This post is long overdue as I just kept procrastinating to do this for the longest, but finally, it's here.
The start is kind of tricky to figure out but the end is very easy. The start is most likely going to be with Richard Nixon's inauguration on January 20, 1969 and the end will be the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973. I know early-mid 1969 does kind of seem like a stretch to include the transition (although some are even willing to start the 1970s in 1968, so maybe not a stretch after all), unlike late 1969-1972/early 1973ish, as that period still screamed "60s" in many ways with Woodstock, the Moon Landing, and such, but I think even that period had enough "70s" things to exclude it out of the "core '60s" territory, especially by the time you hit the summer of '69.
I know most will disagree with the timespan but this is just my opinion. This is gonna be much longer so this will probably be done in two or three parts, one again.
Let's begin.
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The inauguration of Richard Nixon - January 20, 1969

After the chaotic year that was 1968, with the incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson not running for a second time, Richard M. Nixon had narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey, the incumbent vice president, in the presidential election. Nixon became the first non-incumbent vice president to be inaugurated as president, something that would not happen again until Joe Biden in 2021. I'd say this is appropriate to begin the transition into the tumultuous decade that was the 1970s.
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Sly and the Family Stone's 'Stand' album releases - April 1969

In the spring of '69, soul/funk band Sly and the Family Stone released their fourth album Stand. Written and produced by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, Stand! is considered an artistic high-point of the band's career. Released by Epic Records, just before the group's celebrated performance at the Woodstock festival, it became the band's most commercially successful album to date. This album was another sign of the 70s era that was beginning to emerge with its soul and funk rock sound.
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Lew Alcindor becomes the #1 pick for the NBA Draft - April 7, 1969

The 1969 NBA draft was the 23rd annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on April 7 and May 7, 1969, before the 1969–70 season. The first overall draft pick this year would be none other than Lew Alcindor (or later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as we all know him as) from UCLA for the Milwaukee Bucks organization. This would be the changing of the guard for the National Basketball Association as the veteran Boston Celtics dynasty were about to come to an end while a new dynasty has officially been born.
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The Boston Celtics win the 1969 NBA Championship - May 5, 1969

After defeating the highly-favored Los Angeles Lakers team of Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry West, the aging Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics team win the 1969 NBA World Championship Series to end off the 1968-1969 NBA season, acquiring win their 11th championship as an organization. This was a significant Finals series as this marked the end of the Bill Russell Celtics dynasty that began in 1956. This would be their final championship as a team as Russell would retire shortly after this playoff series.
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Star Trek ends with the "Turnabout Intruder" episode - June 3, 1969

"Turnabout Intruder" is the twenty-fourth and final episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Arthur H. Singer (based on a story by Gene Roddenberry) and directed by Herb Wallerstein, it was first broadcast on June 3, 1969. In the episode, a woman switches bodies with Captain Kirk and then tries to take over command of the Enterprise. This was the last original episode of Star Trek to air on NBC.
"Turnabout Intruder" not only marked the final appearance of all main and supporting cast members of the show but also the last appearance of regular background actors David L. Ross (Lieutenant Galloway), William Blackburn (Lieutenant Hadley and DeForest Kelley's stand-in), and Roger Holloway (Lieutenant Lemli and James Doohan's stand-in). The episode drew Nielsen ratings of only 8.8, in contrast to rival shows Lancer on CBS and The Mod Squad on ABC, which gained ratings of 14.7 and 15.2 respectively, a drop of over fifty percent since the show premiered. Cultural theorist Cassandra Amesley states that this episode is "agreed to be one of the worst Star Trek episodes ever shown" by Star Trek fans.
The original Star Trek series ending would be another shedding off of 60s culture.
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Brian Jones dies - July 3, 1969

Rolling Stones star Brian Jones passes away at the age of 27 in the summer of 1969 after reportedly drowning in his swimming pool. Long story short, a lot of theories would surface surrounding his death years later saying that he was killed. And more importantly, this would be the beginning of the "27 Club" deaths that would occur with 60s musical acts between 1969 and 1971.
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The Apollo 11 spaceflight to the moon - July 20, 1969

Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing.
Humans walking on the Moon and returning safely to Earth accomplished Kennedy's goal set eight years earlier. In Mission Control during the Apollo 11 landing, Kennedy's speech flashed on the screen, followed by the words "TASK ACCOMPLISHED, July 1969". The success of Apollo 11 demonstrated the United States' technological superiority; and with the success of Apollo 11, America had won the Space Race.
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The Manson Family murders - August 8 to 10, 1969

The Tate–LaBianca murders were a series of murders perpetrated by members of the Manson Family during August 9–10, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, United States, under the direction of Tex Watson and Charles Manson. The perpetrators killed five people on the night of August 8–9: pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her companions Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, along with Steven Parent. The following evening, the Family also murdered supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, at their home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles.
On the night of August 8–9, four members of the Manson Family – Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian – drove from Spahn Ranch to 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, the home of Sharon Tate and her husband, film director Roman Polanski. The group murdered Tate (who was 8½ months pregnant), and guests Jay Sebring, a celebrity hairdresser; Abigail Folger, heiress to Folgers Coffee; her boyfriend Wojciech Frykowski, an aspiring screenwriter; and Steven Parent, an 18-year-old visiting the guest house caretaker. Roman Polanski was not home as he was working on a film in Europe. Manson was a cult leader and aspiring musician who had tried to get a contract with record producer Terry Melcher, who had previously rented the house.
The following night, those four people, in addition to Manson, Leslie Van Houten and Steve "Clem" Grogan, committed two more murders. Manson had allegedly said he would "show them how to do it". Linda Kasabian drove the group to 3301 Waverly Drive. Manson left with Atkins, Grogan, and Kasabian in the car and told the others to hitchhike back to the ranch. Watson, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten killed the couple in the early morning hours of August 10.
The Tate–LaBianca murders "profoundly shook America's perception of itself" and "effectively sounded the death knell of '60s counterculture". Additionally, the ritualistic nature of the murders laid a foundation for the rise of the Satanic panic.
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The Woodstock festival - August 15 to 18, 1969

Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, 40 miles (65 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted more than 460,000 attendees. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite overcast and sporadic rain. It was one of the largest music festivals in history and became synonymous with the counterculture of the 1960s.
The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, as well as a defining event for the Silent and Baby Boomer generations. The event's significance was reinforced by a 1970 documentary film, an accompanying soundtrack album, and a song written by Joni Mitchell that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort.
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Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premieres on CBS - September 13, 1969

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is an American animated comedy television series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera for CBS. The series premiered as part of the network's Saturday morning cartoon schedule on September 13, 1969, and aired for two seasons until October 31, 1970. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of a long-running media franchise primarily consisting of animated series, several films, and related merchandise. This show played a huge impact on Generation X "70s kid" culture (although the original 1969-1970 series has a 60s vibe to it as well).
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The Brady Bunch premieres on ABC - September 26, 1969

The Brady Bunch was a new series that premiered on ABC for the 1969-70 fall season. It starts with the episode "The Honeymoon", which gives this description on Fandom:
"Michael Brady, an architect and widower with three sons (Greg, Peter and Bobby) marries Carol Ann Martin, a mother with three daughters (Marcia, Jan and Cindy). Mike and Carol have a chaotic backyard wedding, in which the boys' dog, Tiger, chases the girls' cat, Fluffy. Mike and Carol admonish their children, yelling at them to go catch their pets. The newlywed couple goes on a honeymoon later that day, while the children sit at home thinking that their parents hate them. While on their honeymoon, Mike and Carol realize that they were too hard on their children, and they decide to bring them along on the honeymoon. They also bring along Alice (the housekeeper), Tiger and Fluffy."
This show would give another huge sign to 70s culture as a whole.
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Sesame Street debuts - November 10, 1969

In the fall of 1969, “Sesame Street,” a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut. “Sesame Street,” with its memorable theme song (“Can you tell me how to get/How to get to Sesame Street”), went on to become the most widely viewed children’s program in the world. It has aired in more than 120 countries.
The show was the brainchild of Joan Ganz Cooney, a former documentary producer for public television. Cooney’s goal was to create programming for preschoolers that was both entertaining and educational. She also wanted to use TV as a way to help underprivileged 3- to 5- year-olds prepare for kindergarten. “Sesame Street” was set in a fictional New York neighborhood and included ethnically diverse characters and positive social messages.
Taking a cue from “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” a popular 1960s variety show, “Sesame Street” was built around short, often funny segments featuring puppets, animation and live actors. This format was hugely successful, although over the years some critics have blamed the show and its use of brief segments for shrinking children’s attention spans.
From the show’s inception, one of its most-loved aspects has been a family of puppets known as Muppets. Joan Ganz Cooney hired puppeteer Jim Henson (1936-1990) to create a cast of characters that became Sesame Street institutions, including Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Grover and Big Bird.
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The 'David Bowie' album releases - November 14, 1969

Originally released in the UK, David Bowie's self-titled album would be his second studio album released, which would be titled under the genres of folk rock and psychedelic rock. Space rock was another genre that this album experimented with due to its only released single "Space Oddity", which came out in July 1969 to capitalize on the Apollo 11 Moon landing, received critical praise, and was used by the BBC as background music during its coverage of the event. That song is considered to be one of the most musically complex songs he had written up to that point, it represented a change from the music hall-influenced sound of his debut to a sound akin to psychedelic folk and inspired by the Bee Gees.
David Bowie has received mixed reviews in later decades, with many finding a lack of cohesiveness. Bowie himself later stated that it lacked musical direction. Debate continues as to whether it should stand as Bowie's first "proper" album.
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The Altamont Free Concert takes place - December 6, 1969

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, with some anticipating that it would be a "Woodstock West". The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.
The event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two from a hit-and-run car accident, and one from a drowning incident in an irrigation canal. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen (and subsequently abandoned), and there was extensive property damage.
The concert featured performances (in order of appearance) by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY), with the Rolling Stones taking the stage as the final act. The Grateful Dead were also scheduled to perform after CSNY, but shortly before their scheduled appearance, they chose not to due to the increasing violence at the venue. "That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, the prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play," wrote staff at Rolling Stone magazine in a detailed narrative on the event, terming it, in an additional follow-up piece, "rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong."
Many people would mark this event to be the end of the cultural 60s.
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The 'Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5' album releases - December 12, 1969

Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5 is the debut studio album from Gary, Indiana-based soul family band the Jackson 5, released on the Motown label on December 12, 1969. The Jackson 5's lead singer, a preadolescent Michael Jackson and his four older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon, became pop successes within months of this album's release. Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5's only single, "I Want You Back", became a number-one hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 within weeks of the album's release. The album reached number 5 on the US Pop Albums chart, and spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the US R&B/Black Albums charts. To date, the Jackson 5's debut album has sold estimated 5 million copies worldwide.
If none of the events that described previously had transitioned us into the 70s to any of you, then this certainly did.
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MAS*H releases in theaters - January 25, 1970

M*A*S*H (stylized on-screen as MASH) is a 1970 American dark war comedy film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner Jr., based on Richard Hooker's 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The picture is the only theatrically released feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise.
The film depicts a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. It stars Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, and Elliott Gould, with Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, René Auberjonois, Gary Burghoff, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy, and in his film debut, professional football player Fred Williamson. Although the Korean War is the film's storyline setting, the subtext is the Vietnam War – a current event at the time the film was made. Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau, who saw the film in college, said M*A*S*H was "perfect for the times, the cacophony of American culture was brilliantly reproduced onscreen".
M*A*S*H became one of the biggest films of the early 1970s for 20th Century-Fox and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made and also won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, later named the Palme d'Or, at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival.
This film was a another huge sign of 70s culture as it inspired the television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983. Gary Burghoff, who played Radar O'Reilly, was the only actor playing a major character who appeared in both the movie and the TV series. Altman despised the TV series, calling it "the antithesis of what we were trying to do" with the movie.
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Paul McCartney announces his break from the Beatles - April 10, 1970

On April 10, 1970, when promoting the release of his forthcoming solo album, Paul McCartney announces that he is taking a break from the Beatles, the legendary rock band he had been a part of for a decade. It wasn't that much of a surprise. The Beatles spent the better part of three years breaking up in the late 1960s—and even longer than that hashing out who did what and why. By the spring of 1970, there was little more than a tangled set of business relationships keeping the group together. Each of the Beatles was pursuing his musical interests outside of the band, and there were no plans in place to record together as a group. But as far as the public knew, this was just a temporary state of affairs. No one had yet gone on the record with a definitive break-up statement. Paul, for his part, hedged his bets.
By year’s end, Paul would file suit to dissolve the Beatles’ business partnership, a formal process that would eventually make official the unofficial breakup he announced on this day in 1970.
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The Kent State Massacre - May 4, 1970

In the spring of 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine Kent State students. The impact of the shootings was dramatic. The event triggered a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close. H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact on national politics.
In The Ends of Power, Haldeman (1978) states that the shootings at Kent State began the slide into Watergate, eventually destroying the Nixon administration. Beyond the direct effects of the May 4, the shootings have certainly come to symbolize the deep political and social divisions that so sharply divided the country during the Vietnam War era.
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Jimi Hendrix passes away - September 18, 1970

On September 18, 1970, American musician Jimi Hendrix died in London at the age of 27. One of the 1960s' most influential guitarists, he was described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."
Hendrix's death was reportedly due to him aspirating on his own vomit, later dying of asphyxia, while intoxicated with barbiturates. At the inquest, the coroner, finding no evidence of suicide, and lacking sufficient evidence of the circumstances, recorded an open verdict. Dannemann stated that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.
Jimi Hendrix's death was another huge blow to 60s culture and he would be another number added to the new "27 Club" list of celebrities that would continue with none other than.....
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Janis Joplin passes away - October 4, 1970

On Sunday evening, October 4, 1970, Joplin was found dead on the floor of her room at the Landmark Motor Hotel by her road manager and close friend John Byrne Cooke. Alcohol was present in the room. Newspapers reported that no other drugs or paraphernalia were present.
According to a 1983 book authored by Joseph DiMona and Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi, evidence of narcotics was removed from the scene by a friend of Joplin and later put back after the person realized that an autopsy was going to reveal that narcotics were in her system. The book adds that prior to Joplin's death, Noguchi had investigated other fatal drug overdoses in Los Angeles where friends believed they were doing favors for decedents by removing evidence of narcotics, then they "thought things over" and returned to put back the evidence.
Noguchi performed an autopsy on Joplin and determined the cause of death to be a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.
Joplin's death, just like Hendrix's, was a huge blow to the more optimistic culture of the 1960s, and the 27 Club list of celebrity deaths are continuing.
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Other events that also had an impact that happened around this time period (give/take) that I could not fit on this list:

• Richard Nixon wins the presidential election, defeating incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace (November 5, 1968)
• Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower passes away (March 28, 1969)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit single "Fortunate Son" releases (October 1969), which was arguably the quintessential Vietnam War song.
• Pink Floyd's fourth album Ummagumma releases (November 7, 1969)

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And this will conclude the first part of this transition. Stay tuned for the second part to this.
I hope you enjoyed it and I would appreciate it if you would comment on these.

