Calling card (crime)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A calling card is a particular object sometimes left behind by a criminal at a scene of a crime, often as a way of taunting police or obliquely claiming responsibility. The name is derived from the cards that people used to show they had been to visit someone's house when the resident was absent.

[edit] Historical examples

• The Washington D.C. Beltway sniper attacks in 2002 were linked by a series of Tarot cards left by the snipers, which contained messages for the policemen investigating the crimes.
• Jack the Ripper left two calling cards by Goulston Street, London on September 30, 1888, the night he murdered Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes: a scrap of Eddowes' apron and some graffiti reading Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing.
• The 1968 Zodiac Killer in San Franciso would mail cryptograms to the San Francisco Chronicle made up of letters and zodiac signs, signed with a sun cross.

[edit] Examples in fiction

• In the 1990 film Home Alone, the "Wet Bandits" rob the houses of people on vacation, and then leave the water running.
• In the 2000 book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, a Hassassin uses brands representing the four classical elements as calling cards in a series of ritualistic murders related to each element (i.e. fire for one victim who had been burned to death.)
• In DC Comics, Batman's arch-enemy, The Joker, uses two types of calling cards, one is a simple joker card from a deck of playing cards. The other is by far more sinister - Smilex, which causes death while laughing maddly and applies a permanent, ear-to-ear, grin.
• In the 2004 movie Saw the killer, Jigsaw, cuts a jigsaw piece out of the flesh of the victim, symbolizing the element that the person was missing.