In September 1952, 22-year-old Betty Shanks was murdered just blocks from her home in the Brisbane suburb of Grange. The brutal crime which shocked the peaceful community remains unsolved
Really gripping case study! The detail about Sterry keeping Betty's photo with that inscription for 45 years is genuinly haunting. I've followed a few Australian cold cases and the daugther testimony angle here feels really solid considering the psychiatric records and the timing of him burning clothes. The locksmith acces to the home adds a layer of premeditation that makes his obsession theory more plausible than a random attack.
One of the above newspaper clippings mentions a man escaped from the asylum: since no follow-up is mentioned, we can assume he was captured but there was no evidence either way to connect to the murder. I should say given overdiagnosis by psychiatrists, the way veterans were mistreated by mental health professionals, and the fact aggregate analysis is needed, I would think Sterry was innocent: also, "psychoticism" refers to neuroticism and various mental conditions, an example being stress. Given the mistreatment of veterans I mentioned, Sterry would have been a suspect, but since the police never charged him despite the fact it is easy for them to arrest the marginalized means he was innocent. As with crime in general social deprivation would have played a role, which would be exacerbated if the killer was a convict or a veteran (either or both of which could be indicated by the tattoo) and as with crimes against the vulnerable in general power would have been a role (which would be exacerbated by toxic masculinity in prison and the boys' club in the security forces). The fact she graduated university, had a job, and apparently regularly attended lectures at the secondary school indicates that the killer was motivated by social cleansing, which also fits with toxic masculinity, the boys' club, power, and social deprivation (social deprivation results in the deprived needing to compete for resources, resulting in healthy white men but who were poor Anglos and/or growing up surrounded by drugs, exploiting the rest to get on top).
This is backed up by Shanks being Cambro-Norman, and thus further economic competition to Anglo-Normans or Anglo-Saxons. The killer could also have been a white ethnic (presumably a Celticized Norman) whose family were middle class by providing services like shopkeeping to their ethnic community but would have intergenerational trauma from centuries of Anglo-Norman exploitation; the killer potentially being the asylum escapee fits with the killer being a convict (sent to the asylum for reason of insanity, where he got his tattoos) and/or a veteran, as well as social deprivation affecting those with mental conditions, mental conditions also potentially being caused by social deprivation and/or intergenerational trauma.
Really gripping case study! The detail about Sterry keeping Betty's photo with that inscription for 45 years is genuinly haunting. I've followed a few Australian cold cases and the daugther testimony angle here feels really solid considering the psychiatric records and the timing of him burning clothes. The locksmith acces to the home adds a layer of premeditation that makes his obsession theory more plausible than a random attack.
One of the above newspaper clippings mentions a man escaped from the asylum: since no follow-up is mentioned, we can assume he was captured but there was no evidence either way to connect to the murder. I should say given overdiagnosis by psychiatrists, the way veterans were mistreated by mental health professionals, and the fact aggregate analysis is needed, I would think Sterry was innocent: also, "psychoticism" refers to neuroticism and various mental conditions, an example being stress. Given the mistreatment of veterans I mentioned, Sterry would have been a suspect, but since the police never charged him despite the fact it is easy for them to arrest the marginalized means he was innocent. As with crime in general social deprivation would have played a role, which would be exacerbated if the killer was a convict or a veteran (either or both of which could be indicated by the tattoo) and as with crimes against the vulnerable in general power would have been a role (which would be exacerbated by toxic masculinity in prison and the boys' club in the security forces). The fact she graduated university, had a job, and apparently regularly attended lectures at the secondary school indicates that the killer was motivated by social cleansing, which also fits with toxic masculinity, the boys' club, power, and social deprivation (social deprivation results in the deprived needing to compete for resources, resulting in healthy white men but who were poor Anglos and/or growing up surrounded by drugs, exploiting the rest to get on top).
This is backed up by Shanks being Cambro-Norman, and thus further economic competition to Anglo-Normans or Anglo-Saxons. The killer could also have been a white ethnic (presumably a Celticized Norman) whose family were middle class by providing services like shopkeeping to their ethnic community but would have intergenerational trauma from centuries of Anglo-Norman exploitation; the killer potentially being the asylum escapee fits with the killer being a convict (sent to the asylum for reason of insanity, where he got his tattoos) and/or a veteran, as well as social deprivation affecting those with mental conditions, mental conditions also potentially being caused by social deprivation and/or intergenerational trauma.