When you really think about it, what are the chances of a poem like this being found at this specific college, where a girl was brutally murdered? The poem could have been found at any college, but it wasn’t! It was found at this one! What are the odds?
We have to use some commonsense and reason here.

There are such poems at every college and university. High schools, too. It’s the age for that sort of thing.

Yes, youth will be youth.

BUT! The odds of the poem and the context is very consistent with the event of murder on campus.
I was in college four years, and I don’t recall seeing any poem such as this on any desk.

Signed, beats the hell out of me

I was told by Bud Kelly, who investigated the Bates murder, that Cheri had "a sharp mouth." Such people make enemies.

Consider the source, Bud Kelley, A convicted pedofile, everything else I read about Cheri said she was kind and friendly.

I sure hope RPD checked Kelley’s fingerprints and DNA against the crime scene evidence. I wonder if anyone at RPD even knows
that Bud Kelley lived directly across the street from Cheri’s high school in 1966 ? Maybe he was stalking her ?

monarch: Yes, I’d consider Kelly a valid suspect. However, when he talked to me via phone, it was 1991, long before his arrest for pedophilia (a spin-off from dementia, perhaps?)

I was told by Bud Kelly, who investigated the Bates murder, that Cheri had "a sharp mouth." Such people make enemies.

Consider the source, Bud Kelley, A convicted pedofile, everything else I read about Cheri said she was kind and friendly.

I sure hope RPD checked Kelley’s fingerprints and DNA against the crime scene evidence. I wonder if anyone at RPD even knows
that Bud Kelley lived directly across the street from Cheri’s high school in 1966 ? Maybe he was stalking her ?

I don’t know if she was friendly or not. My experience with girls like her (friend wise and just observing them). They can be rather naturally snobbish, cold shoulderish and snappy at guys like Ross. I honestly believe he was bullied during those school years. By who, no idea. The letter the librarian typed up, did indeed hold snobbery. She wrote he stunk and so on. Just because someone stinks doesn’t make them a murderer. Just because he didn’t fall in line with the crowd or clique with the popular bunch that hung out in the library, also doesn’t make him a murderer. Let’s face it, teachers and staff can bully as well, especially in these days with less of society breathing down their backs.

All speculation . . .

monarch: Yes, I’d consider Kelly a valid suspect. However, when he talked to me via phone, it was 1991, long before his arrest for pedophilia (a spin-off from dementia, perhaps?)

I doubt it, if I remember correctly Kelley was a Deacon or something like that at his church and that is how he was able
to put himself in a position of trust to have access to children to molest. He’s a sadistic predator ! And he was probably
worse when he was younger.

TY, Monarch! With such as Kelly investigating the Bates murder, no wonder it’s still unsolved.

Although this is an old thread, I think the question in the title is a very important one. But to add something to the discussion so far, I would want to suggest that the way the question has been phrased—although, clearly, prepared to consider alternatives—has, in my view, tended to unhelpfully polarise the responses into ‘murder’ or ‘suicide’. From my reading of the words as I find them, and doing my best not to be distracted by preconceptions about any potential links to the murder of Bates, I see something that is neither of these.

To me, the tone is one of self-loathing and the internal struggles associated with this. The very first line sets the scene. The writer is sick of life yet, at the same time, “unwilling to die.” The author ‘knows’ their acts of seeming self-destruction are not intended to be successful. He/she will likely ensure discovery, rescue, and will survive their actions of self-harm.

Somewhere in the post there was some discussion of the “violence” of the language not being consistent with a “suicide” note. Far from seeing the poem as the latter, nor do I see ‘violence’ in the language. (Rather, I think this is one of those corruptions of thinking that comes from having already associated it with the ‘violent’ death of Bates.)

The word use to describe the act of harm is (merely) “cut.” A murderer does not ‘cut’ someone to death. They ‘slash’, ‘stab’, ‘hack’.

The self-loathing, likewise, is actually very well represented by the writer describing the acts in the third person. Such is the self-hatred, that he/she cannot even allow their own existence as an “I.”

Psychology aside, there is also some explaining needed in regard to the closing of the poem, if it is interpreted as the words of a killer.

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. Just wait till next time.

Why would the killer want to suppose that his attack on a woman will not be successful. Why is it not going to work “this time,” but will the next? (Again, if preconceptions are held at bay, it should be obvious from the language that it is intended that the ‘she’ of “this time,” and the ‘she’ of “next time,” are the same ‘she’. Otherwise, we’d have:

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. [The next one won’t be as lucky, though!])

