#showtime killer

[littleglau]

"-- report discovering the infamous calling card, "the show must go on" eerily scrawled across an apartment ceiling, indicating yet another victim in the Showtime Killer's spree."

x

[folkrantings]

if you have a problem with fire then don't watch

[iammissanna-blog]

On With The Show (part 2)

When we last left off, veteran detective Brand was taking rookie detective Kinnley to watch an interview with the convicted felon, The Showtime Killer, for a documentary. The interviewer, Mr. Frost, and Showtime, using the alias Adem Denhin, had just finished greeting each other and were preparing to start the interview.

Warnings: This story is about a serial killer. Though not all sections will have it, some of the sections may have graphic descriptions of violence and murder.

(P.S. none of this is edited. This gets one draft, so it might be a bit crap.)

"At the risk of sounding cliche," Frost chuckled, leaning back in his chair to mimic "Denhin"'s posture, "I'd like to begin by asking about your childhood. Your past was so carefully erased, nothing is known about where you grew up, or who your parents were. So if you would," he smiled again, "tell me about your mother."

Denhin laughed. "Cliche indeed. But I'll indulge you. She was unremarkable. They both were, frankly. A perfectly quaint, average little life in Oregonian suburbia. Mother was a housewife. Father was a drunk. He worked in a factory, so he had very long shifts. I didn't see much of him except for when I was woken up by his shouting when he came home from the bar in the middle of the night. But that's neither here nor there. Many of the children I went to school with had homes like that. I don't believe that's what you're really interested in."

"You're very perceptive," Frost said calmly, "But I was trying to build up slowly."

"My apologies, do continue."

"He seems so relaxed," Kinnley muttered, watching Frost banter with the man who had murdered over 70 people. That they knew of, at least.

"He's a specialist," Brand answered.

"In what? Interviewing serial killers?" Kinnley joked.

Brand nodded.

"What was your relationship with your mother like?" Frost asked.

"In my younger years I suppose our relationship was as tender as any kid's with their mother. But as I grew older, I started to realized that she was…weak. There was so much she could have done, so many opportunities she could have taken, that she never did."

“Opportunities?”

“To leave my father. To follow her dreams. She wanted to be a writer, you know. She was very bright, considering she was so dumb. It’s a pity, really. I wish I had been able to respect her. But she never deserved it.”

"Where are your parents now?"

"I don't know about my father. He left my mother when I was 16, and I never had a desire to keep in touch with the bastard. Mother was killed in a car accident a couple years later."

“How did those instances impact you, emotionally speaking?”

“My father leaving was a relief. I wish he’d done it years earlier. And, if I’m being completely honest, my mother’s death was, too. I was truly independent after that. My life was my own.”

"Any siblings?"

"No, I was an only child."

"How did you feel about that?"

Denhin shrugged, "I don't recall that I felt particularly one way or the other about it. It is what it is."

"Did you ever wish you had a companion in the home?"

"At times, I suppose. But then at others, I was grateful I didn't have to put up with the presence of another child in places I'd come to consider my sanctuaries."

"What sorts of places?"

"Nothing particularly remarkable. I spent a lot of time in my bedroom. Sometimes I'd take walks in the woods near my house."

“Did you have a tree house or anything like that?”

“No, no. The trees that grew near us wouldn’t have supported a project like that. And besides, I was never much of an architect. My talents always lay elsewhere. But I did have favorite places out there I would like to go. Natural hollows under branches and roots, that sort of thing.”

“How were you in school?”

“Academically? I did terribly. Don’t get me wrong, I understood the material just fine. I just couldn’t tolerate a teacher who didn’t. I’m personally amazed I wasn’t expelled.”

“Did you ever get involved in any extracurricular activities?”

“Ha! Never. Not even if I’d been threatened at gunpoint to try and force me to go. The subtle brainwashing was even worse when it was peer-to-peer than when it was coming from the pulpit of the black board.”

“Did you have many friends, growing up?”

Denhin stared off wistfully, a smile slowly growing on his face, “Not...the conventional sort, no,” He shook the memory from his head, “I generally couldn’t stand the other children in my town. Whiny, spoiled little brats the lot of them. Never cared to step outside their own comfort zones and try to live in someone else’s shoes, even for a moment. However, I was not a lonely child. I preferred the solitude. My own thoughts proved better company than any other human could have been.”

Frost’s curiosity was visibly piqued, “What kind of friends did you have, if not the conventional sort?”

“hm?”

“You said you didn’t have conventional friends, but did you have any unconventional friends?”

“Heh, I suppose...they were what you’d call imaginary friends.”

“You seem hesitant,” Frost observed, eyeing the minute twitches in Denhin’s face and body.

Denhin shrugged, “They weren’t imaginary to me.”

“I don’t remember there being anything in the files about him being schizophrenic,” Kinnley said, confused, “Wouldn’t that have gotten him a plea of insanity?”

“Hallucinations never came up in the investigation of the crimes,” Brand answered,  “He insisted he was of sound mind and body when he committed the murders, and that no one told him to do it, real or imagined. Even when it came out after his conviction that he may have experienced hallucinations as a child, he insisted they played no part in the killings and refused to try and have his sentence commuted.”

