THEME SERIAL KILLERS AND OTHELLO

 A Theme Serial Killer, according to TV Tropes, has to pattern his kills after a famous set, like the seven deadly sins, or a work of fiction. The killer will choose victims who match up with the set and/or he will kill them in manners befitting the set. Note that the killer will avoid repeating methods of murder: each death will represent, in some way, another portion of the set or story.

In particular, and given my own personal catnip, I want to focus on murders committed by two British Theme Serial Killers in particular, both of them Wicked Cultured (villains with a taste for high culture), one of them with a Shakespearean theme and another with an operatic theme. Naturally, both of them just felt like they had to sink their teeth into having a Desdemona (in one of their cases, with an Othello on the side) on their respective hit lists.

Significantly, both murders took place in the United Kingdom; the Shakespearean one in London town and the Verdian one in a railway yard on the outskirts of Oxford. They also took place around the same time period; Evelyn Balfour née Tate was killed in the 1960s and Maisie Psaltery in the 1970s.

"Ancora un bacio" (Die On the Third Kiss - my own translation of the lyric!): Desdemona in the Endeavour episode Fugue

Victim: Evelyn Balfour née Tate, a married thirty- or forty-something housewife. She was chosen by the killer because she was involved in his legal trial, being the daughter of a pub barmaid who was a female witness at the trial. Also because Evelyn's first name began with an E, the first note in the lines of the treble clef (another theme the killer followed). Also because Evelyn had been cheating on her husband, Mr. Balfour. Like, having real love affairs, subverting what we expect of a Desdemona stand-in!

Killer: Mason Gull "The Opera Phantom," an unstable musical prodigy who was sentenced to juvie as a teen for matricide.

More Information: Evelyn was strangled by Gull in a railway yard, inside a disused railway carriage (the killer combining Othello and Iago), with a handkerchief embroidered with a capital D stuffed into her mouth (as a clue to which character she represented); he wrote the final words of the Verdian opera by Arrigo Boito, Othello's last words said to the corpse of Desdemona as he kisses her, in original Italian, "ancora un bacio" ("die on the third kiss," in my translation of the libretto on this blog as Miss Dermark's Verdian Othello), on the back of the railway carriage door.

The Psalteries' Marital Crisis: Othello and Desdemona in Theatre of Blood

Victims: Maisie and Solomon Psaltery, an old, as in elderly, happily married couple of caustic theatre critics. Happily until Solomon was cajoled into believing Maisie was flirting with others... They were chosen by the killer for having panned (harshly criticised) his Shakespearean performances on the stage.

Killer: Edward Lionheart, a frustrated Shakespearean thespian whom the Psalteries and other caustic critics had panned, and who had attempted suicide and was presumed dead. Assuming the umpteeenth out of many new identities, he gained the Psalteries' trust and pitted Solomon against Maisie. Taking on the roles of both Iago and Cassio, Lionheart posed as an Italian masseur and gave Maisie a faux-erotic naked massage, not before having told her husband to watch the procedure...

More Information: Just like in the finale of both the Shakespearean and Verdian versions (but having Shakespeare as the source material), Solomon stifled Maisie with a pillow in the couple's bed in a jealous rage. Then, when Solomon realised what he had done (unlike Othello) he did not commit suicide, but rather survived and turned himself willingly to be seized and imprisoned by Scotland Yard for uxoricide (it's implied, though, that his old age and poor health won't let him survive prison for long... and what is harsher in hindsight, Jack Dawkins, who played Solomon Psaltery, died of throat cancer three months after the film's initial release. He had to be live-action dubbed by an uncredited Charles Gray, as his larynx had been removed).

SUMMING UP: "Who Says I Play the Villain?" Or: What Drives Theme Serial Killers to Play Iago?

Both the Shakespeare-themed and the opera-themed serial killer had a multitude of appropriate motifs to choose from, and yet both of them were drawn to the same plot (seen through the lens of Shakespeare and Verdi, respectively), and both cast themselves as Iago. 

Maybe they were drawn to the story for the same reasons that draw me and countless others to pick it as a personal favourite. The way Iago manipulates his fellow humans by using their flaws is something we even admire; even if we do not have access to the gift of people-speaking or the Imperius Curse, this is a form of mind control some of us muggle people can have access to in real life. The way he even poisons, or gaslights, a happy couple of newlyweds into abuse and even murder is also shocking. Even Mr. Burns himself lists Iago in his catalogue of villains in his character song "High to be Loathed," making a shadow puppet of him in Elizabethan garb! And that among the likes of Darth Vader, Lord Voldemort, Megatron, and Skeletor, not to mention Mr. Burns mentioning himself (ie leaning on the fourth wall)! The only fictional character as classic and public domain as Iago in those lyrics is Southern slaver Simon Legree...

So, long story short, we admire Iago for his superb manipulation skills, and love to hate him for his outright wickedness and nihilism and utter disregard for the lives of others, all at the same time. As John Eglinton puts it in Joyce's Ulysses:

-- And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. When all is said Dumas fils (or is it Dumas père?) is right. After God Shakespeare has created most.

And we're talking a (fictional?) major scholar of Shakespeare here! In fact, Iago is regarded by countless thespians and baritones as a great challenge to perform as because of the many masks you have to don on stage when interacting with all the different co-stars. Iago is cheerful with Cassio, professional with Othello, cold-hearted with the ladies... And, at heart, a sinister riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma. Furthermore, that scheming that is required for both being Iago and being a theme serial killer requires a lot of creativity, if you think of that. Creativity warped to serve sinister aims, but nevertheless creativity:

According to A. C. Bradley, “. . . Iago is motivated by a love of excitement and by his perception of himself as an artist.  He derives great pleasure from the successful execution of his complex and dangerous intrigues.”

The same way that Mason Gull is a musical prodigy and Edward Lionheart is an ace thespian. No surprise that both of them would, in their revenge-fueled serial killings, be drawn to the intrigues of Iago, and pick a married wife among their respective lists of victims to cast as Desdemona (in the case of Lionheart and the Psalteries, with her husband co-starring as Othello). If I had a blacker heart and a grudge against a married wife, and more of a knack for persuasion, maybe I would have gone down the same dark path... who knows?