Cupid (novel)

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Cupid (original title: Retribution ) is the title of the first novel by the American author Jilliane Hoffman and belongs to the genre crime novel / thriller .

action

The focus of the novel is the Miami district attorney CJ Townsend , who represents the charges against a suspected serial killer (called "Cupid" ). She learns that William Rupert Bantling, who is in the dock, is the man who broke into her apartment 12 years ago and tortured and raped her - an experience that she barely survived and that left her with severe emotional trauma . Now she is faced with a conflict of conscience: Actually, she would be obliged to hand over the case, but on the other hand she now has the opportunity to take revenge on her rapist. Without knowing it, Townsend is in mortal danger himself. Townsend starts the investigation and hopes to finally get revenge on Bantling. It turns out that "Cupid" is not Bantling, but their long-time joint psychiatrist Gregory Chambers, but Bantling is still sentenced to lethal injection.

Table of contents

In June 1988, the attractive law student in New York City went on a date with Michael, her boyfriend, and hopes that he will finally announce her engagement on this hot summer evening, which is also her anniversary, after an emotional crisis. What she doesn't know is that a sex offender masked with a clown mask is lurking in the evergreen shrub in front of her apartment. When she returns from the rendezvous, which did not lead to the expected outcome, the clown gets into her apartment, brings her under his control, mistreats her severely and rapes her all through the thunderstorm night until the next morning.

The next morning she is discovered by her friend Marie Catherine, with whom she had an appointment for aerobics . She finds the seriously injured Chloe and takes her to the Jamaica Hospital in Queens . Their lives can be saved in the accident medicine there. The perpetrator inflicted internal injuries on her (“ man, this psycho really let off steam ”), she has stab wounds, cuts on her chest (the perpetrator tried to cut her open and disemboweled) and has profuse internal bleeding. Among other things, her uterus has to be removed. Detective Amy Harrison interrogates her because she is a sex crime victim. The search for the perpetrator, however, is nowhere. The physical wounds heal, but the mental ones remain. Chloe enlists her parents' help and moves into a new apartment on the 18th floor of Rocky Hill Road. The act severely traumatized her and changed her entire life. Exam, job and engagement no longer play a role. Michael breaks up with Chloe shortly after being raped and has a new relationship with his secretary. Chloe has become over-anxious, has severe insomnia, and is still suffering greatly from the consequences of the act.

Then the story makes a leap in time and begins in September 2000. Miami is rocked by a series of brutal murders of young women. The Miami State Police has formed a special commission to investigate the crimes against eleven victims. Before and after photos of the victims, all of whom are blonde, are attached to the so-called “wall” in order to be able to derive a specific pattern based on the bestial acts. The girls' bodies were found in various places, such as a sugar factory in the Everglades , an abandoned US Navy missile silo, or an empty “ crack house” in Liberty City . The young and strikingly pretty girls like Marilyn Sibas (19), Andrea Galagher (23), Hannah Cordova (22), Krystal Prince (18) and others, were for the most part models who often went to the Miami South Beach party scene at night and presumably met their murderer there too. The autopsies of the corpses turned out to be difficult, as the decomposition progressed rapidly in hot and humid Florida .

During a random police check, a certain William Bantling is caught, who hid the mutilated body of Ana Prado in the trunk of his luxury car Jaguar . The police are certain that Bantling must be the long-sought “Cupid”. The arrest of the alleged serial killer triggers a huge media hype. Prosecutor CJ Townsend is also informed of this news by her secretary Marisol.

CJ Townsend is Chloe Larson who has assumed a new identity after moving from New York to Miami to end her old life and bad memories. Townsend is one of the top ten attorneys in Florida and has a 100% conviction rate. Judge Irving scratch associates after a hearing remand for Bantling and rejects demanded by his defense attorney Lourdes Rubio bail strictly because the evidence clearly indicate murdering Ana Prado. The alleged perpetrator, who always assumed that nobody could harm him, suddenly loses his nerve, fights against having to go to jail and there is a scandal in the courtroom . CJ Townsend recognizes her tormentor at the time by the sickle-shaped scar that the suspect wears on his wrist and hastily leaves the hearing. She can only feel safe again when she learns that Bantling is in high security custody . She begins to investigate his past and learns in a phone call from the New York police that the rape committed against her is statute-barred after five years .

