of the University of Miami. In 1990, Seattle hosted the 1990 Goodwill Games. In 1998, the Seattle City Council failed to pass a resolution supporting a Seattle bid for the 2012 Olympics. In 2004, the Seattle Storm won a WNBA championship. In 2005, the Seattle Sounders won the USL First Division championship. The cities of Everett and Tacoma, to the north and the south of Seattle, respectively, have sports teams of their own. Most notable are the Tacoma Rainiers, a double-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Pacific Coast League, and the Everett AquaSox, an A team playing short-season baseball in the Northwest League.

Infrastructure

USL First Division

Transportation

As in almost every other city in western North America, transportation in Seattle is dominated by automobiles, although Seattle is just old enough that the city's layout reflects the age when railways and streetcars dominated. These older modes of transportation made for a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of several former streetcar lines, most of them now bus lines. There is no subway, though a bus tunnel running roughly north-south through downtown will be used by light rail beginning in 2009. There are a small number of commuter trains from Tacoma and Everett and an extensive system of bus routes. About fifteen of King County Metro's bus routes serving downtown Seattle are electric and run on overhead wires. Like Vancouver, British Columbia and San Francisco, California, Seattle is one of the few cities in North America that use electric trolleybuses. A monorail line constructed for the 1962 Exposition still exists today between Seattle Center and downtown and is still used by tourists and by commuters from the north, who often find it cheaper to park at Seattle Center and take the monorail downtown to work than to take their car downtown. In the 1990s the city proposed to build a longer monorail to convert the monorail from a tourist attraction into a real commuter service. Controversy over scope, governance, financial difficulties, and so forth led to a series of five separate votes on the expanded monorail; although the voters initially approved the plan, anticipated cost overruns and other problems forced the city to return to the voters for approval no fewer than four times with updated plans. The project was definitively defeated by a November 2005 referendum. The Sound Transit light rail project also faced difficulties early on, although the first 15.7 mile-section from downtown to Sea-Tac Airport will be operational in 2009. Additional expansion of light rail will include an extension north to the University District (already funded) and eventually to Northgate Mall. Also in the planning stages are lines across Lake Washington to Bellevue and south to Tacoma. The South Lake Union line of the Seattle Streetcar passed full City Council on June 27, 2005. The streetcar is "on track" to be built and operating by 2007. The 2.6 mile (4.2 km) streetcar line will run between Westlake Center in downtown Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Property owners along the right-of-way will pay about $25 million of the $45 million total capital cost through a local improvement district. Seattle is noted for its reliance on water traffic, with many people commuting to work from Bainbridge Island, execution of a prisoner as a punishment for a crime (often called a capital offence or a capital crime), or as a deterrent to crime. Historically, it was most frequently used as a means to suppress political enemies, but it was sometimes considered a form of public entertainment as well. In modern democratic societies it can be used as a tool for political advancement of government officials, as a public display of intolerance of crime. Crimes that earn the death penalty vary greatly from treason and murder to theft. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have sentenced capital punishments also from cowardice, desertion, insubordination and mutiny.

Terminology

The term "capital" derives from the Latin caput, literally meaning "head".^{[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=capital]} Thus, capital punishment is the penalty for a crime so severe that it 'deserves' death, either by decapitation or otherwise. Prisoners who have been sentenced to death are usually kept segregated from prisoners who have not been sentenced to death in a part of the prison known as "death row" pending their execution.

Methods of execution

death rows. The electric chair was developed in the late 1880s by a dentist with support from Thomas Edison (who had a financial interest in having direct current used in providing electricity, whereas the electric chair uses alternating current) and is still in use today.]] Methods of execution have varied over time, and include:
- Asphyxiation (or strangulation), such as by Garrotte
- Blood eagle (possibly a myth)
- Boiling to death
- Burning, especially for religious heretics and witches on the stake
- Brazen bull
- Breaking on the Wheel
- Burial (alive, also known as the pit)
- Crucifixion
- Crushing by a weight, abruptly or as a slow ordeal - see also animals
- Decapitation, or beheading (as by sword, axe or guillotine)
- Disembowelment
- Dismemberment
- Disruption (a form of dismemberment)
- Drawing and quartering (Considered by many to be the most "cruel" of punishments)
- Drowning
- Electric chair
- Explosives
- Exsanguination
- Flaying (skinning)
- Fustuarium - see also for not always lethal successors
- Gassing
- Hanging
- Impalement
- Lethal injection
- Iron Maiden
- Keelhauling (not always lethal) and walking the plank (if not fictitious)
- Pressing
- Poisoning
- Sawing
- Scaphism and similar methods mentioned there
- Shooting can be performed either
- by Firing squad
- by a single shooter (such as the neck shot, often performed on a kneeling prisoner, as in present PR China in significant numbers)
- (especially collectively) by cannon or machine gun
- Snake pit
- Starvation and Dehydration
- Stoning
- Various animal-related methods
- Tearing apart by horses, e.g. Ancient China (using five horses) or "quartering," with four horses, and in The Song of Roland
- Attack/devouring by animals, such as dogs or wolves, as in Ancient Rome and the Biblical lion's den, by rodents (such as rats), by carnivorous fish (such as sharks), by crabs or by insects (such as ants)
- Poisonous bites from scorpions, snakes, spiders etcetera
- Crushing by elephant or trampling by a herd or by horsemen, as practiced by the Mongolian hordes

