The gory details of the murder of a 26-year-old woman in Delhi allegedly by her live-in partner have shocked the country. The man had strangled her to death six months ago over an argument over marriage. The next day he dismembered her body into 35 pieces to make it easier to dispose of.
The police said that the man was inspired by US crime series like Dexter. “He followed what the main character did to chop the body and discard it,” a source told Indian Express.
The accused bought a saw to chop the victim’s body into pieces and a new fridge to store them. He would then dispose of the body parts in the city’s Mehrauli Forest over the next 18 days and managed to keep the murder a secret for nearly five months.
Dexter is an American TV series that ran from 2006-2013. It was adapted from the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), which was the first entry into a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay. The series followed the eponymous Dexter Morgan, a vigilante serial killer that hunted down murderers and other serial killers when they weren’t caught by the justice system or the police. Living a secret life, Dexter worked with the fictional Miami Metro Police Department as a forensic technician who specialised in bloodstain pattern analysis. The show ran for eight seasons and won many awards.
For most of the earlier seasons, Dexter would kill them in a special room designed to not leave any forensic evidence. Afterwards, Dexter would cut up the victim’s body into small pieces. He would take these pieces into dark trash bags and load them into his car over several trips. Owning a boat, Dexter would sail over the ocean and dump the trash bags after weighing them down with rocks. The method allowed Dexter to avoid leaving any incriminating evidence behind and easily dispose of the bodies of his numerous victims.
The show has been mired in controversy from the start with many objections to its display of violence and sexual acts. The show also drew criticism from some over its narrative which made viewers empathize with a serial killer. The show has also ‘inspired’ other crimes including the case of a 17-year-old British teenager who received 25 years in prison for killing and dismembering the body of his 17-year-old girlfriend among other cases from Sweden, Norway, Spain, Canada, and the US.
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