On the self-loathing, self-harming hypothesis, this is exactly how it works. The self-loathing (hopefully) will find release of sorts short of self-annihilation, and at each dip into despair there will always be the “next time.”

I agree shaqmeister.

Although this is an old thread, I think the question in the title is a very important one. But to add something to the discussion so far, I would want to suggest that the way the question has been phrased—although, clearly, prepared to consider alternatives—has, in my view, tended to unhelpfully polarise the responses into ‘murder’ or ‘suicide’. From my reading of the words as I find them, and doing my best not to be distracted by preconceptions about any potential links to the murder of Bates, I see something that is neither of these.

To me, the tone is one of self-loathing and the internal struggles associated with this. The very first line sets the scene. The writer is sick of life yet, at the same time, “unwilling to die.” The author ‘knows’ their acts of seeming self-destruction are not intended to be successful. He/she will likely ensure discovery, rescue, and will survive their actions of self-harm.

Somewhere in the post there was some discussion of the “violence” of the language not being consistent with a “suicide” note. Far from seeing the poem as the latter, nor do I see ‘violence’ in the language. (Rather, I think this is one of those corruptions of thinking that comes from having already associated it with the ‘violent’ death of Bates.)

The word use to describe the act of harm is (merely) “cut.” A murderer does not ‘cut’ someone to death. They ‘slash’, ‘stab’, ‘hack’.

The self-loathing, likewise, is actually very well represented by the writer describing the acts in the third person. Such is the self-hatred, that he/she cannot even allow their own existence as an “I.”

Psychology aside, there is also some explaining needed in regard to the closing of the poem, if it is interpreted as the words of a killer.

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. Just wait till next time.

Why would the killer want to suppose that his attack on a woman will not be successful. Why is it not going to work “this time,” but will the next? (Again, if preconceptions are held at bay, it should be obvious from the language that it is intended that the ‘she’ of “this time,” and the ‘she’ of “next time,” are the same ‘she’. Otherwise, we’d have:

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. [The next one won’t be as lucky, though!])

On the self-loathing, self-harming hypothesis, this is exactly how it works. The self-loathing (hopefully) will find release of sorts short of self-annihilation, and at each dip into despair there will always be the “next time.”

Nice analysis.

I just disagree.

Sorry.

Although this is an old thread, I think the question in the title is a very important one. But to add something to the discussion so far, I would want to suggest that the way the question has been phrased—although, clearly, prepared to consider alternatives—has, in my view, tended to unhelpfully polarise the responses into ‘murder’ or ‘suicide’. From my reading of the words as I find them, and doing my best not to be distracted by preconceptions about any potential links to the murder of Bates, I see something that is neither of these.

To me, the tone is one of self-loathing and the internal struggles associated with this. The very first line sets the scene. The writer is sick of life yet, at the same time, “unwilling to die.” The author ‘knows’ their acts of seeming self-destruction are not intended to be successful. He/she will likely ensure discovery, rescue, and will survive their actions of self-harm.

Somewhere in the post there was some discussion of the “violence” of the language not being consistent with a “suicide” note. Far from seeing the poem as the latter, nor do I see ‘violence’ in the language. (Rather, I think this is one of those corruptions of thinking that comes from having already associated it with the ‘violent’ death of Bates.)

The word use to describe the act of harm is (merely) “cut.” A murderer does not ‘cut’ someone to death. They ‘slash’, ‘stab’, ‘hack’.

The self-loathing, likewise, is actually very well represented by the writer describing the acts in the third person. Such is the self-hatred, that he/she cannot even allow their own existence as an “I.”

Psychology aside, there is also some explaining needed in regard to the closing of the poem, if it is interpreted as the words of a killer.

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. Just wait till next time.

Why would the killer want to suppose that his attack on a woman will not be successful. Why is it not going to work “this time,” but will the next? (Again, if preconceptions are held at bay, it should be obvious from the language that it is intended that the ‘she’ of “this time,” and the ‘she’ of “next time,” are the same ‘she’. Otherwise, we’d have:

She won’t die this time. Someone’ll find her. [The next one won’t be as lucky, though!])

On the self-loathing, self-harming hypothesis, this is exactly how it works. The self-loathing (hopefully) will find release of sorts short of self-annihilation, and at each dip into despair there will always be the “next time.”

I agree. For me the title points away from murder. I used to know a girl who self harmed. She was very attractive but had long scars on her arms and legs from where she cut herself. I’m not sure if the poem is written by a male about a girl or by a girl about a girl. It’s hard to tell.

I think this was about suicide rather than murder