Friday, November 22, 2013
Significance of crime scene/morgue photos
What is the significance of posting crime scene/morgue photos of the Tate/LaBianca victims? Do you think it is disrespectful to post such photos on blogs, websites & forums, or is it necessary for people that continue to study these cases? Some people have asked "why study a case that was solved over 40 years ago?" Was it truly solved? Do we really know what happened? I started thinking about this in great detail, and came to the conclusion that these awful, morbid, sickening photos MUST exist for several reasons, and morbid curiosity is not one of them. If anything, the reason these photos are on the Internet for the world to see is so people don't forget the brutality of these murders. Also, matching up evidence seen in the crime scene photos with witness/perpetrator accounts can help researchers have a better understanding of the sequence of events. What do you think, dear readers? Should the crime scene/morgue photos be on the Internet, or should they be taken down? We'd love to hear your opinions on the matter!
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I think the case was solved in the sense the right people were convicted. I also feel there were a lot of people who should have been, and weren't.
Even so, I don't think the true motive was ever brought to light and I feel there were several injustices during the trial.
I don't feel that the victims' photos are necessary at all to be shown. Most of the problems with the case have nothing to do with the bodies, so they are irrelevant to most arguments.
If you don't like, then don't look.
It's not like there is a song and dance routine, or laughing clown posted along with the pictures - They are usually there for research purposes.
Once you start controlling what people can or can't see, you start controlling how they think.
Curiosity is the quest for knowledge.
Personally, I've got no interest in looking at photos of the victims post-slaughter and I don't really see that much can be learnt from 'em. The autopsy reports can tell you a lot more. Like Max though, I'm not real big on censorship.
I agree with Dooger that the right people were convicted but the motive was obscured.
I get really bored by the many folk who seem to get off on hating the murderers with a passion. You see a lot of that on some of the other sites. They always strike me as the same sort of people that would love to attend a hanging. Sorry if that's off-topic but somehow the two things seem related to me.
Well, I don't hate the murderers, but they aren't my favorite people. What I don't get is why the media keeps calling Charles Manson a serial killer. If I see one more story on how CM is going to marry Star, I am going to puke!
We've never posted them here, although I have them & I'm sure many of you do. In America that's just taboo and I for one am fine with that.
I agree Ann, it seems easy to chalk up the "Manson murders" to yucky 60s culture but we must always remember the victims. The autopsy pic of Abigail Folger made me almost pass out the first time I saw it. From a victim's rights standpoint, it reminds people of the brutality of the crime. I may feel differently if the pics such as these we all see online we of my Mom or sister tho.
It's a question of context I suppose.
Ghoulish curiosity or juxtaposed with famous fictional death scenes from TV and the movies, it's a poor show.
In context with Sandra Good's, Lynette Fromme's or Manson's glib remarks about how meaningless Tate's death was the crime scene photos of Tate give weight to the cruelty of their remarks.
Bearing in mind both Good and Manson were parents themselves.
It helps to remind the viewer that Tate was not just a symbol or her body a representation of protest but a person.
People tend to sometimes forget how much the victims suffered. I know what you mean about Abigail Folger's morgue photo. The one that gave me nightmares was Frykowski's. I've never seen a body with that many stab wounds. He didn't even look human.
We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities. But we do demand as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, so that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue.
----D.W. Griffith
Censorship is the tool of the ones who wish to keep you in the dark, and therefore hide their secrets from those who have the right to know.
---Unnamed reporter, Vietnam, 1967
Heidi S. said: "I may feel differently if the pics such as these we all see online we of my Mom or sister tho"
Yes… exactly. Kinda nullifies the victim's rights argument, eh?
If victims are to have any rights at all, surely an important one would be to not have strangers gawking at their mutilated bodies…
I don't want to look at them, but even more so, I don't want to tell someone else they can't see them.
Famous Censors
Pontius Pilate
Adolph Hitler
Mussolini
Ayatollah Khomeini
Emperor Hirohito
Baby Doc Duvalier
Right on 1nonbeliever!
You should post more often.
Weird, you'd never even know there was a BIG MANSON STORY in Rollingstone Mag reading this MANSON WEBSITE.
Vera wonders why that is (in a third person nod to Patty).
AustinAnn74 said...""If I see one more story on how CM is going to marry Star, I am going to puke!"