The Miami Herald already has its headline: "Maimed corpse of tenth victim in trunk!" and the FBI , led by the unpopular Special Agent Mark Gracker, begins investigations, leading to a dispute with the local authorities. Bantling's luxurious home on La Gorce Avenue in Midbeach is then searched by forensics. The rooms are treated with luminol to detect traces of blood. You will find the drug Haloperidol (Haldol), which is prescribed for delusional states, and several home videos with scenes of violent porn that cannot be clearly proven to be the alleged perpetrator, Bantling, who torments women in front of the camera. Finally, a metal cot is found on which Ana Prado was believed to have been tortured to death.

CJ Townsend feels a great remorse because, although she is perfectly incorporated into the case, she is to be regarded as biased based on her own experience and the case would have to be withdrawn from her for legal reasons. She is tormented that the serial killer can no longer be prosecuted for what he did to her and she really wants to see him on the electric chair . Obsessed with finally bringing Bantling to justice, the prosecutor has 21 days to file charges against him. The only one who knows about her rape is the psychiatrist Dr. Chambers, whom she confided in. She tells him about her conflict of conscience and tells him that she finally wants to regain control of her life. Later at the Forensic Institute, it was found that Nicolette Torrance and Ana Prado had injections on their arms and had high levels of haloperidol in their blood. This was given to them as a strong narcotic in order to be able to abduct them. The stains on the corpse clearly show that Ana Prado died lying on the metal cot. The perpetrator also administered mivacurium chloride , which acts as a muscle relaxant. The victims should be motionless but fully aware that they are being eviscerated. In addition, their eyelids were fixed so that they could no longer close. This finding shocks the investigators and there are fears that with all the cruelty that the perpetrator had inflicted on the women, the defense could plead insanity . With the background that Bantling was released after a few years in psychiatry.

Townsend discovers that Bantling lived in Flushing from April 1987 to April 1989 , just a few miles from her then apparment and aerobics studio. It turns out that he must have studied their habits, as well as those of his other victims, with great meticulousness. She noticed that there hadn't been any new cases for a decade and she wondered how long he must have been suppressing his sick drive for such a long time. It is known that violent sexual offenders escalate their obsessions and the resulting acts, the inhibition threshold continues to decrease and thus the spiral of violence gradually increases and does not stop torturing and killing on their own initiative, unless they get through Jail or death stopped. " Everything just happens in his head, where no one sees the ugly, corrosive thoughts boiling and bubbling until they finally overflow like lava and consume everything on their way ."

CJ Townsend realizes that in her life back then as Chloe Larson she was not a random victim, but was chosen with care by Bantling. From the police point of view, the furniture buyer is a model boy who has never been guilty of anything. It can be stated that Bantling lived in New York City , Los Angeles , San Diego and finally in Miamin , where the Cupid series of murders began in April 1999. Townsend searches the Internet for the combination "woman, ... raped, ... knife, ... clown, ... mask". In the Los Angeles Times finally found four cases to which the modus operandi fits. January 1993 a case with a UCLA student, July 1993 with a waitress. In December 1993 in Santa Barbara , again a student and the fourth case in San Luis Obispo . All rapes have in common that the victims lived in a ground floor apartment and that they were carried out with unheard of brutality. The acts were carried out with a serrated knife and resulted in serious injuries to the women in the vaginal and uterine areas . Bantling has also been on business in Brazil , Venezuela , Argentina , Mexico , the Philippines , India, and Malaysia , where he may be linked to other murders.

