By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed
Whereas The X-Information is known for tales about aliens, monsters, and far-reaching authorities conspiracies, it typically centered on extra down-to-Earth threats. This contains serial killers like Luther Lee Boggs, Gerry Schnauz, John Lee Roche, and extra. Typically, the present had it each methods by that includes characters like Eugene Tooms and Robert Patrick Modell, who used their incredible powers to take killing individuals to an entire new degree.
Clearly, The X-Information is a present full of fictional serial killers assured to make your pores and skin crawl. However one forgotten episode from early within the present’s historical past crafted a fictional story that took nice inspiration from one of the infamous serial killers in American historical past. That episode is “Aubrey,” which featured some highly effective allusions to the Hillside Strangler!
A Reduce Above The Different Killers
“Aubrey” is a Season 2 episode the place Mulder and Scully examine the bizarre case of a girl who could have genetically inherited violent tendencies from her serial killer grandfather. At first, this manifests as a psychic imaginative and prescient the place she is ready to inexplicably uncover the hidden physique of an FBI agent who was murdered in 1942; later, it’s revealed that she is killing individuals in the identical approach that her grandfather did, together with carving phrases (resembling “Sister” or “Brother”) into victims’ chests. Ultimately, she is busted for her copycat crimes, and after killing her grandfather (the previous serial killer), she is dedicated to a psychiatric ward.
What does this bizarre X-Information story must do with a real-life serial killer? The feminine character in “Aubrey,” B.J., bears some surface-level similarities to Veronica Compton. If that identify doesn’t ring a bell, she is somebody who tried to kill a girl in 1979 in a copycat homicide meant to show the innocence of one among America’s most notorious serial killers: the Hillside Strangler!
The Ghost Of Killing Sprees But To Come
The unique Hillside Strangler (later, his cousin was convicted of the identical crimes) was Kenneth Bianchi, a person who tortured his victims earlier than strangling them to loss of life utilizing a ligature. He then dumped the our bodies on the wooded hillsides of Los Angeles, making a grim tableau for the police to seek out. In 1979, police arrested Bianchi in addition to his murderous cousin, Angelo Buono Jr. After the arrest, he started a relationship with Veronica Compton, a girl who ended up testifying for the protection at his trial. Ultimately, she tried to strangle one other girl to loss of life in an try to make the authorities suppose the Strangler was nonetheless at massive.
Many X-Information followers have famous that in “Aubrey,” there are a number of parallels to Compton and the Strangler: for instance, there’s a girl committing crimes that replicate the M.O. of somebody who can’t have dedicated them (Bianchi was in jail, and B.J.’s actual grandfather was extraordinarily aged). Additionally, whereas B.J. wasn’t consciously making an attempt to clear Cokely’s identify, her copycat strategies introduced extra consideration to his crimes, simply as Compton’s copycat tried homicide revived the true killer’s legacy. Lastly, each ladies find yourself in confinement: B.J. is positioned in a psychiatric facility, and Compton was imprisoned for her crimes earlier than being launched in 2003.
On the finish of the day, “Aubrey” is a reasonably forgettable X-Information episode, and the plot’s reliance on inherited reminiscence appears weirder and extra gimmicky now than ever earlier than. Nonetheless, figuring out the episode was a fictional homage to the Hillside Strangler and the lady who liked him does make it that rather more fascinating. In contrast to the strangler himself, although, this unusual episode by no means fairly manages to take our breath away.