This is the list that I wrote for Oklahoma's execution roster since the nationwide reinstatement of capital punishment in the late 1970s. Something that should be mentioned is that given the nature of many death penalty related crimes, many of the descriptions contain very disturbing details. Please read at your own risk.
Florida's list is next, and I'll post my list for Texas once I've completed it. With Texas, I've currently finished 464 entries out of the 587 cases to date. That will probably take 7 or 8 posts for it all to be released, so I'll probably do two posts a day with Texas to avoid spamming the sub. At the end of this year, I'll repost the states that have conducted further executions with the updated information.
As with Missouri and Virginia, Reddit's maximum character count limitations forced me to divide Oklahoma's list into two separate parts. Here is the link to part 2.
The currently 124 executed offenders, cases 1 to 62:
1. Charles Coleman (~1950s-1990, lethal injection): A month after he was released on parole in 1979, Coleman broke into a house. While sacking it for any valuables, the homeowner’s brother and sister in law, 68 year old John and 62 year old Roxie Seward, walked in on him and were both shot dead. Coleman stole Roxie’s purse, several packets of frozen meat, and the homeowner’s watch during the burglary, and was arrested shortly afterwards. However, Coleman managed to escape custody, and went on a rampage that involved several burglaries, auto thefts, slitting the throat of a policeman in a failed murder attempt, the shooting death of 49 year old Russell Lewis Jr. in a carjacking, and the abduction of a deputy. The kidnapped deputy was rescued following an armed standoff with other police officers. Coleman had an extensive history of animal cruelty, armed robberies, assaults, and carrying concealed weapons convictions dating back to when he was 11 years old. He was also heavily suspected in the murder of his teenage girlfriend’s father, but was acquitted by the courts despite the prosecution’s strong belief in his guilt.
2. Robyn Parks (1977-1992, lethal injection): During a gas station robbery, Parks shot and killed Abdullah Ibrahim, a 24 year old Bangladeshi immigrant that worked as the attendant. According to Parks, he murdered Ibrahim for catching him using a stolen credit card.
3. Olan Randle (1980-1992, lethal injection): Randle invaded a home and shot the occupants, 41 year old Robert Swinford, Sinford's fiance 42 year old Averil Bourque, and Bourque's friend 38 year old Julia Lovejoy, dead. He took a pocket knife and several watches from the victims.
4. Thomas Grasso (~1970s(?)-1995, lethal injection): While living in Oklahoma, Grasso strangled 87 year old Hilda Johnson, the best friend of his girlfriend's grandmother, to death with her Christmas lights. He took $8 from her purse, several coins that added up to $4, and a television set that he sold for $125. Grasso then moved to New York, and strangled 81 year old Leslie Holtz for his social security check. The trialing arrangements caused some controversy, as the New York governors at the time were anti death penalty, and tried to prevent Grasso's extradition in favor of giving him a life sentence in their jurisdiction. Grasso had several previous convictions for theft and was fired multiple times for stealing from his jobs.
5. Roger Stafford (~1974(?)-1995, lethal injection): Stafford was condemned for killing at least 9 people in two separate robbery incidents with his brother and ex wife, though his ex wife claimed that he was involved with as many as 34 murders nationwide. The first convicted incident was when he and the ex wife carjacked and fatally shot a couple, 38 year old Melvin and 31 year old Linda Lorenz, and their son, 12 year old Richard. A few weeks after the Lorenz murders, Stafford stormed a restaurant and gunned down 6 employees, 56 year old Isaac Freeman, 43 year old Louis Zacarias, 17 year old Anthony Tew, 17 year old David Lindsey, 16 year old David Salsman, and 15 year old Terri Horst. One of Stafford's additional attributed victims was 20 year old Jimmy Berry, who was killed in the hold up of an Alabaman McDonalds, but he wasn't charged by the state due to his death sentences in Oklahoma.
6. Robert Brecheen (1983-1995, lethal injection): Breechen was involved in a feud over money with 59 year old Mary Stubbs and her husband. In an attempt to take what he perceived was owed to him, Breechen carried out a night time burglary of their home. While rummaging through the house, Breechen stumbled upon old Marie in her living room and shot her to death. The gunshots and screams awoke her husband, and he chased him away with his own gun.
7. Benjamin Brewer (1978-1996, lethal injection): Brewer raped his neighbor, 20 year old Karen Stapleton, in her home and stabbed her to death
8. Steven Hatch (1979-1996, lethal injection): Hatch and another assailant, Glen Ake, forced themselves inside the home that Richard Dougass, a 43 year old reverend, shared with his wife, 36 year old Marilyn, and their two children, 16 year old Brooks and 12 year old Lesile. The pair tied up the family and raped Lesile in front of her parents and brother. All four family members were shot, and Hatch and Ake ran off with $43 and the parents’ wedding rings. Richard and Marilyn were both killed in the shootings, while their children survived the attack. Ake was also initially condemned for the attack, but his sentence was overturned and resentenced to life following mental health concerns, and passed away from undisclosed natural causes in 2011.
9. Scott Carpenter (1994-1997, lethal injection): In a convenience store robbery, Carpenter stabbed the owner, 56 year old A. J. Kelley, in the neck, and hid the body in the minnow room. He filled his truck with $37 worth of gas from the pumps and drove away from the scene. His execution caused some controversy, as it was reported that Carpenter gasped and spasmed for 11 minutes after being injected.
10. Michael Long (1997-1998, lethal injection): Enraged that his coworker, 24 year old Sheryl Graber, refused him sex and started screaming for help, he stabbed her over 31 times. Long also shot and killed her son, 5 year old Andrew, for being a witness.
11. Stephen Wood (1992-1998, lethal injection): While heavily intoxicated, Wood stabbed two other homeless men, 46 year old Charles Stephen and 34 year old Charles Von Johnson, dozens of times each. He was given a life sentence for both of their murders. During his incarceration, Robert Brigden, a 59 year old former minister that was serving a 40 year sentence for molesting several girls between the ages of 4-14 in his congregation, moved into his unit after refusing to go into protective custody. Woods killed Brigden in a stabbing attack, and his sentence was escalated to death by the courts for it.
12. Tuan Anh Nguyen (~1982-1998, lethal injection): By all accounts, Nguyen was jealously possessive over his wife, 21 year old Donna. During one of their arguments over his behavior, he stabbed Donna, her 6 year old nephew Joseph White, and her 3 year old niece Amanda White, in their home and left the bodies to be found by the children’s parents. He fled to Arizona, groomed a 14 year old girl into an illicit “relationship”, and impregnated her. After he convinced her to move in with him, Nguyen physically and sexually abused the girl until she fled and went to the local police for help. Nguyen was then deported back to Oklahoma to face trial for Donna and the White children’s slayings, and was sentenced to death for them.
13. John Duvall (1986-1998, lethal injection): During a fight with his wife, 30 year old Donna, Duvall stabbed and suffocated her to death with a pillow.
14. John Castro Sr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Castro carjacked Beulah Cox, a 31 year old Oklahoma State University student, after she picked him up hitchhiking and shot her to death. A few months later, Castro held up a restaurant with an empty pistol, and attacked the manger, 29 year old Rhonda Pappan, after forcing her to open the register. During their struggle, Pappan was fatally stabbed, and he took off with her purse. During his mid teens, Castro was allegedly molested by his mother. Castro's attorneys made the argument that his glimpses of Cox's buttocks reminded him of his mother's reported abuse, and he was triggered into attacking her for it.
15. Sean Sellers (1985-1999, lethal injection): In 1985, a then 15 year old Sellers tried to buy beer from a convenience store, but the clerk, 32 year old Robert Bower, denied him due to being underaged at the time. Sellers gunned him down in a fit of rage. A year later, Sellers shot and killed his mother, 32 year old Vonda Bellofatto, and stepfather, 43 year old Paul, in their sleep. Due to being 16 at the time of his conviction, Sellers remains the youngest condemned offender to have his sentence carried out in the post Furman era. He also attracted national media attention for claiming that his crimes were the result of demonic possession.
16. Scotty Moore (1983-1999, lethal injection): Moore was fired from a motel for undisclosed reasons. In retaliation, Moore and a cousin (whom he was dating at the time), assaulted the motel, and gunned down the desk clerk, 42 year old Alex Fernandez. According to court documents, the pair took a total of $97 in the robbery.
17. Norman Newsted (1984-1999, lethal injection): Newsted tricked Lawrence Buckley, a 26 year old cab driver, into picking him up. He shot Buckley dead and took his wallet. In an attempt to cover his tracks, Newsted placed the body inside the cab, and drove it into a creek near a local church. Despite his best efforts, Buckley’s cab and remains were discovered a day later by the church’s pastor.
18. Cornel Cooks (1982-1999, lethal injection): Cooks and his accomplice broke into the home of 87 year old Jennie Ridling. She was gagged, raped, and suffocated to death with gauze wrappings. According to autopsy reports, the pair abused her for over 2 hours. They then sacked the house for any valuables and left with her checkbook.
19. Bobby Ross (1983-1999, lethal injection): While robbing an inn, Ross fatally shot a police officer, 30 year old Steve Mahan, that tried to intervene.
20. Malcolm Johnson (~1970s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Johnson invaded the apartment of 76 year old Ura Thompson and sexually assaulted her. Thompson either died from having her chest compounded during the abuse or was suffocated by Johnson’s hands covering her nose. He seized several possessions such as furs, typewriters, purse, watch, rings, and a hand mirror, which were discovered by police in his residence during an unrelated investigation of a firearms possession charge. Johnson had an extensive criminal history, which included several convictions of rape, armed robberies, and burglaries. The case attracted controversy when it was discovered that the lead chemist in the investigation misconducted several of her other cases, and forged some of the evidence used in the trial. Despite the other overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Johnson’s supporters took the opportunity to push a narrative of his innocence.
21. Gary Walker (~1960s-2000, lethal injection): Walker abducted, raped, and murdered at least 5 women, 36 year old Margaret Lydick, 35 year old Jane Hilburn, 32 year old Janet Jewell, 25 year old Valerie Shaw-Hartzell, and 24 year old DeRonda Roy, and non fatally assaulted several other women and teenage girls. The victims were mostly strangled to death with their bras and panties. Some of them were forced to withdraw hundreds of dollars from ATMs before they were killed. He also strangled a man, 63 year old Eddie Cash, with an electrical cord while robbing his home. Walker had dozens of previous convictions for burglary, carjacking, drug possession, and carrying concealed weapons. Some of his earliest arrests occurred when he was a teenager.
22. Michael Roberts (~1988-2000, lethal injection): A career burglar, Roberts was condemned for murder of 80 year old Lula Brooks. She was raped and her throat was slit by an intruder in her home. Roberts' death sentence and execution has been contested, as he was convicted on his later recounted testimony alone. He claimed that the investigators tricked him into confessing with the promise of a plea deal that was allegedly withheld from him.
23. Kelly Rogers (1990-2000, lethal injection): Rogers’ girlfriend lured 21 year old Karen Lauffenburger into her apartment with a fake pizza order. They accosted her when she arrived with the delivery. After the couple forced Lauffenburger to hand to over the $40 she earned from the night's pizza deliveries and withdraw $175 from an ATM, Rogers raped and stabbed her to death. The body was left in Lauffenburger’s apartment and was found by her boyfriend.
24. Ronald Boyd (1986-2000, lethal injection): During a robbery spree of several gas stations and supermarkets, Boyd engaged in a shootout with the responding officers. A Master Patrolman, 32 year old Richard Riggs, was killed in the exchange.
25. Charles Foster (~1980s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Foster suspected a grocery store owner, 74 year old Claude Wiley, of making sexual advances at his wife. He arranged for her to entice Wiley to their home with an order. When he arrived with the delivery, Foster stabbed and bludgeoned him to death with a baseball bat. He a history of convictions involving threats and violence, though my sources didn’t disclose any specific details.
26. James Robedeaux (1978-2000, lethal injection): In 1978, Robedeaux strangled his first wife, 30 year old Linda, and plead guilty to a second degree murder charges. He was released after serving 6 out of a 25 year sentence despite an escape attempt. In the following year, he began a relationship with 37 year old Nancy McKinney while he married a different woman. During an argument, Robedeaux beat McKinney to death, dismembered her body with a saw and machete, and scattered the remains across the state. While being investigated for McKinney's murder, he was arrested for choking and beating his estranged second wife. The cases were incidental and kept separate by the courts.
27. Roger Berget (~1985-2000, lethal injection): Berget carjacked and abducted 33 year old Rick Patterson with an accomplice, and shot him dead. He also admitted to the beating death of a roommate, 40 year old James Meadows, on the behalf of the man's wife. As a trivial side note, Berget's brother Rodney was executed in 2018 by the state of South Dakota for killing a prison guard [for more information, please see Rodney Berget's entry under the South Dakota section of my states with less then 10 executions post].
28. William Bryson (1988-2000, lethal injection): To collect a $300,000 life insurance policy, Marilyn Plantz recruited her boyfriend Byrson and his friend to kill her husband, 33 year old James. Byrson and his friend ambushed Plantz in his house as he was coming home from work and beat him to death with a baseball bat. With the intentions of staging an accident, Marilyn ordered the pair to burn the body in the couple's pickup truck.
29. Gregg Braun (1989-2000, lethal injection): Across several states, Braun shot and killed 4 women, 48 year old Geraldine Valdez, 31 year old Gwendolyn Miller, 28 year old Mary Rains, 27 year old Barbara Kochendorfer, and one man, 54 year old Pete Spurrier, while robbing stores.
30. George Wallace (~1970s-2000, lethal injection): Known as "the Mad Paddler" due to his habit of spanking abducted preteen and teenage boys with a wooden paddle, Wallace kidnapped his victims by posing as a police officer. After duping his targets into thinking that they were being arrested, Wallace restrained them with handcuffs and leg chains. The captives were then sexually abused and shot or stabbed to death. His crimes were exposed when an 18 year old man he abducted escaped from him despite being shot and stabbed numerous times. By his own admission, Wallace murdered 18 year old Thomas Reed, 15 year old William Domer, 14 year old Mark McLaughlin, 14 year old Jeffrey Foster, and 12 year old Alonzo Cade.
31. Eddie Trice (1987-2001, lethal injection): Trice snuck into the home of 84 year old Ernestine Jones and raped her. After he beat Jones to death with numbchucks, he terrorized and extorted her cognitively disabled son of $500 with threats of killing him if he told anyone of the murder. The son was also assaulted with a hammer, and he received injuries to his right eye, right cheekbone, and his right forearm.
32. Wanda Allen (~1981-2001, lethal injection): In 1981, Allen got into a fight with her live in girlfriend, 21 year old Dedra Pettus, and shot her dead. Despite giving a bungled story about her being accidentally killed in a shootout with Pettus’ ex boyfriend to the investigators, Allen managed to secure a 4 year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to a plea deal, and was released after serving two years. While incarcerated, she started dating a fellow inmate, 29 year old Gloria Leathers, and continued their relationship outside of prison. The couple’s relationship was marred with extreme domestic violence on Allen’s end. In one incident, Allen struck Leathers with a rake. In 1989, while they were arguing in front of a shopping center, Allen shot and killed Leathers. Leathers herself also had history of violence, and had a conviction for stabbing a woman to death. Allen and her defense team tried to use Leathers’ previous convictions to make a self defense argument, but that was shot down by the courts.
33. Floyd Medlock (1990-2001, lethal injection): 7 year old Katherine Busch went to visit her family's old apartment, which Medlock was residing in, by herself. Busch knocked on the door and Medlock let her inside after she begged for food. He then choked and sexually assaulted the girl, dunked her head in a toilet bowl, and stabbed her to death. The body was hidden in a nearby dumpster. Busch's grandmothers were staunch pro capital punishment and anti death penalty activists respectively, and their public feud over Medlock's sentence and execution attracted some media attention. Medlock also had an extensive criminal history despite being only 19 at the time of Busch's murder, and was previously arrested several times for indecent exposure, arson, armed robbery, and marijuana possession.
34. Dion Smallwood (1992-2001, lethal injection): Smallwood walked into the home of his ex girlfriend's adoptive stepmother, 68 year old Lois Frederick, without invitation. He had a tumultuous and often violent relationship with her adopted stepdaughter that she strongly opposed, and they broke up under her pressure. After an argument, Smallwood knocked Frederick unconscious with a croquet mallet, locked her in a car, and burned her alive in it.
35. Mark Fowler (1985-2001, lethal injection): To get back at his ex employers for firing him, Fowler and his partner, Billy Fox, stormed a supermarket that he used to work out. The pair rounded up 3 employees, Chumpon Chaowasin, a 44 year old Thai immigrant, 33 year old Rick Cast, and 27 year old John Barrier, at gun point. Their hostages were shot, clubbed, and stabbed to death, and they took over $2,7000 in cash and checks.
36. Billy Fox (1985-2001, lethal injection): Fox assisted the above mentioned Mark Fowler in robbing a supermarket and murdering 3 of its employees
37. Loyd Lafevers (1985-2001, lethal injection): Lafevers and his accomplice, Randall Cannon, kidnapped 84 year old Addie Hawley from her home. She was raped, trapped in the trunk of a car, and burned alive in it. Although she was rescued, Hawley died from her injuries 6 hours later. The pair stole Hawley's wedding ring and Lafevers gifted it to a stripper. As Hawley's nephew was a Colorado state senator, her murder gained some attention from media outlets.
38. Dorsie Jones Jr. (1979-2001, lethal injection): While drinking at a bar, a barmaid chastised Jones for carrying an unconcealed gun. He shot at her in a fit of rage, but missed and injured his female companion instead. Jones then turned his attention to the other patrons and fired on them. 48 year old Stanley Buck Sr. was killed in front of his 19 year old son, who was also wounded in the shooting.
39. Robert Clayton (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Clayton attacked 19 year old Rhonda Timmons while she was sunbathing near her apartment. She was raped, stabbed, kicked in the head, and strangled to death with her swimming suit. Her husband found Timmons' body laying next to their infant daughter, who was left unharmed. Clayton had a previous rape conviction in Tennessee and a robbery conviction in Texas.
40. Ronald Fluke (1997-2001, lethal injection): Out of despair that his gambling addiction drove his family to near poverty, Fluke shot and killed his wife, 44 year old Ginger, and their daughters, 13 year old Kathryn and 11 year old Susanne, while they were sleeping in their bedrooms. He initially attacked Ginger with a hatchet, but turned to shooting when she fought back.
41. Marilyn Plantz (1988-2001, lethal injection): The married girlfriend of William Bryson. As mentioned under Bryson's entry, Plantz arranged for him and his friend to kill her husband James to collect his life insurance policy.
42. Terrance James (1983-2001, lethal injection): While awaiting trial for a theft of government property charge, James and two accomplices strangled a fellow inmate, 25 year old Mark Berry, with wire out of their suspicions of him being a snitch. They then hung the body in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Berry was another party in the theft of government property case, and James and his accomplices believed that it was his testimony that got them arrested.
43. Vincent Johnson (1991-2001, lethal injection): Johnson gunned down 44 year old Shirley Mooneyham in her home. The prosecution believed that Mooneyham's boyfriend arranged the killing to collect a life insurance policy, but he was acquitted at trial.
44. Jerald Harjo (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Harjo snuck into the bedroom of 64 year old Ruth Porter, raped her, and suffocated her with a pillowcase. He then snatched Porter's car keys and drove off with her van. His past criminal history was extensive, and was in prison numerous times for burglary and autotheft.
45. Jack Walker (1988-2001, lethal injection): Disgruntled with the custody dispute over their then 3 month old son, Walker stabbed his ex girlfriend, 17 year old Shelly Ellison, and her uncle, 30 year old Donald, 32 and 11 times with an ice pick during a confrontation at their home.
46. Alvie Hale Jr. (1983-2001, lethal injection): Hale kidnapped 24 year old William Perry to extort a $350,000 ransom from his banking family. When the negotiations failed, Perry was shot dead, and Hale buried the body on his father's property.
47. Lois Smith (1982-2001, lethal injection): Smith, her son, and a female accomplice abducted her son's ex girlfriend, 21 year old Cindy Baillee, from an airport out of fear her testifying of his involvement in the drug trade. Baillee was taken to Smith's ex husband's house, and stabbed in the throat by her ex boyfriend while driving to their destination. Inside the home, she was taunted by Smith with a gun, and was shot 7 times in the chest and 2 times in the back of the head. While her son was reloading the gun, Smith jumped on and crushed Bailee's throat.
48. Sahib Lateef Al-Mosawi (1992-2001, lethal injection): Following a dispute over their newborn son's name, Al-Mosawi's estranged wife, 26 year old Inaam Al-Nashi, fled to the apartment of her uncle, 45 year old Mohammed. Al-Mosaw attacked the pair in the apartment and stabbed them to death. Inaam's sister was also stabbed, but she managed to escape with her life. The couple and their families were refugees from Iraq that were displaced by the First Persian Gulf War, and they fled into the United States.
49. John Romano (1985-2002, lethal injection): Romano and his accomplice David Woodruff robbed and murdered two of their acquaintances. One of the victims, 63 year old Lloyd Thompson, was attacked in his apartment. Thompson was held down by the pair while they stabbed him 22 times and served his spinal cord. The other victim, 52 year old Roger Sarfaty, was tied up, beaten, stabbed 5 times, and strangled to death in a jewelry store he owned. In the robberies, Romano and Woodruff stole several pieces of jewelry from Sarfaty, and took most of Thompson’s quarter collection.
50. David Woodruff (1985-2002, lethal injection): As mentioned under John Romano's entry, Woodruff took part in the robbery murders of Lloyd Thompson and Roger Sarfaty.
51. Randall Cannon (1985-2002, lethal injection): Cannon assisted Loyd Lafevers in abducting, sexually assaulting, and burning Addie Hawley alive in her car. Although he was acquitted of molesting Hawley, Cannon was still condemned for his part in the kidnapping and murder.
52. Earl Frederick Sr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): Frederick beat Bradford Beck, a 41 year old veteran that was crippled during his service in the Vietnam war, to death in his home after befriending him. He ransacked the house and dumped Beck's body in a field. A second murder, the robbery and shooting death of a Texan man, 77 year old Shirley Fox, was also tied to him. However, authorities in Texas withheld from prosecuting Fredrick due to his death penalty trial and conviction in Oklahoma. Both Fox and Beck had physical disabilities, which led prosecutors to the conclusion that Frederick intentionally selected and depredated on disabled men.
53. Jerry McCracken (~1980s(?)-2002, lethal injection): McCracken and his accomplice shot up a bar, killed 3 patrons and the bartender, and made off with $350. The victims that lost their lives were 41 year old Carol McDaniels, 37 year old Timothy Sheets, 34 year old Steven Sheets, and 27 year old Tyrrell Boyd. Months before the mass shooting, McCracken was paroled after serving time for stabbing 3 people in a bar fight.
54. Jay Neill (1984-2002, lethal injection): During a bank robbery, Neill disemboweled and nearly decapitated 3 tellers, 42 year old Kay Bruno, 25 year old Joyce Mullenix, and 19 year old Jerri Bowles. A group of 4 customers, consisting of 33 year old Ralph Zeller, a married couple, and their 14 month old daughter, unwittingly walked in on him, and he herded them into a backroom to be shot. Zeller was killed, the couple were wounded, and Neill left the daughter unharmed due to running out of bullets. Neill's boyfriend was given a life sentence for the robbery and murders, despite not being directly involved.
55. Ernest Carter Jr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): After being fired from an autoshop, Carter robbed it with an accomplice, and fatally shot a security guard, 35 year old Eugene Manowski. The pair stole the shop's tow truck, and later tried to burn it with Carter's girlfriend to destroy any traces of the crime. Carter was also previously accused of burning a friend to death in the previous year, but the charges were dismissed.
56. Daniel Revilla (1987-2003, lethal injection): While babysitting his girlfriend's son, 13 month old Mark Gomez, in their home, Revilla broke the boy’s ribs in a beating and scalded him with boiling water. When he brought the boy to a hospital, Revilla gave a story that he accidentally hit Gomez’s head with a door handle, which was quickly seen through by the staff. According to the accounts of his girlfriend and her family, Revilla was violently abusive to Gomez, and they recounted incidents of him trapping the boy in a kitchen drawer, dunking him in cold water, folding him into a pull up bed, and hanging him by his ankles with duct tape.
57. Bobby Fields (~1990s-2003, lethal injection): Fields shot and killed 77 year old Louise Schem while burglarizing her home. She had tried to shot him with her .25 calibre pistol, but he wrestled the gun away from her, and gunned her down with it. His intentions was to steal Schem's television set to sell for cocaine, but left empty handed after losing his nerves with the struggle and murder. According to court documents, Fields had a previous robbery and assault conviction, and several arrests for drug possession.
58. Walanzo Robinson (1989-2003, lethal injection): A member of the Gangster Bloods street gang, Robinson shot and killed 26 year old Dennis Hill, an affiliate of a rival gang, in a turf war over drug sales.
59. John Hooker (~1971-2003, lethal injection): As a teenager in 1971, Hooker attended a party at a friend's house, and got into an argument. In a fit of anger, he fatally shot 18 year old Alta Lang, and wounded two other partygoers. Due to the witnesses refusing to cooperate with the investigation and being unable to prove any calculated intentions, Hooker was given a manslaughter conviction, and released a few years later. After he was paroled, Hooker started dating Sylvia Stokes, and fathered several children with her. Their troubled relationship lasted for 8 years, and ended when Stokes filed a protection order against him. In retaliation, Hooker lured Stokes and her mother, 53 year old Durcilla Morgan, into his apartment and stabbed them both to death.
60. Scot Hain (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): Hain carjacked and abducted a couple, 27 year old Michael Houghton and 22 year old Laura Sanders. After taking $565 and some bags of clothing, he forced them into the trunk of their car at gunpoint, and burned them alive in it. He had several previous arrests for robbery, and was involved with a number of rapes and attempted kidnappings months before the Houghton and Sanders' murders.
61. Don Hawkins Jr. (1985-2003, lethal injection): Hawkins kidnapped 29 year old Linda Ann Thompson and her two daughters, aged 4 years old and 18 months old, from a mall. Although his original intentions were to ransom off Thompson and her children, Hawkins gang raped the captive woman with his cousin and his girlfriend's teenage nephew, and drowned her in a lake. Thompson's children were spared and simply left with a babysitter. Hawkins and his accomplice then went on a nation wide rampage with his accomplice that involved the abductions and rapes of several grown women and teenage girls, hanging 31 year old David Coupez of Colorado in his home while robbing him, and countless other robberies.
62. Larry Jackson (~1984-2003, lethal injection): In 1984, Jackson shot and killed his girlfriend, 19 year old Freda Washington. He accepted a plea deal that dumbed down the charges to second degree murder, and was given a 30 year sentence for it. During his incarceration, Jackson started a relationship with 29 year old Wendy Cade. Despite her promises of marriage after his release, Cade left him for another man, and they got engaged. When Jackson was assigned to a prison work crew, he snuck out and went to confront Cade. Reportedly, the two had bought alchool, cocaine, and cigerates together and had sex in Cade's apartment. However, they got into an argument, and he slashed Cade's throat and stabbed her 31 times with box cutters. Jackson then left with her jewelry, watch, and the keys to her jeep.