“Why would he refuse to have his sentence commuted? Even if he wasn’t hallucinating, if there was enough evidence to have him declared insane, why wouldn’t he take that?”

“Maybe he wanted to take full credit for the crimes.”

“We’re starting to get to the part you were looking for, aren’t we, Mr. Frost?” Denhin asked with a grin.

“And what part is that?”

“The part of my childhood that turned me into a killer. Where I went wrong, so to speak. I’m sure that’s what the lovely people at home want to know,” he gestured at the nearest camera, “So they can protect their own children from turning out like me.”

“Do you think your ‘friends’ led you to murder?”

Denhin thought long and hard for a moment, “...I don’t know. I like to think I’d have ended up down that path eventually either way...but I suppose they were the ones that ‘flipped the switch’. At least, without them, my chosen work would have been very different.”

“Tell me about your ‘imaginary’ friends.”

“ooooh...” Denhin shook his head, “I don’t think they’d appreciate that very much. They’re the type who prefer to introduce themselves.”

“But I’ll never have a chance to meet your friends.”

“Trust me, it’s better that way.” Denhin looked dead into one of the cameras, “Your children will thank me.”

“I don’t understand,” Kinnley stared at the prisoner, who sat calmly, smiling at Mr. Frost, “What’s he talking about? Do you think he’s still hallucinating, or does he just still believe his hallucinations were real.”

Brand sighed, “Who knows.”

“I just...” Kinnley made a noise of frustration, “I want to understand how someone could do what he did.”

“Good,” Brand looked impressed, “Keep wanting to understand. Keep trying to understand. You’re going to need that if you ever want to catch someone as intelligent as the Showtime Killer. Too many criminals have gone free because the people trying to catch them refused to ‘stoop’ to their way of thinking, and as a result, never learned how to predict their actions. Just don’t be surprised if you never fully understand. For a lot of these people, the only person who can ever truly understand them is themselves.”

Kinnley nodded.

“If you don’t wish to discuss your childhood friends,” Frost pulled Denhin back to the discussion, “Then let’s move onto another topic. When did you first realize you wanted to kill someone?”

[iammissanna-blog]

On With The Show (part 1)

I was originally going to post this all at once, but I can tell it's going to be long, so I think I might just post it in bits as I go.

Warnings: This story is about a serial killer. Though not all sections will have it, some of the sections may have graphic descriptions of violence and murder.

(P.S. none of this is edited. This gets one draft, so it might be a bit crap.)

"Kinnley, come with me. I want to show you something."

Detective Brand waved at the rookie as he strode towards the door, swinging his coat over his shoulder.

Kinnley, who had been dozing off a little at his desk as he read through a very dense paper on schizophrenia, snapped to attention and began scrambling for his things.

"where are we going?" he asked, trotting after the veteran cop who had been charged with showing him the ropes around the place.

Brand led him out into the parking lot and over to his car. "You need to see the kind of people we deal with first hand," he said, gravely, "learn how they think, the kinds of things that go through their heads when they're out murdering people. And no matter how many essays and textbooks you read, it's all nothing out in the field."

Brand and Kinnley got into the old sedan and Brand pulled out of the station lot.

"The Showtime Killer's execution date is in a few months. Some investigative reporters wanted to do a documentary on him before they no longer had a chance to get him to talk. They're going to film an interview with him in an hour. I want you to watch."

***

The interview was to be conducted in a plain interrogation-style room on the grounds of the prison. The documentarians had insisted that Mr. Frost, the criminal psychologist they'd been working with who was going to conduct the interview, have an atmosphere of privacy during filming. The guards and staff of the prison had insisted that Mr. Frost not be left alone with his subject unobserved. They'd compromised on the use of a two-way mirror in the room where the interview would take place.

Brand and Kinnley were usured into the dark observation room by one of the prison guards. In the far corner, a number of people hovered over a couple monitors streaming footage from the cameras being set up on the other side of the window. As the door closed behind them, one of the heads in the corner looked up.

"Detective Brand! I'm glad you managed to make it out!" the shortish, balding man strode towards them with a smile and shook hands with Brand.

"Hey there, Scott. I hope you don't mind I brought someone else along." He gestured towards Kinnley, "This is Detective Robert Kinnley, I thought he might want to come watch the interview, too."

"Of course, of course! It's great to meet you, Detective! I'm the director, Scott Weston. You two hungry? Coffee?"

"No thank you," Kinnley said, shaking Weston's hand. Brand shook his head, as well.

"Alright, well if you need anything let me know and we'll send someone out for it. This might be a long interview. We're nearly done setting up, though."

Kinnley looked through the window as the film crew tested the lights and adjusted the cameras.

"So I'm guessing Detective Kinnley's practically an expert on the Showtime case, too, if he's a friend of yours." Weston bantered with Brand. 

Kinnley froze sheepishly. "Um. Well. I know the general information."

"Really? You have the man who brought in one of the most vicious serial killers in the last hundred years at your disposal and you haven't been asking him to tell you every little detail?" Weston shook his head teasingly. 

