They’re Trying to Steal Our Pretend Serial Killers

Special ‘Kiss our asses, D.C.’ Halloween edition.

In a post bizarrishly and incorrectly titled “Virginia is for Lovers, D.C. is for Cannibals," Matt Sedlar stated:

”For example, D.C. was the stomping grounds for Hollywood's most famous cannibal, Hannibal Lecter.”

From the Wikipedia biography for the Hannibal Lecter character:

Lecter established a psychiatric practice in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1970s. He became a leading figure in Baltimore society and indulged his extravagant tastes, which he financed by influencing some of his patients to bequeath him large sums of money in their wills. He became world-renowned as a brilliant psychiatrist, but he himself apparently had nothing but disdain for psychology; he would later criticize it as "puerile" and "on level with phrenology," and comment that most psychology departments were filled with "ham radio enthusiasts and other personality-deficient buffs."
Lecter killed at least nine people before his capture, becoming known in the Baltimore area as "The Chesapeake Ripper". Only three of his victims survived, including Graham, an FBI profiler who was Lecter's captor and who figures largely in the plot of Red Dragon. Another one of these, Mason Verger, figures largely in the plot of Hannibal.
Only two of his 9 victims are known by name in the books: Benjamin Raspail and Mason Verger. Verger was the son of a very wealthy and influential family who controlled a meat-packing empire. Verger went through psychiatric counseling with Lecter after being convicted of child molestation. Lecter drugged Verger and suggested he try cutting off his own face. Verger complied and, again at Lecter's suggestion, ate it and then was convinced that he fed it to the dogs, so that pieces could not be found when their stomachs were pumped. Lecter then broke Verger's neck and left him to die. Verger survived, but was left hideously disfigured and forever confined to a life support machine.
Raspail was Lecter's ninth and final (known) victim before his incarceration. Raspail was a not-so-talented flautist with the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra, and it is believed that Lecter killed Raspail because his musicianship, or lack thereof, spoiled his enjoyment of the orchestra's concerts. Raspail's body would be discovered sitting in a church pew with his thymus and pancreas missing, and his heart pierced. It is believed Lecter served these organs at a dinner party he held for the orchestra's board of directors. Raspail claimed to have killed a man whose head was found years later in Raspail's rented storage garage in Baltimore, but Lecter suspected him of covering up for his former lover, Jame Gumb, who would later be involved in Lecter's life as the serial killer dubbed "Buffalo Bill".
Raspail's role is inconsistent in the Hannibal films. In Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling finds the head in the storage shed much like the events in the novel describe. Perhaps in an effort to condense the number of characters, the film actually labels this as Raspail's head (referring to a moth as "just like the one that was found in Raspail's head an hour ago"). Hannibal tells Clarice that Benjamin Raspail was a former patient of his, and began to fear his lover. He tells her "I did not kill him, I assure you" and goes on to describe it as a "fledgling killer's" first attempt at transformation". Later, this description would indicate that he was killed by Buffalo Bill, as would the moth found in his mouth. However, the Hannibal screenplay seems to ignore the changes made in Ted Tally's "Silence of the Lambs" screenplay and reflects the events of the books, contradicting the previous film in the process. The murder of the victim identified as Raspail in "Hannibal" is portrayed in the opening scene of Tally's "Red Dragon" script but the flautist goes unnamed. Keeping the flautist unnamed avoids a contradiction between "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon" as long as the inconsistency in "Hannibal" (which was written by Steven Zaillian and David Mamet as opposed to Tally) is ignored. Furthermore, the unnamed flautist in "Red Dragon" is depicted as completely bald whereas Raspail has shaggy, curly hair in "The Silence of the Lambs".
The novels also mention a few details about Lecter's other victims. One, who initially survived, was taken to a private mental hospital in Denver, Colorado. Others include a bow hunter, a census taker whose liver he famously ate with "fava beans and a big Amarone" (in the movie, the wine he had for this particular meal was "a nice Chianti"), and a Princeton student whom he buried. Lecter was given sodium amytal by the FBI in the hopes of learning where he buried the student; he gave them a recipe for potato chip dip. He committed his last three known murders within nine days.
Lecter was caught in March or April of 1975 by FBI Special Investigator Will Graham. Graham was investigating a series of murders in the Baltimore area committed by a serial killer, and had turned to Lecter for professional advice. When Graham questioned Lecter at his psychiatric practice, he noticed some antique medical books in his office. Upon seeing these, Graham knew Lecter was the killer he sought; the sixth victim had been killed in his workshop and laced to a pegboard in a manner reminiscent of the Wound Man, an illustration used in many early medical books. Graham left to call the police, but while he was on the phone Lecter attacked him with a linoleum knife and nearly disembowled him.
The courts found Lecter insane. Thus, he was spared prison and sent to the Baltimore State Forensic Hospital (later the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.)

WRONG, cock breathed cultural icon thieves!

Must you pretend that Baltimore is your stomping grounds? Get your own pretend serial killer, assholes.

Update: Matt Sedler’s bullshit defence for saying D.C. was Hannibal Lecter’s “stomping grounds:”

That really doesn't change the fact that the movies were filmed in parts of D.C. For example, Lecter plays phone tag with Clarese Starling at Union Station in Hannibal.

But it does effect whether or not D.C. was the stomping ground of the character Hannibal Lecter. *One* scene set in a train station does not stomping ground of a cultural icon make, especially in a series of novels/films. And yes, all the scenes involving the FBI headquarters were set in D.C., unlike all the movies where the FBI headquarters is set in Albuquerque.

I would have considered letting this one go where it not for the title “D.C. is for Cannibals.”

Does Torontoist claim a character as a home town icon every time a movie is filmed there? Does Baltimore do this every time Baltimore serves as a stand in for Washington? No.