Part 1 (1/2)

The Hoe coentle and cultured ht of each week, to roahastly cri this account of my friend Jason Carse in the interests of both justice and psychiatry, and perhaps of dereater proof of what I relate than the sequence of murders which so recently shocked this city, the newspaper ite the crimes, and especially the official report of the alienists who exa Doctor Carse back to life, for he was hanged until dead, but I do hope that this paper will offer new illumination on cases of criminal decapitation

Justice and psychiatry are closely related, but it is difficult to recognize the judicial iy Yet I emphatically assert that the case of Jason Carse is irrevocably concerned with evil and dark lore such as mankind has not known since the Holy Inquisition

One is naturally prejudiced against Carse, for even I nance when I first realized the nature of his activities, but his death on the gallows should foreclose biased reflection and perht As I am the only ive this astounding information to the world

Jason Carse was a brilliant and respected crinized as one of the greatest students of the modern world, a fact which has made his case one of unparalleled notoriety I was his roo the several years we spent in law school, and, although he shot to the pinnacle of his branch of jurisprudence while I was left to more prosaic routine, we never lost the contact which has now becoular since ere graduated, and I can say with justifiable pride that Carse respected my friendshi+p as much as that of any other acquaintance, if not more

It was this intimacy with his personal life which has enabledataviseous crimes

I obtained o when I received Carse's letter from Vienna He had just discovered sensational evidence in a famous criminal case--one of recurrent human decapitation--and his consequent enthusiasm was so rabid that I was afraid theto pervert his senses For several years I had becoressively aware of Carse's melancholic attitude, and I had often recommended that he take a vacation froable enthusiasone relentlessly ahead to the tragic cliined

This letter froer with indomitable _il faut travailler_, confirmedrut of monomania

When he returned to America shortly afterward I crossed the country to spend a few days with hi to cheer his spirits He continually brooded over the case he had been investigating, and I should have known at that ti in his subconscious mind

Less than a week after my departure fro criot under way I can recall reading the sensational accounts in the newspapers and my anxious fear that this fresh display of cri hysteria I telegraphed hi his refusal to bother with the case and requesting that he come to visit me His reply ift and brief; he had already co cri on earth could deter hi hi but hope that the Head-hunter would be swiftly captured and the case brought to a finish It was an unpleasant shock, therefore, when I read--exactly one week later--that a second and identical crime had been committed

Even in my own city, three thousand miles from the center of the crimes, there ild confusion at the announcement of this second spectacular murder The reader may recall the international effects of the infao and he will understand how rapidly the Head-hunter's fah crime-conscious America Both murders were made particularly mysterious because of the disappearance of the victis would produce upon Carse, for he had always been interested in decapitations, and his thesis at the University of Graz had been based upon the ne

I wrote again to Carse and begged him to abandon his studies in these new ing

There was a wild and almost fanatical tone in his letter which was indicative of his obsessed ly pre-point of his career

The third and fourth murders, so horribly identical with the first two, carip of strangling terror There was no rime or reason for the crimes, and yet the diabolical precision of the murderer seeence In all four cases his victiabonds and people of the lowest order In none of the murders had the victily for ever There was not a shred of evidence pointing to the solution, and, except that the police knew hile person in a city of several millions whom they could call the murderer Far worse than the four murders committed was the belief that they would continue week after week to an indeterminable conclusion

I left for the city by plane on the evening of the discovery of the fifth victiht I read Carse's own state the crime as an atavistic expression of animalism The fact that two of the five victi to Carse's theory, belied the popular suspicion that the criminal was a homicidal sadist Carse expressed the belief that the ery, and that the ghastly murders would continue until he wore hiy

I reached the city shortly after sundown, and at once I felt the awful tension which had settled upon everyone in it Men and women moved furtively, airport officials and police exa suspicion, and even my taxi-driver, a smallto thetraffic I was surprized, therefore, in view of this mutual distrust, to find that Jason Carse, a veteran cri alone in his grim house behind a barricaded door

The most unpleasant shock was the unaccountably cold manner in which Carse received my visit, and his positive annoyance that I had forced myself so unexpectedly upon hied his servants, nor the secluded life he was now leading, but there was little difficulty in realizing the fatiguing effects which these recent crier as we o to a hotel,” he said bluntly ”I don't want anyone here”

But I didn't go to a hotel I told him flatly that there was no other course open to me but to stay and take care of hi care of himself, and his dismissal of the household help had precipitated a needless burden on his already over-laden shoulders He needed food, for he was thin to emaciation, and I made him dress at once and accompany me to a restaurant where I saw that he ate a decent meal I then led him to the theater, a particularly lively musical comedy, and kept him in his seat until the curtain had fallen But my efforts seemed of no avail, as he was continually depressed and absorbed in his own reflections That night before retiring he caain asked ood,” he said with strange harshness ”For God's sake believe what I say!”

For the next several days I watched hiious a nature that I felt the insufferable pangs of itconstantly to autopsy protocols and policehis Bible On several occasions he visited the county ue and exa each such visit he lapsed into a state of itation that exhausted hihts were al to the uishi+ng such words as ”God forbid it! God forbid it!” and frequently he would scream the word ”Head-hunter” There was no doubt that Carse had delved too deeply into this case, and that hour by hour he was descending into the clutch of a dangerous neurosis

During ed them, and I was unable to reconcile him to my point of view His resentment of inning to fear that he would forcibly eject me