- An American judge once described Scream, the 'ironic'
cult horror film, as a 'very good source to learn how to kill someone'.
Now the film has spawned yet another copycat killing - one so cold-blooded
it has shocked a local community in French-speaking Belgium.
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- In the movie the sleepy American town of Woodsboro is
terrorised by a 'slasher' who wears a black tunic from head to toe and
a ghoulish mask inspired by Edvard Munch's painting The Scream. The film
and its sequels have attracted a cult following and fancy-dress shops now
stock replicas of the mask and robe.
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- Unfortunately, the films have also inspired a spate of
copycat killings and attacks, usually by impressionable American teenagers.
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- The film obviously struck a chord also with lonely Belgian
lorry driver Thierry Jaradin, 24, who chose 15-year-old schoolgirl Alisson
Cambier as his victim.
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- She dropped by Jaradin's house, a few doors away from
her own in the town of Gerpinnes, to exchange some videotapes and have
a chat. Jaradin made amorous advances towards her, but when they were rejected
his retribution was brutal.
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- Excusing himself for a few seconds, he stepped into an
adjacent room where his Scream costume was waiting, together with two enormous
kitchen knives. Clamping his hand over Alisson's mouth to muffle her screams,
he stabbed her 30 times, ripping open her left side. He then lowered her
blood-soaked corpse on to his bed, slipped a rose into one of her hands
and telephoned his father and a colleague to confess. He later told police
that his crime had been premeditated and had been motivated by the cinematic
trilogy.
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- Alisson's family and the people of Gerpinnes are now
in a state of shock. 'Alisson was a dazzling, young, affectionate teenager
who should have celebrated her sixteenth birthday on 16 November,' said
one neighbour.
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- Her family has also been distressed by allegations that
she was in love with Thierry. 'Alisson was not in love with her killer,'
Jean-Jacques Cambier, her father, told the daily newspaper La Dernière
Heure. 'People are misinterpreting facts and talking to me about a love
affair which never existed.'
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- There was nothing in Jaradin's background to suggest
that he was capable of committing such a terrible crime. He had no criminal
record or history of psychiatric problems.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2001 http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,596883,00.html
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