Althouse: “Students described him as both a talented lecturer who spoke French and did impressions of Napoleon and as a ‘freak’ who called his lover ‘Josephine’ and asked to be addressed as ‘Sire.’”

November 10, 2019

“Students described him as both a talented lecturer who spoke French and did impressions of Napoleon and as a ‘freak’ who called his lover ‘Josephine’ and asked to be addressed as ‘Sire.’”

From “Russia professor admits murder after woman's arms found in bag” (BBC).

30 comments:

alanc709 said...: Other than the occasional homicide, he was an excellent instructor; 11/10/19, 11:46 AM
Darrell said...: Russians hear about the right to bear arms, but don't really understand the concept.; 11/10/19, 11:46 AM
h said...: Right to bear arms.; 11/10/19, 11:52 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Fortunately he wasn't a follower of Professor O'Brien.; 11/10/19, 11:58 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I hope it wasn't a plastic bag.

Jersey City NJ banned plastic bags.; 11/10/19, 12:11 PM
Fernandinande said...: Rather than a hand bag its an arm bag.; 11/10/19, 12:15 PM
JAORE said...: C'mon man!

Deny,deny, deny..... until they find the head.; 11/10/19, 12:20 PM
Rabel said...: Anastasia screamed in vain.

Also, BBC headline to the right of the story:

"How a US Mormon family ended up dead in Mexico"

It's a mystery.; 11/10/19, 12:20 PM
etbass said...: Far more publicity for the deflated Trump baby balloon than the president himself.

During the Bama LSU game yesterday, CBS did one very brief shot of the President of the United States who attended the game. If Obama had been there, they would have virtually pre-empted the game with shots of him. Or if Robert deNiro was at the game, he would have gotten 150 video shots during the game.; 11/10/19, 12:32 PM
Iman said...: If he could choose a way to die, it would be in her arms...; 11/10/19, 12:33 PM
Jason said...: He had a disarming personality.

I'll show myself out.; 11/10/19, 12:49 PM
n.n said...: Planned pupil? Perhaps planned paramour.; 11/10/19, 12:51 PM
eddie willers said...: He killed an unarmed person?; 11/10/19, 1:01 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: He just wanted her arms around him.; 11/10/19, 1:08 PM
Swede said...: Oof.
That's probably going to impact his score at Ratemyprofessor.com but thank goodness for tenure!; 11/10/19, 1:33 PM
Wince said...: Reminds me of the Professor William Douglas case of 1983.

A former Tufts University professor whose obsession with a Boston prostitute led him to kill her with a sledgehammer in 1983 was freed Thursday after serving less than half his prison term.

Massachusetts correction officials said William H. Douglas, 51, was released from prison in Enfield, Conn., after serving just nine years of an 18- to 20-year sentence for manslaughter for killing Robin N. Benedict, 21.

The early release shocked the victim's parents, who said they want to meet with Douglas to find out just what he did with their daughter's body in a slaying the media dubbed the 'Missing Beauty' case.

Douglas was a married father of three and respected cellular biologist at Tufts University Medical School when he met Benedict in 1982 in Boston's downtown adult entertainment area known as the Combat Zone, where the dark-haired graphic artist worked nights as a prostitute.

Over the following year, Douglas drained his personal savings to pay for sex with Benedict and embezzled $67,000 from Tufts to finance his $100-per-hour dates with her.

On March 5, 1983, the professor and the prostitute met for the last time. She came to his Sharon, Mass., home demanding $5,000 in payment for sex. Douglas instead slugged her in the head with a sledgehammer and disposed of her body.

On the eve of his trial in 1984 on a charge of first-degree murder, he changed his plea to guilty to manslaughter.

'It was a crime of passion and he served his time,' said Douglas's attorney, Damon Scarano. 'He's no menace to society.' Scarano said Douglas won his early release because of good behavior. 'He was just a model prisoner' who earned good time teaching community college courses within the prison system.

Gov. William Weld, however, criticized state laws that allowed the early release, and Secretary of Public Safety Thomas C. Rapone called it 'a travesty' that laws allow inmates to earn good time credit 'just for showing up each day.'; 11/10/19, 1:42 PM
Big Mike said...: He was a talented lecturer? I’ll bet his impressions of Vlad Dracul, Elizabeth Bathory, and Charles-Henri Sanson were really great.; 11/10/19, 1:45 PM
YoungHegelian said...: ...after woman's arms found in bag.

He was just getting in character for his lecture on Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.; 11/10/19, 2:03 PM
rhhardin said...: Venus de Milo; 11/10/19, 2:06 PM
walter said...: Eccentric!; 11/10/19, 3:32 PM
William said...: Idle thoughts: Some forms of mutilation are tragic and others tickle the funny bone. No one jokes about a mammectomy, but severed arms are fair game.....There's several scenes in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus that are almost never performed. Lavinia is raped and then her rapists cut out her tongue and chop off her hands. Her uncle encounters her bleeding from her stumps and mouth. He goes on and on about the loss of her pretty hands and gentle voice and how much sorrow it will give her father to learn of her violation and shame. Lavinia looks on with fulminating rage, and you can't tell whether it's because of the rapists or her goddammed uncle. Later on when her father and uncle ask her to identify the rapists, it looks like a macabre form of charades...The BBC production of Titus Andronicus is very funny,but you should see it alone and in private. If word gets out that you find mutilated rape victims funny, your life will be cancelled.; 11/10/19, 3:41 PM
JMW Turner said...: Mon dieu! But he was *such* a cultured freak!; 11/10/19, 4:04 PM
Clyde said...: He was described in another article as being “emotionally unstable” and that he abused alcohol. In other words, like 90% of Russians. Most of them don’t dismember their lovers, though.; 11/10/19, 4:05 PM
Lurker21 said...: There was the (still unsolved) Suzanne Jovin murder in the Nineties. The professor who was a suspect could have been chosen "Faculty Member Most Likely to Murder Somebody" (if there weren't so many other candidates), but I gather he was cleared. She had just finished a senior paper on Osama bin Laden (three years before 911), so who knows?; 11/10/19, 4:45 PM
walter said...: "Eight Arms to Hold You was one of the working titles for the Beatles’ 1965 film, Help!. It was suggested by film producer Walter Shenson. Copies of the single “Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is” and early copies of the US-released 45 single “Help!/I’m Down” are actually printed with Eight Arms to Hold You as the movie title instead of Help!"; 11/10/19, 5:17 PM
Fernandinande said...: A professor in Durango was arrested for setting fire to Mission brand tortilla chips.

Oh, the humidity. From the water damage.; 11/10/19, 6:20 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: was her copy of Hemmingway's novel about an ambulance driver in the bag also?; 11/10/19, 9:27 PM
daskol said...: Dating boomers can be a danegerous game for millennials.; 11/11/19, 6:49 AM
madAsHell said...: He is said to have planned to get rid of the body before publicly taking his own life dressed as Napoleon.

The future of Pay-Per-View TV!!; 11/11/19, 11:30 AM
madAsHell said...: Whoa!! Living dangerously?? Moderation is of!!; 11/11/19, 11:37 AM