I didn't get an invite to the wedding either ;-)
As for the photos they definitely are stomach turning and horrible and prove just how savagely brutal those murders were. I don't think they ever were meant for public viewing though. Wasn't it Bill Nelson that got a hold of these and sold them via the internet?
I think Bill Nelson was pond scum. He asked Mrs. Tate the most horrible, invasive questions about her daughter's murder. I still haven't figured out what his role was. Was he a church guy, an author, researcher, reporter, or just a freak who became obsessed?
Nelson was a Christian, car dealing sales man, pedophile who became obsessed with the murders after meeting Mrs. Tate at a radio station. For some reason she trusted him, but her husband and children never did. Bill became obsessed because he was repressed sexually and could vicariously explore his own warped sexual identity through reading, researching and meeting Family members. Also Bill always claimed he was former secret service, that he was guarding Nixon when he was President. This can't be true, I knew Nelson, and there was no way that man could have passed the mental health test, he was nuts.
Beauders, below is Nelson's obituary. It says Nelson worked for the US Executive Protection Service. Doesn't say the years though. The US Protection Service was a part of the Secret Service for a time back in the '70's. They were uniformed officers and not agents.
You can read about the Secret Service history here and come to your own conclusions.
http://www.secretservice.gov/history.shtml
Russel W. Nelson
Obituary
Russel William "Bill" Nelson 62, went to be with our Lord Sat., Oct. 22, 2005. He was preceded in death by his parents, Dorothy and Eldon Nelson; sister, Becky; and brother, Jerry. Bill resided in Huntington Beach, CA. He is survived by his wife, Fama; sons, Kevin, Brian and Tim; 6 grandchildren; sisters, Sandra Lee and Christina Williams; and brother, Jason. Bill proudly served his country in the US Navy in Vietnam. He worked for the US Executive Protection Service in Washington DC at the White House. Arrangements by Coastal Funeral Services, Irvine, CA. Burial in Riverside, CA.
.
Published in the The Indianapolis Star on Oct. 29, 2005 .
- See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/indystar/obituary.aspx?n=russel-w-nelson&pid=144496219#sthash.ALxj3aua.dpuf
Beauders I feel what you are saying.
But in reality Nelson would've been perfect for employment in the US Government BECAUSE of his madness.
1nonbeliever, I won't dispute anything you have said. We live in a free society and are free from censorship. The First Amendment right to free speech is part of what makes this country great and the envy of the rest of the world.
But there are things that make us even greater as individuals. For example, burning the American flag is an expression covered under Amendment One. However if before doing so we pause to consider that the person standing next to us may have been shot at for that flag we become even greater as a person.
I would think that whoever sent in the obituary information bought into Bill's lies.
I think that they should not be posted the victim s and their families deserve to respected Think about it if it was your loved one would you want that to be shared.
It depends on who you are whether you'd want the photos shared or not. Everybody grieves differently - its possible that having the information disseminated might actually relieve someone's pain. But in most cases Marlene, Patty'd have to agree w you.
As I had pointed out I believe thie Tate-LaBianca crime scene photos were not posted until after Bill Nelson started selling them from his website making them available to the general public which can be viewed as being wrong on a few difference levels.
It seems every photographer puts a copyright notice on their photos and can put pressure on sites to have their photos removed if permission wasn't granted. Don't law enforcement agencies have any legal recourse when official crime scene photos are published?
Nelson showed me his secret service ring. It looked real. But I suppose he could've found it at a flea market.
Nelson lied to me continually and I had a conversation or two with him that he went ape shit on me. I guess it's the old boy who cried wolf syndrome. I don't believe anything he told me other then he hated Tex Watson and Susan Atkins was still sexy when he met with her a few times.
He was...uh...
when you are researching a crime, no matter how big or small, crime scene photos are invaluable.
you need to see as much of the puzzle as you can see and crime scene photos help tell the narrative. they are, in essence, the victim's voices. without crime scene photos, specifically the tate crime scene, there's no indication of what went on. without the photos, you do not get to experience the savagery and violence and pain inflicted on the victims. if you don't know that, you can't get, nor can you tell, the whole story.
yes, they can be very hard to look at, but unless you were there to see what happened, you'll never know the extent the murders went to to complete their jobs. no matter how gruesome they may be, you need to see them. that's the only way to learn about the victims and their killers.
I think such easy access to the crime scene photographs help to ensure that no one related to the Manson family ever gets parole.
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