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GWENDOLINE BUTLER
Cracking Open a Coffin
HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1992
Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1992
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
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Source ISBN: 9780006472919
Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007545490
Version: 2014–07–07
CONTENTS
Letter to John Coffin from Professor Lessingham, The Institute of Mental Health, Bury Hill.
‘I am coming to the opinion that there are certain types of killers who might be called periodic serial killers in as much as they will only kill when the victim offers exactly what is required. So there may be long gaps in the cycle.
‘In these cases there is a symbiotic relationship between killer and victim: they move towards each other.
‘The rules as to the victim, manner of killing, disposal of the body have to be kept … But even the most dedicated of serial killers will be frustrated by circumstances, something the killer did not take into account, or could not control. There will always be cases out of pattern, that do not conform.’
A day in early autumn
One day in early autumn the neighbourhood newspaper, Second City News, carried a special supplement on the university, then celebrating its fifth birthday and welcoming that year’s intake of students. As well as a large photograph of the head of the university, Sir Thomas Blackhall, there was a page of photographs in colour of some of the students.
Students
