The story of how Colin Stagg was entrapped by the police using an undercover policewoman as bait is of course mostly awful, angering and sad. But Jon Ronson's retelling reminded me of its black comedy too. "Lizzie's" job was to entice Stagg into confessing to the murder (he didn't commit) by suggesting that she would find it a massive turn-on:
Lizzie's "dark secret" – as she finally informed Stagg in Hyde Park, a large team of undercover officers monitoring their every move – was that when she was a teenager she'd got involved with some "special people" and "a baby had had its throat cut. And then the baby's blood was put into a cup, and everybody had a drink, and it was the most electrifying atmosphere." After she and her satanic cult had drank the baby's blood they killed its mother: "She was laid out naked and these knives were brought out and this man handed me one of the knives and he asked me to cut the woman's throat, and I did, and then there was this big orgy, and I was with this man, well, this man was the best ever."
Lizzie looked Stagg in the eyes and said she could only ever truly love a man who'd done a similar thing. Stagg replied: "I think you're aiming a bit high."
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