In addition to the physical harms already mentioned, some evidence was received alleging a
connection between murder and pornographic materials. Cases were reported to the
Commission in which a murder may have been patterned after a depiction found in a
pornographic magazine or film. For example, the New York Times reported:
The December 1984 issue of Penthouse carried this eroticized torture into the
'men's entertainment' forum with a series of photographs of Asian women bound with heavy
rope, hung from trees, and sectioned into parts. It is not known whether this pictorial
incited a crime that occurred two months later wherein an eight year old Chinese girl
living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was kidnaped, raped, murdered and left hanging from
a tree limb.[813]
Witnesses also described the influence they perceived pornography had in their criminal
activities or the crimes others had committed:
The day came when I invited a small neighborhood boy into my apartment, molested him
and then killed him in fear of being caught. Over the next few years I kidnapped, sexually
abused and murdered four other boys.
Pornography wasn't the only negative influence in my life, but its effect on me was
devastating. I lost all sense of decency and respect for humanity and life.[814]
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