Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: When Pigs Fly!

Perhaps Corey Mitchell, editor of In Cold Blog, was thinking, quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur (everything sounds more impressive when said in Latin) when he wrote his Mea Culpa manifesto and posted it on ICB last week. Mitchell issued the formal apology in response to the protests, and ultimate defection, of several highly respected ICB contributors over his posting of a brutally violent video clip, which he labeled a “Thanksgiving Treat.“ (Please see Gore and Slasher Films Are No Laughing Matter to Victims of Violent Crime) However, this is what Mitchell had to say before finding out the victims' organizations he professed to be involved with had been contacted:

"…the site is far from sick or perverted because we post a FUNNY and FAKE movie trailer ABOUT A MOVIE that does not exist.

If you have problems with the site then you need to be professional enough to make a choice.

Meanwhile, I am more than happy to continue donating to charities, negotiating a deal with a syndicated news service to pick up our blog and pay our contributors, and also accept a job as a blogger for the Discovery Channel/New York Times.

If you do decide to quit over something so trivial as a fake movie trailer please let me know so I can find a replacement ASAP."

Mea Culpa? Ad astra per alia porci !!! (“When pigs fly!”) He might have been able to continue getting his jollies from getting as close to the real deal as he can, without actually participating in the horrific, degrading acts experienced by crime victims every day. That is, if he had only kept his mouth shut. But I am very glad you didn’t, Corey Mitchell. You had the gall to claim you donate part of the proceeds from sales of your books to support specific Victims' Advocacy organizations, who not only issued public statements to the contrary, but strongly denounced your self-proclaimed love of depictions of brutal acts of violence and murder for entertainment purposes. That was bad enough, but nothing could testify to your true nature better than your own words.

No matter how glibly stated, Mitchell’s incredibly bizarre, disturbed, and grandiose discourse leaves no doubt as to his arrogance, his egocentric perception of the world, and his place in it, as well as his confidence in his ability to manipulate others, and their perceptions of him and his behavior. But what gave him away more than anything else was his complete lack of empathy. It occurred to me that here was a successful author who had the skill to recreate the most despicable acts imaginable in such gruesome detail as to make some readers claim in their reviews that they are afraid to go to sleep at night. Yet there were parts of Mitchell’s little autobiography where expressions of empathy were appropriate- even expected- since he was attempting to convince people that there was nothing unusual about a man his age (41) proclaiming simultaneously to have both a love of gore and slasher films, and a genuinely deep concern for victims of violent crime. For example:

"My continuing love of all things horror has only increased after having experienced several tragedies of my own from being told at the age of 15 that my father would be dead in less than six months (he is still alive today – 26 years later) due to an enormous brain tumor. To say the least it always had me on edge and able to see that life could end at any moment."

One doesn’t hear of such miracles everyday, and I am very happy for Corey Mitchell and his family that his father is still with them 26 years later. Mitchell doesn’t say he is grateful for this miracle, but claims the experience is one of the reasons he finds solace in gore and violence. I just lost my second husband to cancer 3 months ago, and I would give almost anything to have even just 1 more day with him. Corey Mitchell’s father survives a brain tumor and he thinks directing “Blowtorch Lobotomy” is fun?

"Then I counseled my first wife, Lisa, in regard to her first sexual experience, which was being gang-raped by two paint-sniffing high school dropouts. I saw what being a victim of violence and violation did to her. Then I had Lisa die unexpectedly to Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome at the young age of 38 in 2002."

My deepest sympathies to Corey Mitchell and to Lisa’s family for her sudden death. To be so horribly raped as a young girl is tragic. Mitchell’s words make me feel her pain, but not his own. He “counseled” her?

As a survivor of a homicide victim, I am offended by you, Corey Mitchell. As someone who has worked for many years on behalf of the missing and murdered, I am offended by you-as are the victims' organizations you claim to support.

Let’s drop all the pretentious Latin crap, and I will put this in the simplest possible terms:

What Corey Mitchell is saying to victims of violent crime is, “I am very sorry that your child or wife was so brutally raped, tortured, and dismembered and I care about you and your loss, but I love to watch that stuff on the screen –it’s so funny!”

Mea Culpa, my ass…

Donna Weaver