Brand gave a slight disapproving look, and turned back to Weston, "That's why I brought him along today, Scott. So he can learn."

"Fair enough," Weston clapped Brand on the shoulder and turned back to the huddle around the monitors. "Can I get an ETA on the cameras?"

"five minutes," a man with a headset said, "we can bring them in."

"Awesome. Let's do that then."

Weston took a seat in front of the monitors as the man with the headset began sending out instructions to various people elsewhere in the prison.

Brand and Kinnley went and stood next to the window, watching the crew bustle about, frantically finishing the setup and dashing out of the room.

"I'm sorry I didn't read the case file as thoroughly as I should have. It's stupid, I know. The arrest was the pride of the precinct, I just--"

"It's alright, Kinnley. You're about to learn everything you need to know."

The door to the interview room opened and in stepped an older, greying man in a tweed jacket with a clip board. He took a seat between the cameras and began organizing his notes quietly.

"He's on his way in, Scott." The man with the headset said. Weston nodded and pushed a button next to a microphone on the desk beside him. "Alright, Mr. Frost, he'll be in any minute now. We'll start rolling as soon as the door closes, and you can take as much time as you need."

Frost nodded, "thank you, Scott." He gathered up his papers and stood just as the door clicked open.

A large guard held the door wide as the prisoner stepped into the bright studio lights. He was a gaunt man, in his early-to-mid 40s. His pale, hollow skin clung to the bones of his face. But he didn't look fragile. Far from it, in fact. Despite the seeming lack of muscle mass, there was a tenseness to him that seemed to radiate that he was capable of an unusual amount of strength. His expression and gate were relaxed, but his neck and shoulders were stiff as his sharp eyes scanned the room, studying the lights and cameras.

Brand stiffened slightly.

"Good morning, Mr. Denhin," Frost nodded to the man as the guard unlocked his handcuffs.

"Good morning--Frost, was it? Mr. Frost."

The guard left the room, locking the door behind him. Frost motioned towards the chair opposite him, resting in a pool of light. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

"Denhin?" Kinnley asked. "I thought they never learned his real name. He's listed in the records as a John Doe."

"Adem Denhin is the name his apartment was registered under, as well as his car, and the name he'd apparently given to his employers. It's what he introduces himself as, and insists on being called. But if you look up any social security records, birth records, driver's license, criminal history, anything legally binding, there is no such person as Adem Denhin."

"How'd he come up with a pseudonym like that?"

"It's an anagram. Rearrange the letters and it spells 'Hidden Name.'"

"Heh. Clever."

"He said once he was borrowing it from an old friend."

"What does that mean?"

Brand just shrugged.

Frost continued. "I'd like to thank you for allowing us this interview, Mr. Denhin."

"Not at all," his subject said with a wide grin, "the pleasure is mine."

"I hope you don't mind the setup here."

He squinted up into the harsh lights, "It's perfect."

"Excellent. Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to get started."

"By all means."

(TO BE CONTINUED)

[missr3n3]

Some thoughts on Showtime:

So Sage had a date arranged today for Showtime to do a thing, but as it is right now the thing has not happened. So I started wondering why, and then I noticed something about all his visits: he never shows up when you expect him to. When he did his first proper visit, no one was really expecting him to show up. Then when he did the big visit where he name dropped a bunch of people, that (to me at least; i wasn't really there for it) also came as an unpleasant surprise. Since then, usually our information about him comes second-hand from Unknown, which also tends to show up at unexpected times. The dates are usually meaningful in some way, but we never notice it until after the fact. So I think the reason why he didn't show up was because it was expected. It would go against his usual style. And, if we were to apply the whole "show" theme to this logic, I would say his reasoning is that no one wants a show to be predictable. When it becomes routine, or predictable, it gets boring after a while. No one wants to see the same old act over and over again. So I would guess this unpredictability would be to keep the show interesting for him.

Also, for those of you that were hoping that poking Showtime would get information out of him, I would say do the exact opposite if you want him to come out instead of just murdering more effigies. If you really want him to start talking, then ignore him. Theoretically, he may see this as people losing interest, so he would pop out again to keep the show interesting, and keep people's attention. I mean this is all speculation, but to me this is what makes the most sense.

[iammissanna-blog]

Does anybody remember the exact timeframe in which Showtime crashed movie night?

Like, an exact date would be epic, but "between this event and that event" would be sufficient. And what was said and stuff? Better yet, is there a log or a screencap someplace?

I'm trying to make some timelines and that's the only Showtime appearance I don't have a reference for.

[fudgetasticalmind]

CNS real life story time

ok so my friend Tracey was giving me a ride home this morning and we were exchanging stories, and she started to tell me about these construction workers that were working on the sewers in front of her house. She was taking photos of them for a project for our photography class and she remembered their names, and one of the three guys was named SHOWTIME. This guy was working on some kind of machine, and he was EXTREMELY CAMERA SHY. When she saw my face I had to stop and explain the whole Showtime Killer thing. sdlfkjsldfjkldsjf that just creepped me out a bit, and I had to share with my cns followers.

[f1restart3rr]

hey showtime

no one will pay attention to my drawing stream, they'e all just ignoring me, come keep me company :(