Today, I attended a very interesting presentation of a new book by dr. Karmen Šterk: SERIJSKI MORILEC. Normalen psihopat patološke matere. (SERIAL KILLER. A normal psychopath with a pathological mother)

The presentation and debate took place in the summer garden of the Jazz Club Gajo in Ljubljana.

Club Gajo
L->R: Damjana Žišt (one of the newspaper journalists who covered the case of Silvo Plut, Slovene serial killer who took his own life in May 2007), author Karmen Šterk and Sandra Bašic Hrvatin, both of whom taught classes Nina and I had taken at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

I just loved dr. Šterk’s style during the debate. Some of the comments she made were priceless. I’m sure we all learned a great deal about serial killers with a quick overview of the most famous cases, a look at how theory on them evolved over time, what they had in common. We may all have heard of the levels in the prison hierarchy with the greatest con artists at the top and pedofiles at the bottom (they lie about their crimes for fear of not-very-kind treatment by fellow inmates), but did you know about the hierarchy among serial killers? It’s a two-tier system. On one scale, the top dogs are the ones with a system, with a plan and the bottom is occupied by the mere “butchers”. Additionally, however, the cannibal variety are ranked from top to bottom depending on whether they on what parts of their victims they consume whether they are raw or not. The lowest ranked here being those who cook and use spices.

The difference between male and female serial killers, the latter making for 10% of the total, seems to be that men kill to achieve excitement and women kill to avoid it.

It was probably some sort of a subconsious thing, but I kept getting drops of the delicious strawberry sangria all over my beige shirt and white trousers. Considering the topic being discussed, the effect looked rather interesting.

Sangria at Club Gajo

I’d love to have the recipe for the sangria, but only heard the basic one for a serial killer. Take the favourite child of an over-protective mother (who had an alcoholic father) and make sure the bitchy, demanding and ambivalent mother keeps sending him mixed messages by being both protective and sadistically abusive. Throw in an absent father and you’ve just about got it.