So I finished reading through the Case File and somehow feel a bit disappointed tbh.
Dont get me wrong, I think it is okay but compared to the first one I just cannot fathom some plotholes.

1. We find out, that Lilith was a Replicant and her daughter as well.(okay but shouldnt that come up in an autopsy before this new case?)
2. So they kill that guy in the Hotel but let the Blade Runner live (WHOSE WHOLE MISSION WOULD BE TO KILL THEM ALL IF HE CAN)
3. Somehow they think that getting attention to them by testing the security of a vault beforehand that is not their target and to steal an owl from a shop is a good idea.
4. I understood the morale of the whole thing with the first Case File, that she was tormented by her own dream and just wanted to be free and flee from all this and unfortunately her partner had to be killed for that. There was a bit of a decision for the PCs to think about whether or not they should let her go or not. But in this new case file they just go on a murder spree and kill everyone in their path to get to the top of the Wallace Corpo and get this one memory sphere. But the book expects that maybe the PCs could be on their side.

I think it will be a fun play but I feel like the first one had much more depth to the whole point of its case in regards to what happened and why it did happen.
What are your thoughts? Am i missing something to see the bigger picture here? Other than that the material is pretty good in the boxed set.
But whoever made the decision for the handout PDFs to have all the images be layered as different images on the pages so a picture extractor gives me every single fingerprint as a seperate image file, what is wrong with you?(could have been an easy extract and insert into foundry with proper pictures tbh, also the text...I rly dislike you for giving me such a hard time)

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation. We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omni-versal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous.The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My body began to quiver as the fear of impending doom overwhelmed me. My joints ached as they stiffened, frozen in place by pure, all encompassing terror. The realisation of what I had invited into this world, what I had brought upon humanity itself, made me sick to my stomach. The landscape merged into one. The once calm seas erupted in hundreds of pillars, rocketing towards the star speckled sky. The vast emptiness of space seemed to syphon down from the heavens. Filling the chasm of the now desolate ocean. The darkness kept coming, rising up the cliff face until I was surrounded by it. Billions of glittering lights on the black canvas of the realm of the gods forever drifting away. I was imprisoned in solitude. Left to face my one true fear. After all I had done, my soul had been tarnished from the crimes I had committed but I had done so to avoid this. To avoid the insufferable, forsaken existence that had befell on me, and yet that was what I was facing. A lifetime of isolation, to relive my mistakes. To curse the gods who abandon me in my time of need. I was submerged in grief, anxiety and trepidation. I wished to end it all. To set me free of this prison. I floated there for aeons, begging for release.
Light rushed towards me and shielded my eyes with my arms. As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild in shapes and patterns unfathomable to man. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He stripped me down to an atomic level. Analysing me like a scientist would analyse a petri dish full of bacteria. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls. I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation. We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omni-versal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous. The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. My eyes spun furiously.
As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild inhuman form. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls.
I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation.We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omniversal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous. The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. My eyes spun furiously.
As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild inhuman form. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls.
I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation.We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omniversal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous. The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. My eyes spun furiously.
As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild inhuman form. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls.
I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation.We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omniversal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous. The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. My eyes spun furiously.
As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild inhuman form. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls.
I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

