Real-life Copycat Crime and Killers
The film supposedly inspired a real-life crime, the Faraday School kidnapping. In October 1972, soon after the release of the movie in Australia, two armed men (one of whom coincidentally had the last name 'Eastwood') kidnapped a teacher and 6 school children in Victoria, Australia. They demanded a $1 million ransom. The state government agreed to pay, but the children managed to escape and the kidnappers were subsequently jailed.
On September 1981, a case occurred in Germany under circumstances quite similar to the Barbara Jane Mackle case (though the Mail Online network paper states that the idea with the box was inspired by Dirty Harry): A ten-year-old girl, Ursula Hermann, was buried alive in a box fitted with ventilation, lighting and sanitary systems to be held for ransom. Unfortunately, the girl suffocated in her prison because autumn leaves had clogged up the ventilation duct. 27 years later, a couple was arrested and tried for kidnapping and murder on circumstantial evidence. This case was also dealt with in the German TV series Aktenzeichen XY … ungelöst.
Read more about this topic: Dirty Harry
Famous quotes containing the words crime and/or killers:
“After all, crime is only a lefthanded form of human endeavor.”
—John Huston (1906–1987)
“we want to remember when you were
money in Massachusetts and yet were wild and rude
and killers. We want our killers dressed in black
like grease for we are sick of writing checks,
putting on our socks and working in the little boxes
we call the office.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)