Questioning begins in William Bantling's environment with his boss, co-workers, neighbors and his numerous friends. The investigative team wonders why no one noticed that he was a cruel beast, a "wolf among lambs". The résumé of the Englishman, who lost his parents and emigrated to the USA in 1982, is more or less inconspicuous. Neighbors say that he looked nice but couldn't be said about anything. He was considered hardworking and tough in business, had no friends. His boss Tommy Tan says that the straight and familyless bantling was his best buyer. It is becoming increasingly clear that the single man is living under some kind of split personality , such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde suffered: " A gentleman in business and an asshole in bed ." Bantling is said to have roamed the nightclubs and discos of Miami a lot and he was always seen in the company of changing blond and attractive girls. Much fits the profile's original description when the “Cupid” murders began a year ago : “ White male, 22 - 55 years old, loner, average to good-looking, intelligent, professionally successful, stressful job …” His ex -Friends describe him as an arrogant and aggressive narcissist with a strong sadistic-violent tendency and for this reason they would have ended the relationship as soon as possible. As a hobby taxidermist, he is very familiar with knives and scalpels .

Townsend begins interviewing Officer Chavez, who stopped Bantling's car, a black Jaguar XJ 8, on the MacArthur Causeway from Miami Beach to Miami on September 19, 2000 . The driver would have stated that he was going too fast not to miss his plane. The officer would have smelled a corpse and requested the dog squad. Their dogs would then have hit and in the trunk was Ana Prado's body, just as Chavez had stated in the arrest protocol. But the prosecutor finds out that the young and inexperienced police officer is lying. In truth, he had received an anonymous tip that there were two kilograms of cocaine in the car . It also turns out that there was insufficient reason for a vehicle inspection and that the trunk should never have been opened without the driver's consent. From a legal point of view, the smell of marijuana and bantling's conspicuous behavior would not have been a reason for an unlawful vehicle inspection and certainly not for an arrest. The facts are not sufficiently given here. Townsend is terrified that the case could slip away and that she is jeopardizing her career, but she considers her professional integrity to be a small sacrifice, measured against the high purpose of finally arresting this "monster". The chance that the serial killer and serial rapist will be released for procedural errors is very high.

Interpol gets in touch and reports on cases in Rio de Janeiro , Caracas and Buenos Aires , to which the description “ male white with a mask who likes to torture and cut ” fits one hundred percent. There were also multiple incidents in the Philippines between 1991 and 1994. The wanted lists from the 1980s, however, are too old and unusable to be used in court. In total there have been at least ten victims in four countries. But the real chances of being prosecuted for it are vanishingly small. Bantling would have to be charged with torturing over 17 women and probably murdering ten or more, although so far only the Prado case has actually been proven. But the other women also have haloperidol in their blood, which was found in Bantling's bathroom. However, the further chain of evidence is so far thin. Falconetti can't understand why CJ is so upset by this case and why she doesn't tell him what actually torments her. The Bantling case is set to come before the grand jury on September 27th. As the Florida state attorney, she must demonstrate clearly that the evidence and suspicion against William Rupert Bantling for the murder of Ana Prado are clear.

There are competency wrangles with the arrogant, career-oriented and high profile US Attorney Tom de la Flors and the FBI, who also claim this case for themselves because of the highest priority and demand access to all original documents and evidence. The Cupid Special Commission, which is strictly only responsible for Miami-Dade County , is to be released from its case, but this can still be prevented at the last moment.

During the Arthur Hearing, the official prosecution lecture, Bantling and CJ Townsend meet again. This time, his presence is even more frightening to her. Lawyer Lourdes Rubio pleads “innocent”, while prosecutors demand the maximum sentence, in the state of Florida the death penalty . Rubio asks clever questions and it turns out that Bantling was not one of the suspects prior to the said vehicle inspection. The routine inspection had been a pure accident. Your questions are becoming increasingly uncomfortable and threatening for the prosecutor. It is revealed that the police did not have permission to open the trunk and that the vehicle inspection was clearly unlawful. Despite the sudden turnaround, there is a scene between the accused and his highly paid lawyer Lourdes Rubio, because she does not allow him to speak. Bantling recognizes Chloe Larson in CF Townsend and refrains from disclosing the evidence against him, which greatly irritates the prosecution. The court date for the hearing has been brought forward to December 18, 2000 at the request of the defense.