Scope of use

Some jurisdictions still practicing capital punishment restrict its use to a small number of criminal offences, principally murder, treason and equated mortal sins such as apostasy. Historically—and still today under certain systems of law—the death penalty was applied to a wider range of offences, including robbery or theft and kidnapping. It has also been frequently used by the military for crimes including looting, insubordination, and mutiny. Armies based on conscription have used death penalty as means of motivation (see coercion) and keeping discipline.

History

Traditionally capital punishment has been a method to deliver human sacrifices to deities. For example the judicial hanging was originally a sacrificial rite to Odin. Scandinavian pagan religions demanded human sacrifices not only by hanging, but also by drowning the convict into marsh (see Tollund man); also Kalevala contains a chapter where Väinämöinen sentences the fatherless Son of Marjatta to be drowned into marsh. The purpose of capital punishment can also be seen as means to placate wrathful deities and divert their anger and hatred away from the people and towards the victim. Some Pagan religions also used burning the condemned at the stake; the last recorded such sacrificial burning occurred in Lithuania 1389. In medieval Europe, the method of execution would depend on the social class of the condemned. The nobility would usually be executed in as painless and honorable a method as possible, generally with either sword or an axe (which occasionally failed gruesomely). Those in the working class, serfs, peasants, and possibly the bourgeoisie would usually be executed publicly, in a more gruesome and painful method of execution, typically by hanging or by the wheel. In Scandinavia, the noblemen were beheaded with sword and commoners with axe. Specific crimes would sometimes warrant specific methods of execution: suspected witchcraft, religious heresy, atheism, or homosexuality would typically be punished by burning at the stake. Unsuccessful regicides generally merited a horrible death. A wide range of offences could be punished by death, including robbery and theft, even if nobody was physically harmed in the action. Such methods of execution continued into the modern era. In 1757 in France, Robert-François Damiens suffered a horrible but customary execution for his attempted regicide against King Louis XV. His hand, holding the weapon used in the regicide attempt, was burnt, and his body was wounded in several places. Then, molten lead and other hot liquids were poured on the wounds. He was then drawn and quartered, and what remained of his body was burnt at the stake. Inhumane methods of execution and class inequalities were abolished during the French Revolution, which imposed the guillotine, seen as a painless and instantaneous method of execution, for all. However, during The Terror, other forms of execution, such as massed cannon fire and mass drownings, were also used. Although the death penalty was briefly banned in China between 747 and 759, the first country in the world to officially and permanently abolish the death penalty was the then-independent Granducato di Toscana (Tuscany). The Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg, famous enlightened monarch and future Emperor of Austria, was strongly influenced by the book of the Italian Cesare Beccaria Dei Delitti e Delle Pene ("On Crimes and Punishments"), published in 1764. In this book Beccaria aimed to demonstrate not only the injustice, but even the futility from the point of view of social welfare, of torture and the death penalty. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto blocked capital executions (the last was in 1769), Leopold promulgated the Reform of the penal code that abrogated the death penalty and gave the order to destroy all the instruments for capital execution wherever in his land. In 2000 Tuscany's regional authorities instituted an annual holiday on 30 November to commemorate the event. Public executions in early New England were a very solemn and sorrowful occasion, sometimes attended by large crowds, who would also listen to a [http://calebadams.org/sermon.htm gospel message] and [http://calebadams.org/address.htm remarks by local preachers] and politicians. The Connecticut Courant [http://calebadams.org/news_article.htm records one such public execution] on December 1, 1803, saying, "The assembly conducted through the whole in a very orderly and solemn manner, so much so, as to occasion an observing gentleman aquainted with other countries as well as this, to say that such an assembly, so decent and solemn, could not be collected anywhere but in New England." The state of Michigan was the first state in the union to abolish the death penalty, on March 1, 1847. The 150-year ban on capital punishment has never been repealed, and as such the state is considered to be the first democracy in recorded history to have eliminated capital punishment. Currently, 12 states and the District of Columbia ban capital punishment.

Military

Military organizations have sometimes employed capital punishment. In the past, cowardice, absence without leave, desertion, insubordination, looting, shirking under enemy fire and disobeying orders were often crimes punishable by death. The method of execution since firearms came into common use has almost invariably been firing squad. Today most armies no longer utilize capital punishment, and those armies which still retain the death penalty apply it only to the most serious crimes, such as treason or murder.

Around the present world

murder According to Amnesty International's annual report on official judicial execution, in