Rachael and I were high school sweethearts. We met through mutual friends and hit it off like a house on fire. Our weekends were spent hanging out enjoying each other's company. Our first big stumbling block came after graduation.We were accepted into different colleges four hours away. Most relationships would faze out at this point but we persevered. Meeting up as often as possible. The summer of our final year we were already making plans about the next steps in our journey together through life. Where we’d like to live, how many children, we’d even named the dog we would have. After we graduated I asked her to marry me. We were young in love and life was going just as planned. Rachel’s bachelorette party was planned for two weeks before the wedding. The venue was set, the menu had been tasted and guests had flights booked from various parts of the globe. On her way home from the party, she was taken from me.
Some sick bastard put an end to the life we had dreamed of. The things he did to her were unspeakable. I was the first on the scene, the flashing blue lights sent waves of terror through my body. I already knew the inevitable was awaiting my arrival. That still didn’t prepare me to see the woman I loved, disfigured in such a vile manner. The tears engulfed my vision. I couldn't bring myself to look at her but the police needed me to confirm her identity. Between the tears and vomiting, I managed to tell them enough to bring her body to the morgue. I dropped to my knees, losing myself in the madness. The autopsy was extensive but found no match for DNA. Cameras in the area didn’t show any clear pictures of her assailant. The funeral was a blur. People who should have been celebrating our marriage were now lining up to shake my hand and utter the dreaded words, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
I spent the next three years just existing. A ghost of a man, going through the motions expected of me. I spent my days at work, participating in the office conversations but never actually taking in any information. The discussions about the new show on tv or the latest scandal online. These meant nothing to me. Existence was meaningless. The fear of facing this life alone was crippling. I spent most nights in the foetal position hoping for a release. The next few years I spent trying to track down Rachael’s killer. I was adamant the police never tried to find him. My beliefs were fuelled by hours scrolling through the internet, plaguing my mind with stories of conspiracies. Forums of people who believed the world was run by lizards and our lives were not what we were led to believe. I got involved with some dangerous people, those who spread chaos through propaganda and influencing those whose minds were malleable. Through these groups I made connections, people who had access to power but should never be in those positions in the first place.
I cornered my first target in an underground parking lot. I pressed a knife to his throat and demanded a confession. I had confirmed he was released from prison a week before Rachael’s murder. He was in for charges of sexual assault and battery. I wore a black balaclava and covered my face with my hood. I saw him leave his car and make his way towards the stairs to his apartment block. The lights were dim as a crept along the shadows, out of sight behind the side of a large SUV. As he neared my position I launched myself towards him, pinning him to the wall. His eyes full of fear as the blade drew a trickle of blood. After questioning him relentlessly to no avail. I struck him hard in the jaw with the handle of the dagger. Leaving him in a heap on the floor, his pants damp with urine from the fear for his life. I continued this routine on several more occasions, each time more intense than the next. I finally came to my senses after my encounter with my sixth victim of my deranged mind. A ragged young man, mid twenties, with the start of a September shadow visible on sections of his chin. I had progressed to breaking some fingers when my questioning wasn’t getting the responses I had envisioned. This time I had gone too far. I left this man in a pool of his own blood, broken and bruised.
I spent the next few nights praying for forgiveness. Life may feel like a pointless task but I still was hoping for salvation at the end of the road. Prayers for forgiveness turned to prayers for strength, prayers to bring back some joy to my life. I prayed for a miracle, to bring back my love to the land of the living. To heal the wounds my soul had suffered. I continued in this vein for weeks. Asking for some divine intervention to give me another chance at life with Rachael. My prayers were unanswered. The feeling of loss started to consume me once more. Not feeling any remorse or kindness for the almighty powers of the universe I fell into a dark place. My connections I made online directed me towards more occult methods. I dove into the art form of witchcraft and satanic rituals in the hope of a trade, my soul for a second chance. I studied rituals and summoning, in hopes of gaining access to one of the knights of hell. I spilt the blood of livestock, and said the words of power but still no response.
I scoured the forums for any information on a different method. I got in touch with many so-called scholars of the cosmos. Each with a nugget of information that would help me summon Arzgodan. A cosmic entity who may grant wishes to those who can complete his trial. I contacted a gentleman by the name of Martin Wallace. A published researcher into the entities beyond the cosmos, to give me some guidance into the task I planned to undertake.
“Not much is known about the cosmic creatures, Arzgodan even less.” Mark stroked his beard in thought. His hair had greyed years ago but his beard still had a resemblance of black. “I must stress the fact that one does not try to make contact with them lightly. Bringing them into our world may be detrimental to you. There are worse things in life than death.”
“I would suffer an eternity of pain for a single moment more with her.” I said stone faced
“I don’t doubt your resolve Connor or your motives but I don’t think you can comprehend what you are trying to accomplish here. For those of us who look deeper into these entities, we must accept the fact that they are omniversal. That there are other realities like ours in which they reside, a sliver of their presence in each and every one of them. That we have different versions of ourselves in other timelines living in tangent to us. Their torment of you may last a millennia, breaking you to the very essence of your being, across endless dimensions.” He stared into my eyes, willing me to understand his reasoning
“ I have already begun on this course.” I said, trying to hide the quiver in my voice.” I’m just looking for some advice on how to ensure I have a chance at gaining his favour. My own god has abandoned me and the devil is too cruel to help.”
“What you wish to seek will make any deal with the devil look like child’s play.”
The ritual of summoning was long and arduous. The things I have done have excluded me from any redemption. I have defiled all that is humane. I will not be disclosing the steps as to do so would endanger each of you that reads this. Once you know the steps, you feel compelled to complete them. As the last task was complete, I called out to Arzgodan, asking him to grant me my one wish, accepting what he may ask of me. I stood there, on the edge of a cliff at the end of the world, staring out into the endless sea. I waited for some time with no sign of any otherworldly presence. As I turned to leave, defeated and full of shame. I noticed I could see a disturbance in the skyline above the horizon. The sea began to change colour, first red then green followed by purple. My eyes spun furiously.
As they came into focus once more I noticed I was looking at myself from ground level. My eyes had dislodged from their sockets, the sight was sickening as each iris’s view point shifted independently. My body began to dismantle and rebuild inhuman form. I could feel a presence overtake me. The words do not exist to describe the feeling of horror as every fibre in my body rearranged itself. The physical agony was only outweighed by the psychological torment I endured as my mind collapsed under the weight of incomprehension. Arzgodan had made his presence known.
My mind shattered as Arzgodan tried to communicate with me. I experience every painstaking death known to man for an eternity and an instance all at once. He rebuilt my consciousness in a way in which I could perceive his words in thought. Images and feelings were how we communicated. I can only describe it as forcing me to understand his meaning. He addressed me as the “summoner of Arzgodan”. His title was Arzgodan the disruptor of existence, and I was his tether to this plane.
I begged him to return my lost love to me, I put as much will behind my thoughts as possible. I flooded him with pictures of the two of us and the lives we envisioned. He was not able to comprehend the emotions of man but could understand my wish to return a soul from the dead. He described how his influence over my strings of life were limited by my alternate forms across other realities. If those strings were to be reduced into one he would then be able to grant my wish. To do so, I would need to endure the trials. I accepted his proposition without any further explanation, whatever he required I would do. He formed an image in my mind of countless versions of myself fighting one another. Severing a string each time one falls.
I was now the requester of the trial and it was made known to my counterparts. We would meet at random occasions, within the next rotation of the star of my planet. A one on one contest of will and determination, until only one remains. These meetings would happen across all timelines. Each version of myself fighting to remain. He showed me an image of one contest already taking place. An older version of myself, missing an eye from a wound received years ago, fighting a version of myself no older than 10. They were aware that I was the cause of their torment and they hated me for it. The contest could only be decided by weapons formed in the shape of points. I took this to mean blades. The concept is not familiar to Arzgodan. His presence retracted into the outer reaches of the universe and my mind began to return to normality. I was aware that I needed to prepare for the oncoming challenges.
I write this entry in hope you may never seek a meeting with this eldritch horror. I currently sit at my laptop, covered in the blood from my first challenger. A version of me who had lived a long life. He knew who I was the moment he appeared in my room. His eyes burned with hatred unknown to most. Unfortunately for him he was so far in years he barely had the strength to raise his arm in defence as I slashed his throat with my blade. I am resisting the urge to sleep as I fear that when I close my eyes, the next challenger will have his chance to take my prize as his own. They are fighting for their lives but I am fighting for hers.

(Error In Title: Missing "Were") Corrected: "Who Were The Cleveland Torso Murderer's Victims?"
The Cleveland Torso Murderer was an Unidentified killer who murdered 12 people between 1935 and 1938. Only 2 were officially identified, but one was tentatively identified.
Edward Anthony Andrassy, age 29, was discovered on September 23, 1935, in a gully on the base of Jackass Hill where East 49th Street dead-ends into Kingsbury Run. Andrassy's head was discovered buried near the rest of his body, which was found to be emasculated and only wearing socks. The autopsy report stated that Andrassy was decapitated in the mid-cervical region with a fracture of the mid-cervical vertebrae. The coroner also noted that he had rope burns around his wrists. The cause of death was decapitation; hemorrhage and shock. He had been dead for two to three days. At one time, Andrassy had been an orderly in the psychiatric ward at Cleveland City Hospital. However, at the time of his death, he was unemployed and had no visible means of financial support.
The decapitated remains of another white male were also located in weeds at the foot of East 49th Street and Praha Avenue next to Andrassy. Evidence suggested that the unidentified victim's body was saturated with oil and set afire after death, causing the skin to become reddish and leathery. It also appeared as though the victim's body hair had either been shaved or burned off. The unidentified male became known as John Doe I.
Florence Genevieve Polillo, age 44, was discovered at 2315 to 2325 East 20th Street in Cleveland. Florence was found dismembered and had been wrapped with paper and packed into half-bushel baskets, but her head was never discovered. The autopsy report stated that her cause of death was a slit throat. Due to the lack of the head, the coroner could not definitively rule her death a homicide.
The decapitated torso of an unidentified man was located on June 5, 1936, between the New York Central and Nickel Plate Road tracks next to an old freight shed in front of the Nickel Plate Road police building. His head was found near the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit tracks. The victim's body was nude but unmutilated and found only about fifteen hundred feet away from the head. There was no blood on the ground, indicating he had been killed elsewhere. A railroad worker testified that the head was not in the vicinity at 3:00 p.m. that day, and an eyewitness described seeing a late-model Cadillac close to the crime scene at about 11:00 p.m. that same night. The physical evidence of the decapitation suggested it had been done while the victim was alive, and the autopsy report stated that the body was drained of blood. The head had been cut off between the first and second cervical vertebrae. There was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in the victim’s body, and nothing to suggest that he had been tortured or bound before being killed. John Doe II had six tattoos, hence the nickname "The Tattooed Man".
On July 22, 1936, the severely decomposed, decapitated remains of a white male were located near a homeless camp in the Big Creek area of Brooklyn, west of Cleveland. This was the only known West Side victim of the Torso Murderer. Police conducted a thorough search of the area and found the man's head, which was a skull at that point. Cheaply made, bloodstained clothing was found nearby. A pathologist discovered a large quantity of dried blood that had seeped into the ground beneath the man's body, indicating he was killed at that location. For the first time the murderer had ventured far away from Kingsbury Run, and instead of transporting the victim had killed him in the place he was discovered. The victim's long hair, poor clothing and location near a homeless camp suggested he was one of the many vagrants who rode in and out of Cleveland on the nearby railroad tracks. However, the advanced state of decay of the body made it impossible to get any fingerprints, and the head would have been decomposed and unrecognizable by that point. Searches through missing persons reports were unsuccessful. The unidentified male became known as John Doe III.
A homeless person discovered two halves of a male torso and lower legs floating in a stagnant pool near East 37th Street while waiting for an eastbound freight train. The torso was removed and sent to the morgue, where the coroner noted the body had been severed between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae as well as between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae. A search was made for the rest of the body. Police found a dirty felt hat labelled 'Laudy's Smart Shop, Bellevue, Ohio', which appeared to have blood spots on the top. A blue work shirt, covered with blood, was found wrapped in newspaper along the bank of the creek where the body was found. A fire crew dredged the water in the creek in attempt to locate more parts of the body. The head was never found, nor the body identified. The victim's kidneys and stomach were removed, as were his genitals. The coroner declared the probable cause of death as decapitation. The unidentified male became known as John Doe IV.
On February 23, 1937, the upper portion of an unidentified female victim was found washed up on Euclid Beach on 156th Street. The legs, arms and head were never found, likely because they were less buoyant than the torso and possibly sank to the bottom of the lake. Three months later the lower half of the torso washed ashore at East 30th Street. The upper extremities were disarticulated at the level of the glenoid fossa, better known as the socket of the shoulder joint. The neck and head were also disarticulated between the seventh cervical and first thoracic vertebrae. Multiple hesitation knife marks at the surface of the skin were present. There was considerable water and gravel found in both pleural cavities. The probable cause of death was officially undetermined via the coroner's case file. The unidentified female became known as Jane Doe I.
The eighth victim was located beneath the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge on June 6, 1937. Lying in a rotting burlap bag, along with a newspaper from June 1936, was the partial skeleton of a woman who had been dead approximately one year. The body was decapitated and missing a rib. She was tentatively identified as 40-year-old prostitute Rose Wallace, who had vanished from the same bar Polillo had, but this could not be confirmed. Wallace was known to have disappeared ten months earlier on August 21, 1936, while it was estimated that the victim had been dead for one year when found. Officially the victim remains unidentified and is known as Jane Doe II.
On July 6, 1937, the upper portion of a man’s torso wrapped in a burlap sack for chicken feed, plus his two thighs, were discovered floating in the Cuyahoga River in the Cleveland Flats just below Kingsbury Run. The head, as well as the internal organs within the abdominal cavity and the heart, were never found. The unidentified male became known as John Doe V.
On April 8, 1938, a woman's leg was located in the Cuyahoga River in the Cleveland Flats. A month later on May 2, two burlap bags containing a woman’s nude bisected torso; thighs and feet were discovered floating in the river to the east of the West 3rd Street Bridge. Her head and arms were never found. She was the only victim to have morphine in her system, estimated at 0.002 gm. per 100 gm. sample. The unidentified female became known as Jane Doe III.
On August 16, 1938, a dismembered body was found at a dump at the end of East Ninth Street in Columbus, Ohio, by men combing for pieces of scrap metal. The body of a woman was wrapped in rags, brown paper and cardboard. Uncharacteristically, the head and hands were found with the rest of the body. The victim's head had been disarticulated at the level of the third intervertebral disc. The unidentified female became known as Jane Doe IV. On the same day, the body of John Doe VI was discovered at a nearby location on the Cleveland lakefront, in plain view of Safety Director Eliot Ness's office at City Hall. Similar to the other victims, the head was severed from the body and the victim remains unidentified. The head was disarticulated at the level of the third inter-vertebral disc and had knife marks on the dorsum of the second and third cervical vertebrae. Extremities at all the major joints were all disarticulated as well. The coroner ruled the cause of death as undetermined though he noted it was probably a homicide.
Possible victims
The lower half of a women’s torso, thighs still attached but amputated at the knees, washed up on the shores of Lake Erie just east of Bratenahl on September 5, 1934. A subsequent search yielded only a few other body parts. The head was never found. She was nicknamed the "Lady of the Lake". She had an abdominal scar from a likely hysterectomy, which was common and made it more difficult to identify her. After she was found, several people reported seeing body parts in the water, including a group of fisherman who believed to have seen a head. The Lady of the Lake was found virtually in the same spot as Jane Doe I. Both victims had on their skin a chemical which was believed to have been lime chloride. It is supposed that the killer meant to use a quickening lime to decompose the bodies quicker, but mistakenly used lime that would preserve the bodies instead.
On July 22, 1950, Robert Robertson, age 41, was discovered at 2138 Davenport Avenue in Cleveland. Police believed he had been dead six to eight weeks and appeared to have been intentionally decapitated, fitting the profile of other victims. Robertson was estranged from his family, had an arrest record and was an alcoholic on the fringes of society. Despite widespread newspaper coverage linking his death to the Torso Murderer, detectives treated it as an isolated crime.
The Unknown Killer Is Also A Suspect In Another Set Of Killings Known As "The Murder Swamp Killings," where nine people, only one identified, were found deceased.