Morgan Weber's body (19), the eleventh victim, is found in a fishing hut in the Everglades by a drunken fisherman who immediately alerts the police. This murder is also extremely cruel, vicious and has led to a great loss of blood in the girl who was draped in the room with fishing line in a grotesque manner. The fishing line clearly comes from Bantling's shed, but it is not only sold in Florida but in numerous other states as well. It is proven that the defendant was always in Miami when the girls disappeared, and DNA analysis clearly shows that the blood in Bantling's garden shed came from Ana Prado.

CJ Townsend's strategy is to first convict Bantling of the murder of Ana Prado and then transfer it to the ten other cases via Williams Rule. Bantling's trophies are the hearts he cut out of the girls' chests and these are exactly what they have to find. Townsend, Bantling and Rubio have a debate in prison. Lourdes is of the firm conviction that the prosecutor Townsend is severely limited in her judgment and has to submit the case simply out of bias. She is enlightened about her past, knows that she is Chloe Larson and was raped by her client in New York twelve years ago and has now of course started a private campaign of revenge against the "honorable" Mr. Bantling. Bantling makes suggestive remarks to Townsend and panics the woman. But then she controls herself and tells them that she will not rest until Bantling receives his just punishment. Thereupon he gets a fit of anger and falls out in anger with his lawyer. Although she runs after CJ in tears, she cannot change her mind. It gradually dawns on the young defender that she has to represent a “monster” and she struggles with great self-doubt. The motion to dismiss because of an unlawful vehicle inspection is still in the room. The announcement of the rape of Chloe Larson would be a fiasco for CJ Townsend.

Bantling's possession includes the clown mask under whose protection he raped Chloe at the time, and jewelry that he stole from her and other women from the apartment as souvenirs. At a psychotherapy session with Dr. Chambers tells CJ her therapist that she has become intimate with Falconetti. The public prosecutor's office is leaked the psychogram of the sociopath William Bantling, according to which he suffers from a borderline personality disorder with extremely violent and antisocial rashes. The tornado season has started in Florida . On a humid day with 95% humidity and a series of thunderstorms, Lourdes Rubio files her motion to dismiss. Officer Victor Chavez is also said to testify as a defense witness. The prosecutor had previously drummed him into his version, but the young man is overly nervous. After “Cupidos” was captured, he was celebrated as a hero and local celebrity in Miami nightclubs and had made many women acquaintances during that time. One of them was Lourdes Rubio and her friend, whom he told the true version of events while drunk. The defense can therefore express legitimate doubts that it is actually a speeding violation. The Chavez interrogation turns into a fiasco and you expose your lie, which seriously upsets the position of the prosecution.

After the day of the trial, Rubio Chivas has a shelf because she now knows with absolute certainty that her client is a sick, brutal and sadistic rapist. She deeply regrets that she made friends with the handsome and smart business friend and went out with him before taking on the case. In truth, Bantling knows neither compassion nor remorse , but is just a common psychotic sex offender. This is doubly difficult, because Rubio is chairman of the La Lucha (Spanish for the fight) association in the Cuban community and has always campaigned against domestic violence .

December 13, 2000. The investigators realize that “Cupid” selected the locations of the corpses according to certain criteria. The process takes a fatal turn and the prosecution threatens to become the accused. “Cupid” has absolute control. He deliberately withholds information and evidence in order to get the full effect at the right opportunity. The prosecutor realizes that the anonymous caller, who has still not been identified, knew that Bantling had a body in the trunk. She has since had sex with Falconetti, who is still mourning his late friend Natalie. She tells him the initials CJ mean Chloe Joanna. The “Cupid” case is so demanding that CJ is not yet ready for a relationship with the police officers. December 18, 2000. The trial begins and Bantling has a severe fit of anger. Five women and seven men are selected and sworn in by the jury. They state under oath that they will judge impartially and fairly.

