From: Jasper
Date: 10/21/03
Time: 1:12:35 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.204.63
Charlie,
Miss Marple read Murder in Spokane long before I did and wrote that it contained more insight into Fuhrman’s thinking than Murder in Brentwood or Murder in Greenwich.
Miss Marple posted the messages on “The Smell of Blood” thread that quoted Fuhrman describing the smell as “sweet.” He wrote a long paragraph on with sickening details associated with murder scenes. It was early in the book but that sentience about “the sweet smell of coagulated blood” stood alone. Blood begins to coagulate as soon as it leaves the body. If enough of it is spread thinly on a surface that doesn’t absorb it and you are close to it, you can smell it almost immediately after a fresh kill.
Fuhrman was saying how unglamorous it was to witness such scenes in the field but in a later chapter he talked about how some murder investigators couldn’t stand it, how some grew to tolerate it and how others thrived on it. He did not say which category he fell into but the context made it clear that it was the last category. He LOVED it.
In Murder in Spokane, Miss Marple also spotted the significance of flow chart that Furman said he worked on in preparation for the ’84 Olympics and its relationship to O.J.
Miss Marple said that many things in Spokane related to the Bundy killer’s actions and mindset. One thing that Fuhrman said repeatedly in the last few chapters was that the killer was leading the investigation. He made a solid case for how the Spokane serial killer did it and whether his statements were true or not in every respect or even most respects they were revealing about Fuhrman’s role in the Bundy murder investigation. I was struck by the frequency with which he mentioned Ted Bundy and how the placement of these references correlated to his allusions to the Bundy Drive murders.
I was also struck by the direct and indirect reference Fuhrman made to movies and TV shows, some of which (Leave it to Beaver, Jack the Ripper and Twin Peaks) showed up in his television movie Murder in Greenwich. That’s why I put my post on the Smoking Gun board. Miss Marple was right. Murder in Spokane tells you an awful lot about the inner workings of Mark Fuhrman’s mind, the mind of a killer who enjoys his “work” and wants people to know how clever he is in making fools of the police. –Jasper