First Half
Aisthesis
We can respond from the heart, reawaken the heart. In the ancient world the organ of perception was the heart. The heart was immediately connected to things via the senses. The word for perception or sensation in Greek was aisthesis, which means at root a breathing in or taking in of the world, the gasp, "aha," the "uh" of the breath in wonder, shock, amazement, an aesthetic response to the image (eidolon) presented. In ancient Greek physiology and in biblical psychology the heart was the organ of sensation: it was also the place of imagination. The common senses (sensus communis) was lodged in and around the heart, and its role was to apprehend images. For Marsilio Ficino, too, the spirit in the heart received and transmitted the impression of the senses. The heart's function was aesthetic.
Sensing the world and imagining the world are not the divided in the aesthetic response of the heart as in our later psychologies deriving from Scholastics, Cartesians, and British empiricists. Their notions abetted the murder of the world's soul by cutting apart the heart's natural activity into sensing facts on one side and intuiting fantasies on the other, leaving us images without bodies and bodies without images, an immaterial subjective imagination severed from an extended world of dead objective facts. But the heart's way of perceiving is both a sensing and an imagining: to sense penetratingly we must imagine, and to imagine accurately we must sense.
By "heart" I do not mean the sentimental subjectivism that came as a Romantic consequent of the loss of aisthesis. I am not talking of body feelings in a simplistic psychology - whatever I feel is good; deep down inside my heart, I'm okay; what comes from the heart is good per se. Let us keep to one side these more familiar meanings of heart: the pump-and-muscle idea, the Augustinian-confession idea, the religious-conversion idea, the Valentine-love idea. Each has its history and its reason. Let us stay with the aesthetic heart of our ancient and Florentine tradition.
It is this heart I am trying to awaken in an aesthetic response to the world. The anima mundi is simply not perceived if the organ of this perception remains unconscious by being conceived only as a physical pump or a personal chamber of feelings. Awakening the imagining, sensing heart would move psychology itself from mental reflection toward cordial reflex. Psychology may then become again Florentine; for the move "southward" that I have been urging these last twenty years - from the clinics of Zurich and Vienna, from the white laboratories to the black forests of Germany, from the positivist and empiricist dissections of Britain and America, to say nothing of the gymnastics of the tongue in France - cannot be accomplished without moving as well the seat of the soul from brain to heart and the method of psychology from cognitive understanding to aesthetic sensitivity. With the heart we move at once into imagination. From when the brain is considered to be the seat of consciousness we search for literal locations, whereas we cannot take the heart with the same physiological literalism. The move to the heart is already a move of poesis: metaphorical, psychological.
Another organ and another method move psychology to another altar, Venus. In addition to Saturn, systems and fathers, in addition to ego development and heroics of Mother and Child, or Apollonic elucidation and medical detachment, or Minerva and gray-eyed practical counseling, or Dionysian participation in communal soul, or Hermes's transactions and mediating communication - there is also Aphrodite who was called the world, so in Ficino's translation of Plotinus and to whom Ficino awards the sensate world. To grasp the Greek account of perception, psychology must already, as did Psyche in Apuleius's talk, stand in the temple of Aphrodite, recognizing that each thing smiles, has allure, calls forth aisthesis. "Calling forth," provoking, kaleo: this was Ficino's derivation of Aphrodite's main characteristic, kallos, beauty.
If we could re-originate psychology at its Western source in Florence, a way might open again toward a metapsychology that is a cosmology, a poetic vision of the cosmos that fulfills the soul's need for placing itself in the vast scheme of things. This has been impossible so long as psychology had its home in the alien "north," where cosmology was absorbed by ontology and metaphysics, conceptual systems without aesthetic images, without myths and faces of the gods, without pathologized images - an alienation that distorted the soul's care into an alienist's cure.
To come back to our own heart, its stirrings as it comes to consciousness may be a crucial contributing factor in contemporary heart and circulatory disorders. Puzzling symptoms have often ushered in new eras of psychological awareness: hysteria and Freud, schizophrenia and Jung... If we live in a world whose soul is sick, then the organ that daily encounters this sick world soul first and directly through aisthesis will also suffer as will the circulatory channels that transmit perceptions to the heart. Psychotherapy needs to affirm the sufferings of the heart, its disease in the world of things, that they are ugly, empty, wrong, bereft of a sense-making cosmos, and by this affirmation that, yes, we are heartsick because we are thingsick, psychotherapy will lift the anaesthetized stupor from our reactions, lift the repression in the ugliness of things themselves, so that psychotherapy can move again as it always must do, in the direction that the symptoms are leading it, now toward an appreciation of the world ensouled.
The so-called "number one killers" cannot be restricted to heart disease and cancer. Death lurks in things: asbestos and food additives, acid rain and tampons, insecticides and pharmaceuticals, car exhausts and sweeteners, televisions and ions. Matter is more demonized than ever it was in the plague. We read labels of warning, feel invisible evils descend through the air, infiltrate the water, and permeate our vegetable sustenance. The material world is inhabited again; the repressed returns from the matter declared dead by Aquinas and Descartes, now as Death itself, and because of this resurrecting ghost in matter we are aware at last again of the anima mundi. Psychology always advances its consciousness by means of pathologized revelations, through the Underworld of anxiety. Our ecological fears announce that things are where the soul now claims psychological attention.
Things are composed of poisonous and flammable substances, stamped out of uniform molds, internally fastened cheaply, quickly with the least care, untouched by the human hand. They cannot weather or age. Their existence is hurried by the push of obsolescence as one generation succeeds the next within a few months. Sold by barkers on the slave blocks of the market, competing by price only and not by pride or inherent beauty, their suffering is written on their faces. The postures of their strange-shaped bodies, like figures in Hell, show them cursed by the materialism in whose image they have been made, with no epistrophe possible, no way back to the gods.
To move with the heart toward the world shifts psychotherapy from conceiving itself as a science to imagining itself more like an aesthetic activity. If unconsciousness can be redefined as insensitivity and the unconscious as anaesthetic, then training for psychotherapy requires sophistication of perception. Training will be based in the imagining, sensing heart: call it forth and educate it. Psychotherapy will study in its training programs the embodiments of the anima mundi, whether in language, in arts, or rituals, attempting to train the eye and the ear, nose, and hand to sense truly, to make right moves, right reflexes acts, to craft well. The invisible work of making soul will find its analogies in the visibility of well-made things. The cognitive task will shift from the understanding of meaning to a sensualization to particulars, the appreciation of the inherent intelligibility given in the qualitative patterns of events. We will recognize health of soul by its aesthetic response in which judgment always inheres, rather than separating out the judgments into moral (good and bad), medical (ill and well, progress and regress), or logical (true and false) assessments. Humanistic education as conceived in Florence becomes a necessity again: differentiated language, fine arts, handworks, biography, criticism, history, cultural anthropology, manners and customs, life among things of the world. And our questions will be addressed to what things are, and where, and who, and in which precise way they are as they are, rather than why, how come, and what for.
Please, let me insist: by aesthetic response I do not mean beautifying. I do not mean planting trees and going to the galleries. I do not mean gentility, soft background music, clipped hedges - that sanitized, deodorized use of the word "aesthetic" that has deprived it of its teeth and tongue and fingers. Beauty, ugliness, and art are neither the full content nor true base of aesthetics. In the Neoplatonic understanding, beauty is simply manifestation, the display of phenomena, the appearance of the anima mundi; were there no beauty, the gods, virtues, and forms could not be revealed. Beauty is an epistemological necessity; aisthesis is how we know the world. And Aphrodite is the lure, the nudity of things as they show themselves to the sensuous imagination.
Thus, what I do mean by aesthetic response is closer to an animal sense of the world - a nose for the displayed intelligibility of things, their sound, smell, shape, speaking to and through our heart's reactions, responding to the looks and language, tones and gestures of the things we move among. Thing-consciousness could extend the notion of self-consciousness from the constrictions of subjectivism. An analyst sitting in his chair all day long is more aware of the faintest flickers of arousal in the seat of his sexuality than of the massive discomfort in the same seat brought by the chair: it's wrongly built back, its heat-retaining fabric, its resistant upholstery and formaldehyde glue. His animal sense has been trained to notice only one set of proprioceptions to the exclusion of the psychic reality of the chair. A cat knows better.
Some Positive Effects
CULTIVATION of the aesthetic response will affect issues of civilization that most concern us today and which have remained largely intractable to psychological resolution. First, an aesthetic response to particulars would radically slow us down. To notice each event would limit our appetite for events, and this very slowing down of consumption would affect inflation, hypergrowth, the manic defenses and expansionism of the civilization. Perhaps events speed up in proportion to their not being appreciated; perhaps events grow to cataclysmic size and intensity in proportion to their not being noticed. Perhaps, as the senses become refined there is a scaling down of gigantism and titanism, those mythically perennial enemies - giants and titans - of culture.
Attention to the qualities of things resurrects the old idea of notitia as a primary activity of the soul. Notitia refers to that capacity to form true notions of things from attentive noticing. It is the full acquaintance on which knowledge depends. In depth psychology, notitia has been limited by our subjective view of psychic reality so that attention is refined mainly in regard to subjective states. This shows in our usual language of descriptions. When for instance I am asked, "How was the bus ride?" I respond, "Miserable, terrible, desperate." But these words describe me, my feelings, my experience, not the bus ride, which was bumpy, crowded, steamy, cramped, noxious, with long waits. Even if I noticed the bus and the trip, my language transferred this attention to notions about myself. The "I" has swallowed the bus, and my knowledge of the external world has become a subjective report of my feelings. An aesthetic response does require these feelings, but it cannot remain in them; it needs to move back to the image. And the way back to the bus ride necessitates words that notice its qualities.
Since the Enlightenment our adjectives have moved from qualifying the world to describing the self-fascinating, interesting, boring, exciting, depressing; these words neglect the things that evoke the subjective states, and even the states have lost the precision of image, metaphor, and simile. A restoration of soul to world means knowing things in that further sense of notitia: intimate intercourse, carnal knowledge. The appreciation of the anima mundi requires adverbs and adjectives that precisely imagine the particular events of the world in particular images, much as the ancient gods were known through their adverbial and adjectival epithets - gray-eyed Athene, red-faced Mars, swift-footed, chaste Artemis. To perceive the value of things and the virtues in them requires a language of values and virtues. A return of the secondary qualities of things - colors, textures, tastes.
This "adjectival revolution" would overthrow the canon of good writing, the ascetic puritanism - "plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity" - of Strunk and White and of Fowler (in English), that contemporary form of Protestant iconoclasm, which bans the adornment of adjectives and adverbs in favor of bare nouns and verbs making definite assertions in the active voice - a grammatical world of heroic subjects doing things to objects, without ambiguity, passivity, or reflexiveness.

These rules of style, so innocently straightforward and unmetaphysical, actually deface the world's physiognomic characters and keep our consciousness within the dead world view where all qualities, according to the main line of Western philosophy, refer only to changes in the subject. The world only seems to lie about us, so beautiful, so various, so new, for as Hume wrote. "all the sensible qualities of objects, such as hard, soft, hot, cold, white, black, etc. are merely secondary, and exist not in the objects themselves, but are perceptions of the mind, without any external archetype or model, which they represent." And Kant continued: "The taste of a wine does not belong to the... wine... but to the special constitution of sense in the subject that tastes it. Colors are not properties of the bodies... but only modifications of the sense of sight."
The improvement of the quality of life depends on a restoration of a language that notices the properties of bodies, the qualities of life.
Our way back to the bus thus leads back to the Renaissance insistence on rhetoric, incorporating along the way the poetic methods of Imagism, Concretism, Objectivism, Projective Verse - modes of language that do not dwell in "experience" and instead enliven things, giving them back their animated faces.
Second, that unspoken religious fervor in psychotherapy would shift its focus from saving the soul in the personal patient to saving the soul of the world, the resurrection of the world rather than the resurrection of man, the celebration of creation before the redemption of creativity in the individual. Here I refer again to Ficino, who writes that "creation is a more excellent act than illumination," so that the task of "raising consciousness" (as redemption of the soul is now disguised in modern therapy) becomes a raising of consciousness of created things, a therapy of the constructed world's psychic reality.
This new focus would affect the ecology movement and such "mundane matters" as energy policy, nourishment, hospital care, the design of interiors. No longer would these be external - that is, political or professional - activities only but a focus of psychotherapy, because no longer would we be able to divorce consciousness-raising of the patient from the creation itself, while illumination of the patient would be contingent upon therapy of the creation. This larger sense of therapy begins in the smaller acts of noticing.
A third positive effect would return value from the subject to the thing, where it has been preempted by price. The most universal of all modern religions, economics, has appropriated into its literalism the sense of value, removing psychic reality from credit, trust, interest, inflation, and the like. We buy in order to save, as saving has been reduced utterly to an economic term. Appreciation, too, the very key to aisthesis, more commonly refers to a higher price. As value capitulates to price, the symbolic numbers of psychic import, the threes, sevens, tens, twelves are sold out to ninety-five, ninety-eight, or ninety-nine in a fractional debasement of whole digits like the chips and filings off true coins.
If soul value can be found only in the safe of psychotherapy, its price will rise, while the things with which we live - underwear, auto tires, placemats, pillow cases - get cheaper. Recognition that the soul is also in the world may awaken us from the psychotherapeutic trance in which we pay a hundred dollars for an hour of subjectivism and no more than $19.95 for a beach chair in whose cold metallic arms and plastic lap reflection actually takes place, day after day. What use becoming conscious in analysis and remaining anesthetized to the chair? Were the chair better value, were it cooperating in soul-making, would analysis still be so valuable, so dear?
Fourth, we might be relieved of the desperation for intimacy, the transference clutch, the narrow personalization of love, the fear of loneliness. This because, as William James saw, intimacy occurs when we live in a world of particular, concrete events, noticeable for what he called their "eachness." Each thing bears "importance" in Whitehead's sense. Or in Ortega's sense, only personified, individualized things can be loved. The aesthetic response is never a fuzzy pantheism, a generalized adoration of nature or even of the city. Rather, it is that joyful scrutiny of detail, that intimacy of each with each such as lovers know. Here, individuation itself moves from the individualized realization of self to the individuation of matter.
A world without soul offers no intimacy. Things are left out in the cold, each object by definition cast away even before it is manufactured, lifeless litter and junk, taking its value wholly from my consumptive desire to have to hold, wholly dependent on the subject to breathe it into life with personal desire. When particulars have no essential virtue, then my own virtue as a particular depends wholly and only on my subjectivity or on your desire for me, or fear of me: I must be desirable, attractive, a sex object, or win importance and power. For without these investments in my particular person, coming either from your subjectivity or my own. I, too, am but a dead thing among dead things, potentially forever lonely.
If particulars - whether images, things, or the events of the day - are to afford significance, the burden has been on the subject to maintain libidinal cathexes, "to relate," so that depersonalization and derealization do not occur. It has been up to us to keep the world aglow. Yet these syndromes, depersonalization and derealization, are latent in the theory of the external world as soulless. Of course I am lonely, unrelated, and my existence throwaway. Of course therapy must focus on relations rather than on contents, substantialities, things that matter, because connection becomes the main work of therapy when the world is dead: ego psychology is inevitable, for the patient must find ways to connect the psyche of dream and feeling to the dead world so as to reanimate it. What stress, what effort it takes to lives in a cemetery; what terrible need for will power. So of course I fall prey to ideologies and cults that relieve the burden of this subjectivity. Of course I am desperate narcissistic need, not because I have been neglected or still neglect my inmost subjectivity, but because the world without soul can never offer intimacy, never return my glance, never look at me with appeal, with gratitude, nor relive the essential isolation of my subjectivity.
But at that moment when each thing, each event presents itself again as a psychic reality - which does not require the magics of synchronicity, religious fetishism, or any special symbolic act - then I am held in an enduring intimate conversation with matter. Then grammar breaks its hold: subject and object, personal and impersonal, I and thou, masculine and feminine find new modes of intermingling; plural verbs may disagree with their singular nouns as the imagination in things speaks its language to the heart. Then Eros descends from being a universal principle, an abstraction of desire, into the actual erotics of sensuous qualities in things; materials, shapes, motions, rhythms.
A fifth despair of our civilization would also be radically affected by this turn toward the world soul. This issue, technology, would no longer be contrasted romantically with nature, technology bad and nature good, cities bad and country good, soul in trees but not in the saws that cut them. Rather, all things, whether constructed or natural, by presenting their virtues carry soul.
When I look to history for a model for this soul in manufactured things, I make a classical, renaissance move: I turn back to ancient Egypt. There, l'objet parlant was common to hand. Each thing spoke of the gods who were inherent in all actualities from a cosmetic box, a beaker, or a jar to the river and the desert. Even where things were made to in innumerable multiples, thousands cast from the same molds, they were each a speaking object. It is not numerical singularity that guarantees uniqueness; rather, eachness derives from the imaginal potential, the god, in the thing.
Technology is not necessarily the enemy of the heart; technology is not inherently soulless. We are less endangered by the brute facts of nuclear, genetic, computer, and chemical technology as such than we are by the brute anesthetized conception of these technical inventions as soulless mechanisms. Because they are conceived in the Cartesian Christian fantasy, they become objective, brute, and mute. Technical inventions have become the great repressed slaves, obedient to mechanical laws, disallowed breakdowns, and so we fear them. We want the most from them at the least cost. Because the paradigm of our mindset allows soul only to subjective persons, technology is not considered part of what Whitehead calls "nature alive," a realm of speaking objects with faces, and is instead a fearful Frankenstein monster. Technology becomes psychopathological when, like any other phenomenon, it is deprived of soul, as it has been by the very theoretical assumptions that gave birth to it in the first place. It was monstrously conceived. But now cheeky, perky R2D2 has replaced Boris Karloff . The Monster subsides along with Newtonian mechanism. Technology can be reconsidered, each thing imagined anew in terms of anima mundi.
Concluding Affirmations
CATASTROPHE fantasies haunt us; they announce the end of the world. As with suicide fantasies we must ask them precisely what world is coming to its end. An answer comes hard because we take the fantasies so literally that we can barely sit with them for more than a moment. Anesthesia: Robert J. Lifton calls it "psychic numbing." And we are drugged not only by the industry of distillers, dope runners, pharmaceutical firms, and pill-prescribing physicians. We are anesthetized as well by the subjectivism of psychotherapy, as if the end-of-the-world were an "inner problem."
The very literalism of the catastrophe fantasies hint at what world is coming to an end. They fulfill the Christian apocalyptic vision, and they fulfill all too literally the doctrine of a world already declared dead by the Western tradition, a world over whose autopsy the Western, Northern mind has been presiding since Newton and Descartes. Can we now see what Blake always knew: the apocalypse that kills the soul of the world is not at the end of time, not coming, but apocalypse now; and Newton and Locke, Descartes and Kant are its Horsemen. The fantasies of the literal end of the world announce, however, the end of this literalist world, the dead, objective world. As such, the catastrophe fantasies also reflect an iconoclastic process of the psyche that would smash the soulless mechanical idol of the world we have worshiped ever since Christ said his Kingdom is not of this world and left it to the legion of Caesar, so that the aesthetic, imaginative, polytheistic animation of the material world was cursed into demonism and heresy, while psychology allowed psyche only to self-reflective egos, inflating them to titanic monstrosity. The vast insensate edifice - the doctrine of a soulless world - now streaked with acid rain and stained by graffiti has in our fantasies already exploded into dust. Yet, that cataclysm, that pathologized image of the world destroyed, is awakening again a recognition of the soul in the world. The anima mundi stirs our hearts to respond: we are at last, in extremis, concerned about the world; love for it arising, material things again lovable. For where there is pathology there is psyche, and where psyche, eros. The things of the world again become precious, desirable, even pitiable in their millennial suffering from Western humanity's hubristic insult to material things.
Ecology movements, futurism, feminism, urbanism, protest and disarmament, personal individuation cannot alone save the world from the catastrophe inherent in our very idea of the world. They require a cosmological vision that saves the phenomenon "world" itself, a move in soul that goes beyond measures of expediency to the archetypal source of our world's continuing peril: the fateful neglect, the repression, of the anima mundi.
Repressed, yet there nonetheless; for an idea of the soul of the world runs through all Western thought, to say nothing of archaic, primitive, and oriental cultures, so that what I have been asking you to entertain is neither altogether radical nor new. It is affirmed in differing ways in Plato, the Stoics, Plotinus, and in Jewish and Christian mystics; it appears splendidly in the Renaissance psychology of Marsilio Ficino, in Swedenborg; it is revered in Mariology, Sophianic devotion, in the Shekinah. We find notions of it in German and British Romantics and American transcendentalists; in philosophers of various sorts of panpsychism from Leibniz through Peirce, Schiller, Whitehead, and Hartshorne. The world soul returns also in the pluralistic position of William James, through his interest in Fechner and his concern for "the particular, the personal, and the unwholesome," or the "eachness" of events rather than abstracted wholes. Anima mundi reappears in further guises as "the collective" in Jung, as physiognomic character in the Gestalt psychology of Koffka and Kohler, in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, of van den Berg, in the poetics of matter and space in Bachelard, and even in Roland Barthes, and of course, ever and again in the great poets, specifically of this century in Yeats and Rilke and Wallace Stevens. What I have been proposing has a noble inheritance, and I cite these names not only to show the pedigree of the idea but to suggest that it is the anima mundi that gives these names their nobility.
For all this, the psychic reality of the world of things seems a strange idea in psychotherapy, because anima mundi does not occur in the tradition from which psychotherapy believes it stems: eighteenth-century enlightenment and nineteenth-century science and their offspring, therapy's cousins: positivism, materialism, secularism, nominalism, reductionism, personalism, and behaviorism.
Hence to rework our notion of psychic reality implicates each of us in reworking our background, the tradition that continues to feed our theory-forming and our idea of reality. I urge that the tradition to which we must turn in face of the fantasies of cataclysm lies not in the Himalayas, not on Mount Athos, or the far planets of space, nor does it lie in nihilistic terror that foreshadows the cataclysm; it dwells in the imagining heart of the Renaissance city, in its streets, in its language, its things, in the city of the heart of the world.
We will not be able to move in this direction until we have made radical shifts of orientation, so that we can value soul before mind, image before feeling, each before all, aisthesis and imagining before logos and conceiving, thing before meaning, noticing before knowing, rhetoric before truth, animal before human, anima before ego, what and who before why. We would have to let fall such games as subject-object, left-right, inner-outer, masculine-feminine, immanence-transcendence, mind-body - the game of oppositions altogether. A great deal of what we now hold dear would break down so that the emotion held by these cherished relics could break those vessels and flow back into the world.
Breaking the vessels is the return, the turn again to the world, giving back what we have taken from it by storing inside ourselves its soul. By this return we regard the world anew, having regard for it as it shows its regard for us and to us in the face. We pay respect to it simply by looking again, respecting, that second look with the eye of the heart.
This respect demands reconstitution of our language so that it speaks again of qualities - naming what is there, rather than what we feel about what is there and abstraction away from what is there. Language with referents that are not mere objective correlatives of our emotions or mere objective descriptions. Instead, the emptied sense of our words would be refilled by concrete images, our talk, an animal talk, echoing the world.
Finally, we would have to consider that the entire intrasubjective model with which psychotherapy works - psychodynamics, psychopathology, the unconscious, even personality itself - might also apply to the world and its things. For if the world is ensouled, then the language psychoanalysis has developed for psyche is also appropriate to the world and its objects. To pursue this re-vision of psychic reality implies that we shall have to let our present sustaining paradigm break down, a catastrophe of the mind rather than of the world, allowing to emerge a renaissance of soul in the midst of the world, and with it, from the depths of its breakdown and ours, a renaissance of psychology.