Lourdes begins her plea like an attack from an ambush and has a massive influence on the jury that Bantling does not portray an assassin who slaughters women. The prosecution has no evidence, only weak evidence and speculation. The lawyer Townsend staged the whole thing as a bloodthirsty Hollywood film, in which there is a lot of blood and action, but which does not keep what it promises. Mr. Bantling is a recognized businessman and taxidermist. The blood comes from the animals he stuffs as a hobby. The alleged puddle of blood that had been found was said to have only been three tiny splatters that could not even be clearly assigned to Ana Prada. There would also be no fingerprints , hair , fibers , semen , secretions , which could be traced back to Mr. Bantling. Townsend feels her impeachment strategy collapse, knowing full well that she only has circumstantial evidence that is insufficient for a conviction.

Desperate, she continues to look for things that could affect Bantling. She searches his diary and finds a variety of women's names. The initials DR appear and she searches feverishly for their meaning. Eventually she discovers the entry of her psychiatrist Dr. Chambers in his diary, which almost causes her to panic attacks . If there is a connection between the two, then she will understand how the perpetrator knew so many details from her life. She goes to his practice and can also find an entry with the name Bantling on September 18, the day Ana Prado was murdered.

In court, a coroner said that the perpetrator opened the girls' chest with a bolt cutter , that they had to have been fully conscious by cutting the aorta and until the cruel end. Rubio calls several witnesses to the stand. An auto paint shop owner, the director of the American Taxidermy Association, and a professor of forensic pathology, and doubts about Townsende keep growing. Bantling already has the jury on his side and a jury is already nodding cheekily to him. Townsend's cross-interrogations all fizzle out and Bantling's acquittal is getting closer and closer.

CJ receives a visit from Dr. Chambers. She confronts him directly with the fact that Bantling was receiving treatment from him. He relies on his medical confidentiality and asserts that he had seen no connection with her or the “Cupid” murders. Dr. Chambers is outraged and disappears, so CJ does not hear that the news announces the disappearance of dark-haired student Julie LaTrianca, 23, in Fort Lauderdale . Dominick Falconetti calls and tells CJ that they found the girls' hearts in a freezer from a trailer by Bantling's deceased aunt Viola Traun. Plus lots of “Snuff Pictures”, torture photos of the murdered girls. This will be the turning point in the event that the new evidence is presented. The mood in court changes due to the explicit photos. William Rupert Bantling is charged with ten more murders.

The closing argument will take place on a Friday afternoon. At 17:19 the jury comes to a verdict amid great media hype . William Rupert Bantling is guilty as charged. This completely loses his nerve and gets another fit of rage. Bantling calls out to the audience that he raped CJ Townsend at the time, but is no longer noticed. The prosecutor affirmed this, but refuted the allegation that Bantling was the perpetrator, as this would presumably save him from the death penalty. The press makes a big headline out of it. She also hides from her friend Dominick Falconetti that Bantling was the culprit at the time.

The media interest in the “Cupid” case is slowly ebbing away. The Florida case against William Bantling is entering the stage of sentencing. Bantling behaves like a madman and insults all bystanders, so that he is denied and gagged. The death penalty is imposed. CJ would like to thank Dr. Chambers apologize for their baseless allegations. As good old friends, the two of them drink a bottle of champagne together in his living room . As the conversation progresses, CJ becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Dr. Chambers wants sex with her, CJ discovers a human heart in an old champagne bucket, panics and tries to escape from his house. A fight breaks out between her and the doctor. Finally, Dr. Chambers gave her an injection that numbed her. The last thing she hears is Bach music. She wakes up on a steel table and a camera with a tripod. The murderer tells her his story that he likes blondes, the secrets his patients had told him, how much he enjoyed the experiment between rapist and victim, and other hideous details. Dominick is now looking for his girlfriend. CJ realizes that Dr. Chambers had been playing with her and Bantling the whole time. Falconetti is now in Dr. Chambers arrived. His office assistant, Estelle, asks him to wait in the waiting room. Chambers receives him and says that CJ has suspended their sessions. Dominick believes him and leaves the practice. The psychiatrist Dr. med. Dipl.-Psych. Gregory Chambers is about to celebrate the torture and killing of CJ when he discovers that the Haldol is not working properly on her. She succeeds in pricking his carotid artery with a scalpel . Chambers suffocates on his own blood after another fight.

