Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Buffalo Bill

In the movie Silence of  the lambs one of the main Characters Buffalo Bill Is the creepies most sadistic, killer. He is a lonely tailor/designer who has androgynous ambitions.








The back story is that: Jame Gumb was born in California in 1948, and was abandoned at birth by his mother. His mother was an alcoholic prostitute, who had named him James, but upon signing his birth certificate incorrectly, spelled the name Jame, and was left unchanged. He would insist on being called Jame, to rhyme with name. He was abandoned at age two and placed into foster care. Hannibal Lecter believed "Billy was not born a killer, but he was made one over years of systematic abuse". He lived in an unsatisfactory foster home until the age of 10, after which he was adopted by his grandparents, whom became his first victims, when he murdered them impulsively at age 12. He was then sent to Tulare Vocational Rehabilitation, a psychiatric hospital, where he was taught how to be a tailor. After checking out of Tulare, he worked in at least two restaurants and a few clothing stores. It is likely he had killed more people in this period. He also attacked gay men. Soon after he began working in a Baltimore Curio store, where he met and began a relationship with Benjamin Raspail, despite the fact that Gumb wasn't gay. During this time, according to Raspail, Gumb had killed a bag lady. He had been fired from the curio store and stole a suitcase from an employer. While in his room, he opened the case to find hundreds of moths and butterflies and moths. Raspail then ended his relationship with Gumb, in favor of a Norwegian sailor named Klaus. Gumb later murdered Klaus and created an apron from his corpse. He took Klaus' decapitated head and inserted a moth in his throat, then placed it within a jar, which he stashed within a car in an impound warehouse owned by Raspail. Gumb had then, over a period of time following the murder of his ex-lover's boyfriend, began applications for gender reassignment surgery. He applied to schools such as Johns Hopkins. However, all of his applications were declined by, as he was deemed too psychologically disturbed. He roughed up a doctor due to being turned down. In early 1975 he was introduced to Dr Hannibal Lecter through Raspail and had just one session. Lecter himself would end up being arrested for a series of murders himself, Raspail being his ninth victim.
After Gumb had finished consulting with Dr. Lecter, he started up as a tailor in Belvedere, Ohio, where he came to meet an overweight woman, Fredrica Bimmel, whose skin struck his attention. Gumb had then conceived the idea that if he could not by legal means acquire being female, he could make himself into a woman through fashioning together a woman suit. He had then set up to take over a property in the town with a large underbasement area, where he could stash his victims, starting with Bimmel. Fortunately, in stalking Bimmel, Gumb came to discover that Bimmel's employer, Mrs. Lippman, who was a local, propieted a house with an old basement that contained many rooms and a large dry well. Sometime during this period he acquired a poodle who he named Precious. Mrs. Lippman died on a holiday in Florida whilst with Gumb. Gumb inherited everything from Mrs Lippman. Using the alias John Grant he took over the house. He then abducted Bimmel and kept her prisoner in the well. Despite this, they had a strong friendship, even sending notes to each other. He eventually killed her and for the first time, removed her skin, which led to the "Buffalo Bill" murders.He then proceeded to abduct four other women and, like Bimmel, kept them entrapped in the large dry well in the basement of Mrs. Lippman's home, making them clean their skin with lotion before he would eventually come to kill them. He hanged the first two victims, then decided to shoot any other victims. He then skinned them and added them to his woman suit and disposed of their bodies in lakes. As Bimmel was weighed down, she was actually found third. During this series of killings, Gumb received the nickname "Buffalo Bill", as officers at Kansas City Homicide made a tasteless joke that "this one likes to skin his humps".A sixth woman was found, with her scalp and two diamond shape pieces of skin form her back removed. Gumb then came to abduct Senator Ruth Martin's daughter, Catherine. He had posed as a man with a broken arm who needed help moving a sofa into the back of his van outside her apartment building. Catherine had came to assist him. She was backing into the van with the sofa, when she was asked wether she was a size 14 and was rendered unconsious by Gumb. She was brought to Belvedere, to the Lippman house, where she was imprisoned like the previous victims in the basement dry well. Her abduction by Buffalo Bill was then made national, and her mother made a national televised plea to him to return her daughter and repeatedly used her name in sentences, so as to ensure he would not deem her a mere object, like the other victims, but, rather, see her as a human being. While in captivity, Martin managed to lure Precious into the well using a bucket and scraps of food. When Gumb learnt of this, this caused him great distress.FBI Agent Jack Crawford assigned rookie Agent Clarice Starling to speak to Dr Hannibal Lecter, an insane cannibalistic serial killer, in the hopes he may assist in catching Buffalo Bill (at this point had killed at least five girls). Starling spoke with Lecter and entered into a quid pro quo of information for information, would relinquish what she needed to catch him before Catherine loses her life. Starling revealed the memory of her father's murder in exchange for clues that would lead to him. Starling discovered Klaus' decapitated head in the vehicle stationed in the storage shed, belonging to Benjamin Raspail, whom Lecter had killed. Starling came to determine that Fredrica Bimmel was Bill's first victim and was weighed, so she would be found as a later victim, so the authorities and FBI could not deduce he knew her personally. In Bimmel's mouth, a Death's-Head Hawkmoth was uncovered, which was one among the many moths bred by Gumb. Clarice then eventually came to Belvedere, Ohio, and upon coming to the Bimmel house and speaking to her father, learned about her employer Mrs. Lippman. During this time, Lecter escaped from a temporary prison cell while in Memphis, killing five people.Clarice then came to learn of a local tailor, Jame Gumb, whose cutting incisions matched perfectly to the skin removal incisions on the Buffalo Bill victims. She came to the Lippman residence and discovered Gumb to be living there and after seeing a Death's-Head Hawkmoth fly out of the kitchen, she realized he was Buffalo Bill and withdrew her weapon. Gumb fled down into the basement area and was pursued by Starling, who found an alive Catherine. Starling came to be locked in the room with the bathtub that contained the remains of Mrs. Lippman, and the lights were then turned off by Gumb, who crept up on Starling by wearing his night vision binoculars and prepared to shoot her in the back of the head, but was killed as Starling heard his gun cock, and returned fire by spinning around, shooting Gumb down, and busting down a wood-barred window, releasing light into the room. The local authorities and misled FBI Agents, led by Crawford, who had travelled to an empty residence in Illinois,  came to the Lippman house, and Catherine was rescued from the well. Starling was awarded with honors for the rescue of Catherine Martin and the killing of Jame Gumb. After Gumb's death, the National Tattler covered his history and renamed him "Mr Hide". Gumb's dog Precious was adopted by Senator Martin. Gumb, over his life had killed at least 11 people. 

if that is not creepy enough checkout this scene in Silence of the Lambs:

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