Hello everyone, this is a special occasion. In honor of Our Flag Means Death season 2 coming out October 5th featuring the one historical figure I have researched so long I went from male to female and whom my keyboard has spelled A N N E so many times its about ready to fall apart, I think its time to talk about what is probably the number one source of information on her for most internet users. The Wikipedia page, the full thing. It’s the first result from Google, so that kinda matters.
I’ve discussed in the past the various sourcing issues with Anne Bonny from General History of the Pyrates in 1724, through to Mistress of the Seas in 1964 and onward and upwards to recent fair like Republic Of Pirates and Lost Pirate Kingdom. So let’s see how the town square of Anne Bonny information fairs when it comes to a historical figure that’s really hard to get right even if you’re a degree holding historian.
(Notice this is for the current edit of the Anne Bonny page. I am currently, slowly, trying to improve it so some criticism will not be present in the near or far future hopefully. This is just a critique as it stands right now on September 20th, 2023.)
First off, the spelling of Anne with the E could be an issue as most primary sources just spelled it as Ann, but since the trial transcript calls her Ann with an E, I will let that slide. I will not let the circa 1697 to 1700 birthday slide. That date is incredibly slippery it changes depending on the era and Captain Charles Johnson didn’t even try to claim an age he merely says born in County Cork. The two sources for the age are The Way of the Pirates which appears to be quoting Mistress of the Seas in some form since it calls her Cormac and that she lived to the 1780s, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica article which basically does the same thing. So two shit sources already, fantastic. The disappeared part used to read April 1721, but I changed it to after November 28th, 1720, and it hasn’t been changed. April 1721 is when Mary Read did die, that’s the only thing of note when Anne Bonny was let go is completely unknown, we just know its after her trial date. There’s also a note for the spelling of Anne Bonney, that’s just a writing error that’s occasionally found and here it’s a JSTOR Daily piece, not even an article. The only spelling of her name from actual sources is Ann Bonny, Anne Bonny, Ann Fulford, Ann Bonn, and one newspaper that mistook her for a Jamaican woman named Sarah Bonny.
It calls her an Irish pirate, which yes General History calls her Irish but nobody else did and I dare anyone to read that chapter in General History and walk away with believing it. Half the chapter is about a mixup of silver spoons that leads to a maid getting impregnated, didn’t happen so everything cannot be taken for granted. My best guess is that she’s the Ann Bonny born in 1690s London because no other Anne or Ann Bonny was born in the right timeframe in the British Isles but that’s a guess.
Rest of the paragraph isn’t bad, yeah female pirates are rare, she did operate in the Caribbean and most information does from General History, although quoting from Way of the Pirate is not a good look.
Next paragraph says born in Ireland 1700, which is more definitive then the above mention, basically quotes General History by saying moving to the Carolinas, got married to a sailor named James Bonny and moved to Nassau. Of amusing note, citation number 5 to back up the move to the Carolinas claim is ME. No, no fucking really. Its my video The Legend of Anne Bonny from 2020, the one that inspired my earlier posts and the Post and Courier Article. I didn’t even add that to the page its been there for two years apparently! I never said that in the video outside of when I am repeating General History, I literally say at a point, by the way this isn’t true history. What the fucking fuck fuck?
Anyway, no pirate named James Bonny appears in any list of pirates who took the kings pardon, he isn’t noted in any Woodes Rogers letters, and the trial calls her a spinster of New Providence AKA not married. It then says she met Calico Jack Rackham, became his lover and joined his pirate crew, got captured alongside Rackham and Mary Read in October 1720, Read died in prison, but Bonny’s fate is unknown. Okay the second part is true, August 22 to October 22 was timeline of piracy, Mary Read did die in late April 1721 of illness or pregnancy, and Anne Bonny’s fate is not 100 percent known.
However and this is a common problem, find me the nickname Calico Jack before the second volume of General History of the Pyrates released in 1728. You can’t, it’s not in primary sources, and its not even in the first volume of General History. Pirate trials love to throw nicknames around, Blackbeards crew trial was called that, not the trial of Edward Thatch or so forth. Calico had very feminine associations in the 18th century, so it’s a rather demeaning nickname if he had it. Its why depictions of him tend to have him be a dandy or just gay, its kinda reading the evidence the wrong way frankly.
Also the spelling of Rackham is a hysterical mess. There’s Rackham from some official colonial reports, there’s Rackum from the Boston Gazette, there’s Rackam from the trial transcript, there’s Racum from the colonial reports as well. Finally there’s Wrexham from Jamaican historian James Knight. I tend to go with Rackam, but Rackham is definitely a surname you find nowadays so I won’t begrudge that use. Bloody lack of spelling standards.
The right side of the pages header photo is the 1725 Dutch translation drawing of Anne Bonny, which is paradoxically closer and further from the truth. The pants and coat seem to be more sailor like then the 1724 drawing which is some weird, oversized attire that doesn’t look like sailor garb. But the hat is a Dutch design and not the handkerchief tied around the head as witnesses described, and having the shirt pulled down to expose the breasts is just titillating for the sake of it. Born date is still the same issue, disappearance is correct but again I just modified that this week. It used to say Port Royal and not Spanish Town, Port Royal is where John Rackam was hanged but the pirates were held in the prison in Spanish Town built in 1713 and the trial was at the courthouse in Spanish Town again.
Spouses, well she wasn’t married in 1718 to James Bonny, and she her relationship with Rackam is unclear, she might have been just a prostitute he liked so 1719 nope. Ditto with the nickname, I will give anyone 100 dollars if you find a source prior to 1724 that calls her Anney. Years active used to say 1718 to 1720, which wrong. None of these have citations by the way because of course they don’t. Also haven’t seen any good sources from Doctor Powell, Neil Rennie or David Fictum.
Okay main section titled Early Life, again says 1700, even says born in Old Head of Kinsale and quotes a 1993 article by Marcus Rediker the famous leftist pirate historian who is pretty bad on a lot of pirate historian and calls Anne Bonny a working-class heroine. Pfffffffff nope. The names Mary Brennan and William Cormac are thrown around, Cormac comes from Mistress of the Seas, Mary Brennan is a respelling of Peg Brennan from Mistress done by Tamara Eastman in 2000 for Pirate Trials of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. General History didn’t name the parents and she might not even be Irish AGAIN. The rest is just quoting General History, affair with the maid, moved to America blah blah blah. The quoted source is Legendary Pirates The Life and Legacy of Anne Bonny from 2018, don’t know it, probably not great.
There’s a bizarre sentence that notes Annes biography is scarce and most comes from General History of the Pyrates, the first volume that is accurate and the second which is not. Actually all volumes are sketchy, the second is worse but the first is very bad in parts. Three sources are cited including Tone Bartlemes amazing Anne Bonny article from 2018 which pretty firmly says General History is shit and thus isn’t being cited right.
There’s a bit about the dad dressing Anne in men’s clothing and calling her Andy, that’s from General History as well, although the cited source is She captains : heroines and hellions of the sea by Joan Druett in 2005 which is not a good book.
The next paragraph drones on about moving to Charles Town, which isn’t what General History said it just said Carolinas. There’s a quip about Anne Bonny being a good catch and red hair, the good catch part is from General History, the red hair thing doesn’t appear until a 1888 cigarette card and has bled backwards into history and its very annoying. There’s also a bit about removing the prefix Mc from Cormac, again that surname is from 1964 its not real. Says Annes dad bought a plantation and the mom died when Anne was 12, again we don’t know that with the mom and there’s no William Cormac in any plantation list in South Carolina ever, Tony Bartleme went through the records in the 2018 article.
There’s a bit about Anne having a temper and stabbing a maid at age 13. For some reason this is quoting Piracy & Plunder: A Murderous Business, a 2001 book by Milton Meltzer which I don’t know but this passage is in General History. If you read it, the author says it’s a rumor and I don’t believe it. Which the balls to make up a false rumor when you’re writing a false story, wow.
The next paragraph is about marrying James Bonny, the dad getting mad about it because he’s poor and a sailor and a pirate apparently. There’s an amusing bit where it says Anne burned the plantation down but there’s no evidence for this, yeah there’s little evidence for any of this. The plantation burning part I am not even sure is from General History. The quoted source is Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas, by Sara Lorimer in 2002, another book I can’t say I know but probably quoted General History and Mistress of the Seas. None of these are big books to quote by the way in pirate academia.
So the couple move to Nassau in 1714, now nobody would do this normally, Nassau had been taken over by Hornigold and friends in 1713 and it was a ruined colony due to the War of Spanish Succession. Most pirates joined Nassau after 1715 due to the Spanish Treasure Fleet accident and Anne Bonny herself in reality probably arrived 1716 or 1717 due to the uptick in smugglers and prostitutes going there, but I digress. There’s a bit where Nassau is called Republic of Pirates, nobody called it that. The pirates just said we are The Flying Gang, and the British called it a Pirate Nest or Pirate Refuge, which are all better indicators of what it was. This section quotes Daring Pirate Women, a 2002 release from Anne Wallace Sharp, it doesn’t even bother quoting the titular Republic of Pirates book by Colin Woodard for reasons.
It says James Bonny took the pardon when Woodes Rogers arrived in 1718 and began working as an informant for him, much to Bonny’s annoyance. This does quote Republic of Pirates, unfortunately its easily proven wrong. Vincent Pearse an officer under Rogers took a list of all the pirates who accepted the pardon. James Bonny isn’t listed as one, he would have to have taken it if he was on the island prior to 1718, again more proof this did not happen.
This next section is Rackhams Partner, oh dear. It says she met Rackam and became her lover, no citation. It says Rackam offered James Bonny money to divorce his wife, he says no I will beat you so the couple escape the island. No citation and what the fuck, this sounds like 1718 or 1719, no August 22 1720 when they stole the Sloop William. On the right side of the page is the 1888 Cigarette Card that started the red hair trend and shows Anne shooting a sailor, a later event from General History that didn’t happen that’s usually given to Mary Read anyway. This paragraph is a mess, it says Rackam helped Bonny escape by disguising herself as a man of whom only Rackam and Mary Read knew the truth, guess Mary Read is in this story now. It says Bonny got pregnant and gave birth to a baby in Cuba, okay that I think is from Mistress of the Seas, insanely wrong she was only pregnant once, and the quoted source is Joan Druett again. It says she rejoined the pirate crew, then they stole the Sloop William at Nassau Harbor. I’m internally screaming at how this doesn’t line up with any sourcing. It then adds the pirate crew spent years in Jamaica and that Rogers named her as a wanted pirate in the Boston News Letter the citation is Republic of Pirates.
Okay Republic of Pirates didn’t even make this claim, I hate that book but its not thaaat level of bad. Apparently October 1720 is now years and I guess Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes is suddenly okay with piracy for again, years. It wasn’t the Boston News Letter it was the Boston Gazette issue in October reprinting a Rogers proclamation from September 5th that names Rackam and 12 crew including Ann Fulford alias Bonny and Mary Read, that’s an aside mention at best. What’s up with Fulford? Wikipedia doesn’t even mention that, my guess is either prior marriage, akin to calling Martha Washington, Martha Washington alias Custis, or another name she used as a prostitute as changing names was common in the profession. Ironically there’s a header saying this article may be confusing or unclear to readers. YOU DON’T SAY!!!
The next part doesn’t even flow from the previous claims, its the General History section where Read tells Bonny she’s a woman because Bonny is hitting on her, even though this is the reverse in General History, didn’t happen either way. Rackam gets jealous but is let into the secret, even though the previous paragraph made it sound like he always knew but oh fuck it. The next section is about the speculation over Bonny and Reads relationship which many like to say is sapphic but its not, it’s a theater trope added into a real life story. The quoted article by Sally O’Driscoll is a good one, 2012s "The Pirate's Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body", but its about the imagery of baring breasts in these drawings and not much else, so weird quote. The paragraph ends with a direct quote from Dorothy Thomas the rich Jamaican woman robbed while in a canoe who gives the best description of Anne Bonny in history. I have no qualms, pity its connected to this shit paragraph. Although weirdly the citation is not the trial transcript, its Black Barty: Bartholomew Roberts and his Pirate Crew 1718–1723, a 2006 book by Aubrey Burl, for reasons I cannot begin to tell you.
Next section, Capture and Imprisonment, it’s a real short one. In October 1720 Rackam was attacked by a sloop commanded by Jonathan Barnet under a commission given by Governor Lawes. This is mostly true, October 22 near Negril Point the William was spotted and briefly fought with Barnet who was in a merchants sloop. Many usually say it was a Snow or Brig called Tyger, which is something Barnet commanded earlier in his life but Lawes in a letter says it was a merchant sloop. Barnet, however, was not under commission at the time, he had been a privateer during the war and later was reappointed in 1715 by Archibald Hamilton prior to his arrest for being a Jacobite. Barnet was given a pardon for stealing from the Spanish Treasure Fleet, but it seems the marque had run out by 1720 and he just a merchant at the time. It says Rackams crew was too drunk to fight, not really they were drinking punch but had the energy to try and paddle away and they did briefly fire a swivel gun which missed its mark. The Williams boom got knocked down after a musket volley and a cannon salvo which led them to surrender on the spot. The quoted source is not the transcript but "Anne Bonny The Last Pirate" written by LuAnn Zettle in 2019, don’t know it.
When Anne Bonny is tried in Jamaica (Spanish Town) many of the planter class knew her because of her dad and assumed she would be found innocent at trial but her leaving dad was a key reason she was imprisoned. This is not from General History or documentation, this is again from Legendary Pirates The Life and Legacy of Anne Bonny. This book is clearly adding stuff to General History’s claims so yeah its garbage.
The next paragraph skips the entire trial and jumps to being found guilty and sentenced to hang until they plead their bellies and the court grants a stay of execution until they give birth. This is amusing as the last written mention of Anne Bonny and Mary Read is Governor Lawes saying we shall inspect them and grant the stay if proven. So we actually don’t know if it was given, since neither were hanged, its almost certainly true, its just not in writing. This part you definitely would quote the trial transcript as this part is written down, but no the source for the section is The Ballad of the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen in 1995. I would love to know who keeps finding these obscure terrible books.
Mary Read dies in prison most likely due to a fever caused by childbirth, a reasonable assertion so okay. A ledger lists her burial as April 28th 1721 marked Mary Read Pirate. This is funny because this is quoting my interview article from Tony Bartleme, published November 28th, 2020. This information isn’t new, its been around since Clinton V Black published it in I believe 1989, and the documentation has been digitized since I think 2015. But nobody ever for some reason posted it until me so, sure I guess give me the credit, doesn’t feel right but whatever. That’s the end of the section, so we got a long-extended bit about Anne Bonny being a pirate which is fake, but we skipped over her trial which is definitely true? Why???
Final section of note, DEATH! There is no record of Bonny’s release and this has fed much speculation. This sentence is correct, although the cited source is Forgotten Tales of South Carolina Sherman Carmichael, which is a travelog, not a history book. A ledger lists the burial of an "Ann Bonny" on 29 December 1733, in the same town in Jamaica where she was tried, oh hey I knew that person. It wasn’t written by a man and that photo looks like ass but hey the name is the same as me. This sentence is awkwardly phrased but the claim isn’t incorrect, and it cites the Tony Bartleme 2020 article. I’ve been cited three times in this article, hurrah hurrah for me. The next sentence is quoting General Historys ending statement, about how we don’t know what happened to Anne Bonny but she wasn’t hanged, which is fair enough and probably good use of that quote. Its somewhat ruined by the next sentence which claims maybe she went home to South Carolina and died April 1782. This is again indirectly quoting Tamara Eastman, a woman who admitted she was wrong about finding a family Bible before saying it was lost in a fire which is suspicious as all hell.
And that’s it, the pop culture section is a messy remix of mentions from Anne of the Indies to plays to Assassins Creed IV Black Flag and Black Sails. Yes she’s a popular pirate who has been in every single medium of popular culture, a lot of it is bad. It does mention Our Flag Means Death already so someone’s getting ready for it. There’s an end paragraph about the lover statues of Anne Bonny and Mary Read that were shown at Execution Dock before attempting to move to Burgh Island. It doesn’t mention that the request was denied because the two have nothing to do with Burgh Island and some random football club picked them up but whatever.
The references section is a mess, just throwing out books that weren’t even quoted like Rebecca Simons 2022 biography of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Pirate Queens, which mostly quoted John Carlovas Mistress of the Seas and Captain Charles Johnsons General History of the Pyrates alongside quoting me briefly and some other random made-up information. Its not a good book but the fact its not even quoted in the article makes it a weird addition to the references section.
If you can’t tell from my tone, I fucking, fucking, fucking, hate, hate, hate, this article. Its messy, the citations are mostly online websites or obscure terrible books. Many claims contradict the very article itself, dates usually don’t have citations. The pop culture section is longer than the main body, the citations are all over the place. Many citations don’t even back up the paragraph claims if you read them. Good books on the subject by Powell, Rennie, Fictum, and so forth are left unaccounted for. The trial transcript is noted in the references but never quoted directly. This is absolutely embarrassing quality and I will note again, THIS IS THE FIRST THING ON GOOGLE!!!!!!!!
This article is everything wrong with people’s understanding of piracy, it makes me weep for good research. I however will gladly leave some good research. This entire autopsy was done by hand, I wasn’t checking book after book because I mostly know this by memory now. But the citations will mostly be the sources I used for my peer reviewed paper, which is sadly still going through peer review because I believe the quarterly has a large backlog. Some of these are examples of bad Anne Bonny history, some of it is just mentions of her changing pop culture appearance, and some are primary sources. I hope this proves more educational then this Wikipedia page, and now I sing the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Bonny
(Citations are in the first post, too many characters to include everything sorry)