In November 2001, Bantling's appeal process was denied and it is believed that the death penalty will be carried out in about eight to ten years.

linguistic style

The wind had picked up, and the thick evergreen bushes that hid his motionless body rustled and swayed. Lightning tore the sky to the west: white and purple zigzag stripes blazed behind the glittering Manhattan skyline. Now it was going to start pouring too, and soon. He crouched in the underbrush and gritted his teeth while his neck stiffened at the rumble of thunder. That was just missing. A downpour while he was crouching out here waiting for the bitch to come home . "

characters

  • Chloe Larson aka CJ Townsend : protagonist of the story. The life of the young, successful and attractive law student changes radically when she is raped. More than a decade later, CJ Townsend, as the successful prosecutor now calls herself, meets her tormentor again, who has since become a serial killer.
  • Dominick Falconetti : Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Miami State Police. Falconetti, who heads the team of investigators against “Cupid”, has a love affair with Townsend.
  • William Bantling alias “Cupido” (born August 6, 1959. Cambridge / Great Britain ): the attractive and successful buyer of the furniture chain Tommy's Tan is a psychopath. In 1989 he graduated as an interior designer and later became a furniture designer and sales manager at Indo Expressions. Bantling lived in California for five years and moved to Miami / Florida in 1999. Behind the facade hides a brutal murderer of women who already has ten victims on his conscience.
  • Lourdes Rubio : Bantling's defense attorney. The young woman from Hialeah is of Cuban descent, pretty and conservative. She has laboriously pushed her way through the male domain of criminal defense over the years and in the end she has to realize that her job has no professional ethics, but is only a business against the conscience.
  • Dr. Gregory Chambers : the real “Cupid” killer, whose identity is only revealed at the end

Reviews

“Cupid” is seen as a suspenseful judicial thriller that plays with the fears of women who have been victims of rape. Press reviews describe “Cupid” as “oppressive” or “nerve-wracking literature for the die-hard reader” and put Jilliane Hoffman on a par with Stephen King or Thomas Harris . Apart from forensic medical details, the author dispenses with extremely bloodthirsty descriptions of the murders. The main character Chloe Larson, or CJ Townsend, whose motto is “only small sacrifices for a higher cause”, is in a serious internal conflict between “legally correct behavior and revenge on the perpetrator”. The central question of the book is: “Can a representative of the judiciary break laws and regulations in order to take personal revenge?” So it's essentially about private justice versus institutional justice.

Others

  • The follow-up novel Morpheus , published in German in September 2005, ties in directly to the events.
  • The author Jilliane Hoffman was, like the protagonist of the novel, herself a prosecutor in Florida . She therefore knows legal subtleties and procedures from her own experience and can describe them realistically.
  • The follow-up novel 'Argus' (Volume 3 of the Cupid Trilogy), which was published in German in 2012, ties in directly with the events of Volume 1 and 2.
  • The film rights went to Warner Brothers Pictures and John Wells Productions. They are currently working on the filming of Cupid. However, details on this have not yet been published.

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. Cupid. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-8640-4 , p. 49.
  2. Cupid. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-8640-4 , p. 209.
  3. caravan
  4. The serial killer Cupid before his act in front of Chloe Larson's apartment. Cupid. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 2004, ISBN 3-8289-8640-4 , p. 11.
  5. Every woman's nightmare: You come to your apartment in the evening. You're alone. Everything seems like it always does, only a few little things pause you. You don't care. You are going to sleep. And for this moment, the man lurking under your window has only been waiting ... “Cupid” review on www.krimi-couch.de
  6. Cupid review on Buchwurm
  7. Biography of the author on krimi-forum.net

Web links