This is the longest one by far. You've been warned.
CASE 5:
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We start the case moping about after last case. We get a letter from pierce asking us to trade; information on celestes parents for his freedom. We go to this weird noble meeting and meet all our favorite murderers such as Beatrice and von sanctus. The game tells us indirectly eris is the "lady of discord" that controls beatrice. Trackers here yay!!! Okay lets skip ahead. We meet pierce, he didnt want to meet us, and fucking steelwind goes on a rampage killing von sanctus, another lord named sibyl, and pierce. Also beatrice put us to sleep. I briefly suspected she impersonated steelwind but thats not the case. Steelwind didn't do this though. You know sluggy guesses his killers right off the bat, right or not.
Todays killer is...CELESTE MCCOY! [I promise im writing this well before the case is finished, whether right or wrong.] So how did I see this twist? Well steelwinds the defendant. The game showed us beatrice being involved, so therefore she didnt do it at least directly. Celeste cast shape water earlier, which killed pierce in this case. And celeste is a powerful mage able to cast all the spells used most likely. But of course theres another twist. We know eris can manipulate people to feign mageblight. Eris wants to frame steelwind to make us defend her, only for us to discover celeste is a murderer! Cue heartbreak and suffering etc. But she isn't accounting for the fact we will inevitably solve celeste was controlled. Celeste could also be replaced, as we later find that eris is missing. It's hard to tell the specifics this early.
EDIT: Minutes later while pondering, I pose theory B. Im not convinced celeste alone could have done all of this. We don't know her spells, but I dont know that celeste could use necrotic blight, which I suspect was used on sibyl. Perhaps by Beatrice, or the necromancer man. And for von sanctus, steelwind WAS probably used in the crime, and is an evocation mage. [Edit from slightly later, I don't think it makes sense to have steelwind only kill one person if shes the defendant. Either she killed all or none. So a different mage would be von sanctus' killer if this theory holds.]
Seconds later...we learn of feign death. It lasts indefintiely, faking someones death. One of these corpses isn't dead. Chekovs spell. Could be a red herring, the series has had a few of those, but sibyl had a trace of necromancy and could've used slow fall to survive. We learn a lot, and get like 50 spells. I have so many theories trying to solve each murder I couldn't write them all down if I tried. I've got my general main theories, but trying to figure out what each victim did, and what the killer[s] did is a lot to keep up with. We meet with alaric gotts I mean wyverngarde and remus lupin I mean virgilae. Honestly just didnt keep track of a lot of things that happened between this and the holding cell, but we argue with steelwind and manage to get on the case. Lucio steelwind will prosecute his own daughter, and remus will be our judge. This is concerning on many levels.
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PONDERING PART 2: My theory has a contradiction. Celeste couldn't kill all 3. Tyrion stated she was gone for about 10 minutes, whereas the deaths occured over 30. So theory B is more plausible. My sister also posited theory C, an offshoot of B. Regardless of who killed us after eris controlled everyone, Celeste came to and found us dead. After crying over us, Eris appeared before her and offered her a sadistic deal. She'll revive us...in exchange for celestes soul. Also eris is missing I forgot to mention.
We attempt to get to the courthouse and find what looks like a lost society. Apparently its our courtroom. A ruins as a courtroom is pretty sick. But also cursed. Everything feels out of place, and the judges seat isnt higher then the others which feels off. OH HES A DRAGON. Well hey, he is higher up now. We cross examine beatrice who has her text altered by eris every 5 seconds. I suspect she may actually be Marrunath, beatrices demon currently. Beatrice seems to be having her words altered, which wouldnt be necessary if eris had replaced her. Though the game swiftly has us conclude marrunath is just an agent of eris. Which is possible. Anyways, we conclude aria had a blood contract and divine edict. The dragons roar in place of the gavel is very cool. It seems to me that the patron who tricked her must be the high senator we met earlier, or aster. It was likely done just today during the wedding. I don't entirely suspect aster, but I can't deny its a possibility hes evil. I'm loving the fact that i'm suspecting so many people. Its also possible lucio did it, being in a position to get her to sign something and being comically difficult. Eris could potentially just be the patron and not even the empress of discord. There's a lot of people to catch in this case, and arias soul is bound to this patron. We're going to have to dispute the terms of several blood contracts this case to save Aria and beatrice.
Noteworthy is that we agree with the prosecution that aria commited every murder, but we prove early on she was controlled, so we don't need to dispute the causes. But I personally feel that theory B of 3 different killers seems more likely for mystery solving. I'm less sold on it now. I still standby celeste being involved in garricks death, and/or having a contract after his death. We solve how von sanctus was asphyxiated, and my sister very cleverly solved Sibyls murder. I knew stone skin was involved, but sibyl wouldnt intentionally let stone skin asphyxiate herself. Dispel magic mentions how it interacts with shape liquid, it does not remove the liquid, just prevents manipulation. Stone skins rocks are not magical, it just creates them and allows manipulation and regeneration of them. So by dispelling magic, aria trapped her in a tomb of rock. Then I solved how she may have survived her encounter. She casts stone skin when attacked. While in stone skin, she uses foresight to figure out what aria will do. She knows aria will push her over after trapping her by disspelling magic. So she waits to be pushed, then casts strike true to bust out of the rock, then slow fall to survive. Then, despite not having feign death as a spell, we know a necromancy spell was cast on her somehow. And if feign death was cast, the corpse stops breathing which also means she wouldnt need oxygen to survive. Perhaps foresight also showed her that beatrice would save her with feign death? I feel like we're on the right track, its just figuring out how she had her death feigned.
We were close it turns out. Slow fall was a fakeout. She didn't break out midfall. She let the stone casing fall into the ocean after she was trapped by dispel magic [Actually, we claim it was hold creature. But if im right about her death, thats a contradiction to solve later.] Then used strike true to break out. Strike true may have taken awhile to break her free, or perhaps it was just safer then letting aria see her survive. My sister also posited theory D, sibyl faked her own death because she is the patron. Being a victim is a great alibi. And she'd be in a good position to ensure beatrice cast feign death on her to ensure she survived. And using foresight she'd be able to be sure she would only be left unconcious by the fall, not killed. We also claim lucio was partly framed. It makes sense, and I no longer suspect him. We think about who did this with no answers, then adjourn to investigate.
We meet with the fregas and tracker borks at us before realizing who we are. I worry if that means celeste may actually be eris or something. Beatrice is now unconscious, with marrunath missing. The lady of discord is not happy. I point out we could just spam divine edicts on everyone until we find out who did it. The game then points this out, specifically the necromancer. We try it and immediately FUCKING DIE. The demon seems to ressurect us, though the characters think the necromancers spell did it. But she mentions a contract. I think my theory of celeste making a deal with the empress to save tyrion is very very very likely. We visit tymora in the effort to find the eyetaker, resolve our conflict and finally realize eris is the empress of discord. She also has a contract with ruby that she was clearly tricked into signing. The empress challenges us to battle. But I haven't forgotten about her patron either.
We spend a while slowly figuring out it was celeste. Eris is a pretty fun villain. I do like that we had to repeatedly present celeste. But I immediately note something was off. First off, its clear thats what feign death was used for, to trick celeste into selling her soul. But secondly, the timeline doesnt work. She couldn't be the person who delivered the contract to aria. Tyrions death was after arias rampage started. There's another party. We know more about the case then before. Theres only 2 people who could sell arias soul during the wedding contract. The archduke...and Aster. I don't know why Aster would do it, but I know the game well enough to know that it is. Aster is the patron. Lucio is ready to execute celeste, but aria steps in and shittalks everyone. Also literally pushes a demon out of her way. Pretty rad. Celeste's testimony resolves the contradiction, though I don't buy it. She claims our memory was rewritten and we fell unconsious at 1:45pm. But we find a new one. Unfortunately, celeste is put into a coma before we can gain more testimony. So we dispute the blood contract in such an amazing scene. And we then enter a gods court. Eris will probably be fucked.
We almost run out of ammo because she just has so much plausible deniability. We ask our mom for help and she doesnt. Then a memory of a conversation with our adopted mom, tymora, reminds us of how to present our own truths to defeat an impossible enemy. We become a winged creature because why not and force eris onto the defensive by becoming full celestial, making our claims a truth, and thus, indisputable evidence. And then we get to see the empress of discord. Yeah thats about right. We do some cool deductions in hell to see through her deceptive "truths". Then out of nowhere, we learn garrick COMMITED SUICIDE? The game provided very few ways to figure that out. Either way, that relevation puts down the contract. Garrick killed himself and celeste signed a contract that was faulty, forcing eris' hand. Anyways, the dragon smites her on the stand. We implicate Aster after Celeste's real testimony reveals a contradiction with him out of his force cage before he should have been able to. As I considered when I suspected him first, aria was tricked by a marriage license. Aster is a fucking incredible villain. And now we're going to prove celeste will have a claim to the throne. Oh the dragons her dad okay. Anyways aster is big mad, then lucio kills him to save Aria. Kinda a darker ending for him, and a lot of people in hindsight. Also felt very short. But I can understand not wanting to draw it out. Aria and celeste get a really nice scene, and then ruby reads the paper and gets the whiplash of a lifetime. Game end. The end credits scenes were pretty cute, eris gets grounded by her demon dad, and then we get some sequel bait.
There's a LOT to cover.
The issues I have with this case:
-Garricks death was near unsolveable. You learn the hints needed to realize he killed himself during the argument, where you can't save. This could be practically forced penalties as you just aren't equipped to solve it. While celeste beatrice and aria couldn't be the answers as explained by her previous truth, The empress of discord herself could've killed pierce, or even Tyrion controlled by the empress. Which sounds illogical, but of course I didn't consider that garrick of all people would commit suicide.
-In a similar vein, celeste's parentage is never alluded to. The only evidence tyrion even use to solve that is that aster wouldnt be threatened by a half sister thus she must be more powerful. This was not a plot twist that had crumbs of evidence scattered for it. All other evidence suggests she was a noble not a dragon. The game never even tells us who her mother is. I don't care for that twist too much because of these details, but taking down aster was cool I guess. We don't even learn how pierce knew celestes parentage. Maybe house pierce was the mom, but then why not just say that?
-Case 5 was rushed. I felt it when the case came to a close and I realized how many things were glossed over or never solved. Theres necromancy on sibyl which caused me to go half the case assuming she was feigned dead, but the necromancy isnt explained. Alaric was clearly turned into a frog but this is forgotten. The dev even confirmed this, and it hurts to see the game got rather neutered by not reaching goals and criticism of the demos "wordiness" causing the game to be streamlined. And aster and eris were meant to be the final villains of one case each. A 6 case ace attorney clone was very ambitious, its a shame we didn't see it. But I do like this case because of a patron existing at all. If it was just eris with no patron, it would've been boring because obviously eris is evil. I also think originally the prosecution was going to make us prove aria or celeste were even controlled, because the prosecution literally had no case here. Obviously we needed to investigate but aria was established to be under a demons control about 4 seconds in. The prosecution had nothing to argue with but lucio can just swing his axe and say its her fault and the games like yeah sure.
-Aster in general. It is definitely because of the rushed nature, but it was very bland to see aster being the big bad only to give up instantly and then die. Taking down aster could've been a great scene if the game wasn't compressed. Aster pulling a mael stronghart on the court and even making a dragon feel fear was cool.
-Other plot threads were forgotten. Emily? I guess her only relevance was wallace's motivation for become a necromancer....but then why have it be such a mysterious element of the case, including serving as the intro itself? Eris stole a boat? Just wanted aster to suffer I guess which is funny considering they end up working together. Such a pointless aspect of case 3.
-The empress being grounded is funny but before we see that we just have to assume eris can return at literally any point because all we did was bruise her ego. And unlike dahlia hawthorne she can come back whenever she wants. If she wasnt grounded she couldve and probably wouldve just instantly killed aria and frega. So we didnt even really defeat her, we just pissed off her dad. Beatrices soul is still bound to her.
-The game just dumps 20 spells on you. Last case you had like 3. The game doesn't give you a natural progression to thinking with spells as evidence. And god the amount of nothing evidence pissed me off. Why are the murder of von sanctus and his autopsy seperate evidence, same for pierce and sibyl. Alarics testimony? Never used. And there are more faces of characters in the evidence tab then the actual profiles tab. It's impossible to find what you're looking for.
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As for characters, this case had some really solid main characters like lucio and remus, but all of the minor characters like asclepius and archduke, were just kind of there. They created potential suspects but there was not much reason to suspect them because they appeared for 10 minutes.
Aster was of course a great twist villain. As he says, the best lies are the ones you don't want to believe. There were really many signs, but I liked Aster and didn't want to believe it. I rarely do that in games, but I geniunely felt like his character couldn't be evil. If aster had more time to shine in the final battle aster could compare to the twist villains of ace attorney.
The empress was a cool transform scene, and eris was built up pretty well across the game. Eris is basically the only character in tc with a real breakdown, as she almost transforms before being smited by the dragon.
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This case was easily the best in the game, 10/10, probably about an 8 in ace attorney just because while it was fantastic some glaring balancing issues and story pacing getting all crammed into a tiny case did hurt it pretty hard. I really enjoyed this experience, I do wish it didn't leave so many plot threads unanswered when many of them don't even seem to be part of the plan for the sequel [probably]. I think the game was a bit of a flawed diamond that got overlooked. It didn't seem to get enough attention which is really a shame for the effort that clearly went in.
If we do ever get that promised sequel, though im probably asking for a lot, is to learn from this game. Make the mysteries harder and improve the writing. Improve the evidence tabs and reduce evidence spam, make unique icons for more evidence. And my major prayer, show and don't tell. The narrator should be inner monologue as was planned when the game was in demo. And don't have the game tell us everything thats happening in a scene. Show us! Show us the knights storming the room. Show us someone being pushed out of the way. If a boat vanishes in front of us, show us that! Don't just say "Suddenly, the boat you were looking at vanished without a trace." Put the visual in visual novel, and not just the visual, but animation effects and sound effects can be combined to not even need extra spritework to convey something happening. It would still definitely require a bigger budget, which im not sure tyrion cuthbert achieved. But I really do hope so, I think it has potential to be an incredibly interesting storyline.
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Thank you for joining me on this journey everyone. I didn't convey everything I was thinking because I had so many thoughts, but I conveyed the more important parts and then some. It was a fun experience both to play and to discuss my thoughts with you guys. Maybe i'll do this for other games in the future, who knows?

Tarrio's sentence has even some CEmmunists questioning it. 22 years in prison for someone who wasn't in DC on January 6? What tweet is possibly worth that amount of prison time? CE is even asking why someone of Tarrio's skin color was given the worst sentence. They can't really explain why they were wrong about these cases, assuming that "nothing" would happen in court, and now that it has, it must be "racism." They're too blinded by ideology to consider the correct alternative.
Let's examine what happens when (all skin colors being equal) murderers kill for leftism.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/a-riot-is-the-language-of-the-unheard

'A riot is the language of the unheard'
On Feb. 7, 2022, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. It was about the case of Montez Lee, a Rochester, Minnesota, man sentenced to 10 years in prison for setting a fire that killed a man during the Black Lives Matter riot in Minneapolis.
It happened in a pawn shop on May 28, 2020. Lee and others broke into the shop, and video showed looters ransacking the store. Lee then poured a liquid, an accelerant, from a can all across the floor. Lee then lit the fire. More video showed him boasting shortly afterward about what he had done. "F*** this place," Lee said. "We're gonna burn this bitch down." Video then showed, according to government documents, Lee and others "joking about restaurants they are going to 'hit' next."
The store lay in ruins. Then, a few days later, a woman reported that her son was missing. Police discovered that his car had been found near the pawn shop. They searched the rubble and found the body of Oscar Stewart, a 30-year-old man who had five children. An autopsy showed that Stewart died of burns and smoke inhalation. The death was ruled a homicide.
Lee was in a lot of trouble. In addition to setting the fire that killed Stewart, Lee had prior convictions for burglary, assault, violation of a no-contact order, and theft. Under the circumstances, Justice Department prosecutors gave him a good deal: Lee pleaded guilty to one count of arson. According to sentencing guidelines, he faced 20 years in prison.
Then came Lee's sentencing and the events that caused Cotton to ask questions about the case. In a Jan. 14, 2022 hearing, DOJ prosecutors noted that yes, sentencing guidelines did call for Lee to be sentenced to between 235 and 240 months in prison. But the DOJ asked the judge to show leniency to Lee...In the end, the judge sentenced Lee to 10 years — 120 months versus the 240 months in the guidelines.
In a sentencing memorandum, the DOJ conceded that Lee had committed a serious crime, one that cost a man his life...At that point, the sentencing memorandum took an astonishing turn. Yes, the guidelines call for 20 years, prosecutors admitted, but "this is an extraordinary case." Why is it an extraordinary case? Because "Mr. Lee's motive for setting the fire is a foremost issue," the memo said. This is a key passage from the memo:
Mr. Lee credibly states that he was in the streets to protest unlawful police violence against black men, and there is no basis to disbelieve this statement. Mr. Lee, appropriately, acknowledges that he "could have demonstrated in a different way," but that he was "caught up in the fury of the mob after living as a black man watching his peers suffer at the hands of police." As anyone watching the news world-wide knows, many other people in Minnesota were similarly caught up. There appear to have been many people in those days looking only to exploit the chaos and disorder in the interest of personal gain or random violence. There appear also to have been many people who felt angry, frustrated, and disenfranchised, and who were attempting, in many cases in an unacceptably reckless and dangerous manner, to give voice to those feelings. Mr. Lee appears to be squarely in this latter category. And even the great American advocate for non-violence and social justice, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stated in an interview with CBS's Mike Wallace in 1966 that "we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard."
The prosecutors took particular note of a video frame that showed Lee outside the pawn shop, raising his fist into the air. To prosecutors, the gesture showed that Lee was at heart a well-meaning protester, not a killer. "The raised fist Mr. Lee showed, and his brazenness in committing the crime is telling," prosecutors wrote. "Mr. Lee was terribly misguided, and his actions had tragic, unthinkable consequences. But he appears to have believed that he was, in Dr. King's eloquent words, engaging in 'the language of the unheard.'" In light of that, prosecutors concluded, the guidelines' 20-year sentence recommendation "does not appear appropriate" and Lee should receive a lesser sentence.
It was a jaw-dropping, hard-to-believe justification for a deadly crime by a habitual criminal. Lee was only protesting "unlawful police violence," federal prosecutors argued. He felt "frustrated" and "disenfranchised." He was "caught up in the fury of the mob." And then: Judge, you must understand that even though the riot was deadly, and even though Lee played a particularly ugly role, he truly believed he was engaging in "the language of the unheard."
That was then. Now, of course, we are watching the same DOJ seek maximum sentences against defendants who took part in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Do prosecutors routinely seek reduced sentences by telling judges that the Jan. 6 rioters felt "frustrated" and "disenfranchised"? Do prosecutors concede that the rioters got out of hand but excuse their behavior by arguing they were just "caught up in the fury of the mob"? And do they quote King to justify the rioters' acts by contending that they really believed they were engaging in "the language of the unheard"?
The answer to every question, of course, is no. And that is the problem Cotton was getting at when he wrote to Garland. Cotton never mentioned Jan. 6, but he had one fundamental question: "Does the attorney general believe participation in a riot is a basis for leniency in sentencing individuals for violent crimes?"
It has been a year and a half since Cotton asked that question. Garland has not responded.

The double standard here reveals an inconvenient truth that persecution-complex leftists don't want to admit.
Leftists are "The Man." They are the big state. They are the powers that be, and the power abusers.
The events of January 6 made this clear: a 1-day "mostly peaceful" protest vs the left's 2020 summer of riots. On that day, the real bros were separated from the posers.
The MAGA board were the real ones, but were honestly shut down before they could say anything. Tails82 Crew were the real ones. J6 was an authentic rage against the DC machine and put pressure on the elites. THAT is why they freaked tf out and sent more troops to DC than occupied Afghanistan. THAT is why they built a wall around the Capitol for themselves that was bigger than anything Donald Trump could ever dream about. THAT is why they have pulled every lever of power to go after, and jail anyone who was in the area on the 1-day gathering that still scares them to this day. We are the real threat to their corrupt power structure.
Then on the other end you had the posers raging for the machine, like Error and Alucard, when those fucktards supported rioting, random murders and arson that primarily burned down poor minority neighborhoods. Then those simps for Big Daddy Government took down the opinions that Daddy didn't want, like the obediant fascist footsoldiers that they are.
One other thing that has surprised the CEmmunists: the banana republic bogus charges were supposed to "flip" on President Trump or take a plea deal, in exchange for revealing some secret smoking gun of the Trump vast right wing conspiracy that leftists totally believe exists. But everyone has plead not guilty, including the guy who just took 22 years for Trump - which led to several meltdowns from "Unstable" CableZL. These people can't believe the loyalty and love of President Trump which is out there.
Meanwhile Biden's own business partner flipped on him and Hunter's thinking about making his own dad testify. It appears that Slimeball Joe will be undone by his inner circle, who has no real love for him. No one does. This enrages the left just as much, when all their stacked propaganda media can't squeeze out an ounce of support for the diseased, senile old puppet.

This one may be significantly longer, I have MANY thoughts. You'll see that i've written this as I played, its very noticeable compared to my other posts as I actually [GASP] get stuff wrong!
Good start, we have a case as ruby tymora instead of tyrion, protag switches are fun. No investigation, straight to trial. Beatrice frega [from house of frega presumably.] is our defendant I guess. Oh and hi Eris you're here. It seems ruby works for the eyetaker still. Which is not ideal. Wallace nightgrave is now the prosecutions aide? Beatrice is accused of killing her father using a magic sword that nullifies other magic. And then killing him with...a letter opener. Not the sword. But anyways...Eris did it. Immediately after seeing the autopsy I know what happened. He has scratches on him from a creature. The body has illusion magic on his body, eris' specialty. And we know eris is a murderer already, and not human. Most damning is the sword of spelleaters says it can be used by any "creature" for its effects. Why would they mention creature if a human used it. Eris is some beast in a humans disguise. Our defendant appears to have Machi Tobaye syndrome...blindness. This will not stop her from being accused until we find the murderer of course. Hard to ignore how suspicious ruby is though, given she works for the eyetaker. I don't entirely trust her.
And then out of nowhere after miriam testifies, the prosecutor collapses and it turns out she was gravely injured. Wallace was not her prosecutors aide, but her healer. She used magic to hide it, because she wanted to prosecute beatrice that badly. With no other prosecutors, ruby attempts to quickly end the trial in her favor. And then out of nowhere TYRION objects and stands at the prosecutions bench. An incredible twist for sure. He says theres a contradiction in miriams testimony. And then we cut to the night before suddenly.
Investigation segment out of nowhere. Tyrion simps for celeste in a dress at a party, who is apparently looking for her parents. I will note i'm pretty convinced Aster is her sibling. I made that connection in case 3 but forgot to mention it. We spot a WOLF at the party which runs off and tyrions essentially like "Not my problem". Anyways, we meet harold haroldson, a historian with a monkey on his back and get loredump about history and stuff. Then we learn about familiars, and suddenly some pieces are coming together. In fact, we may be mistaken about our eris theory, as a lot of my evidence is now explained by familiars. It seems likely that wolf is Beatrice's familiar, and the spell implies you can "see" through the familiars eyes if you choose, bypassing her blindness. It's also becoming clear the eye of horus is likely a demonic artifact based on what the historian tells us.
We get more fun scenes with steelwind and aster and a small child named Alaric de wyverngarde, which is asters very younger brother. Reminds me of TGAA-2s Master Gotts. We get interrupted mid dance by Beatrice getting arrested. The investigation takes a bit to get anywhere. Celestes sword was stolen and we find it under beatrices bed. We talk to von sanctus and learn some more about the houses. Beatrice honestly seems to be the killer at this stage, with the game pulling the fan favorite guilty defendant twist.
Not 5 minutes later from writing this, we go to the jailcell and beatrice and eris are there. And through the eye, the game outright tells you beatrice was an accomplice. The pure fear of knowing the game lets you know this, next to eris who we' ve seen modify reality and kill anyone in her path is briefly terrifying. Tymora comes in and we're saved by the bell before eris can do whatever it is eris does. But tymora will defend the guilty client to the better end.
​
With that, we're back to court, right where we left off. Allowed to prosecute the case, we switch to the offensive. Also for no reason we switch tables because protagonist is always on the left. The trial is brief but very impactful. Destroying rubys arguments are much more sastifying then steelwind. Especially on a technicality that normally hurts the defense.
With the willreading over with, we have an awkward talk with ruby. Leading the inquistion is a funny scene, and playing as a prosecutor is just really cool. We meet lucio steelwind who almost murders us with an axe. Also hes missing an eye. Taken by the eyetaker presumably. The eyetakers little possy of control is a terrifying threat that looms over the game. I still feel that eris is the primary killer of this case. We then speak to a fucking wolf. The eye of horus just lets you do that. okay. I love Tracker btw. Best boy. Tracker explains some stuff. And then sees through eris' disguise. We believe haroldson used his monkey to kill the victim. I believe not.
Court swiftly begins again, with harold on the stand. We accuse him, but the empowered eye exonerates him. Eugune was a lone operator. We're seriously accusing the monkey of the crime, after stealing the armbands of intellect. We then cross examine the monkey. This case is ace attorney fans heaven. Or fever dream. We learn some things and realize the monkey despite his suspicious nature, is innocent. The pieces i've forgotten about all click into place. We learned tracker isn't beatrices familiar. But she definitely has been using one to see. It's invisible, acting as fregas eyes. Beatrice had the familiar kill the victim, and whatever it is, its able to fly. But then we take a recess and meet the eyetaker following tymora. Alongside eris. Great. The eyetaker demands we throw the case. We almost get ourselves killed, celeste steps in and intimidates an entire group of guards into submission. Then eris takes the reigns, emotionally manipulating the hell out of you and trying to make you distrust celeste. I didn't care much for the romance aspect but the game actually does do it rather well and im invested in their relationship more then I expected.
Back to the court, we reveal that beatrices familiar is a demon. I suspected, but with Eris I expected the demon to somehow be her. We then call prince alaric to the stand to try and prove beatrice cast invisibility on her demonspawn. We figure out how she snuck in her incantation and then trick the demon into testifying. Unfortunately for the demon, he cannot lie. Marrunath is forced to confess to the murder. But, proving beatrice was behind it is difficult. We lose the argument. And then our eyes of horus allow us to compel a demon to give up its blood contract? I have no idea what just happened in that scene. Yeah so beatrice is now damned to hell, and we don't feel too great about it.
In the epilogue, the eyetaker himself falls as eris monologues her endgame. A demon who stole the place of his daughter, and controls literally everyone. And shes hellbent on ruining our life. Woohoo.

Closing thoughts:
This case was great. The twists don't quite compare to ace attorney for the most part but they exist at all, whereas before they were basically nonexistent. Suspecting eris was distracting me, mostly due to the eyetaker. My theory was that we have 3 evil people to take down. Eris, the eyetaker and the king. So I figured we'd have to arrest at least one in this case. Eris solves the problem on her own with a bit of murder, without being involved in the crime. She makes a good scapegoat just by being her evil self.
The new characters in this case are mostly good. Exception goes to Laefe for being pretty absent as sidecharacters tend to, and lucio and alaric. But I believe they are moreso cameos here and will be bigger players in case 5. Tracker and Eugune are a delight to talk to, and theres so many good scenes in this one case its insane. While it's a minor detail, I appreciated seeing william fregas sprite. Even ace attorney tends to not show us our victims, and the game definitely could've just monologued it as it does for most everything. I appreciate the extra effort it took. Compared to justin waye who had no face. I can also appreciate being wrong for once. The game, whether intentionally or not, has a good way to misdirect the player by its wording of "creature" and demonic pacts. When eris already appears to be a demon, it can really misdirect the players attention, or at least mine.
This case is 10/10 for tyrion cuthbert, and an 8/10 for ace attorney even. I feel like despite tyrions jank writing and mechanics and everything, when it tells a narrative that keeps the player engaged and on their toes, powerful hitting emotional/tense scenes, while also having great interactions with pretty much all of the cast, the indie game is able to surpass ace attorneys lower and even middle class cases.
See you guys next time for the finale. Apologies for this absolute textwall of a post, and appreciate everyone who always chimes in their opinions.

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