On the plane to West Virginia: Agent Crawford shows Starling the FBI map denoting the locations of Buffalo Bill's victims. The blue circles mark the places where girls were abducted, and the red arrows point to locations where their bodies were found (each victim denoted on the map was found in a different river). The lower center arrow points to the area of Jefferson County, Kentucky. (You may click on the image to enlarge it).
Noting the importance of water in the movie, i.e., that Jame Gumb places his victims' bodies in various rivers after he has killed and skinned them, let's look at a part of the biblical book of Genesis that brings up the topic, of the four rivers that were connected with the Garden of Eden. Beginning at Genesis 2:10 [New Revised Standard Version]:
10. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches.
11. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12. and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.
13. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.
14. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows out of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
As noted in the caption to the above screen capture, the lower center arrow on the map points to the general area of Jefferson County, Kentucky. The northern border of Kentucky is formed by the Ohio River (the dark blue wavy line above the arrow). This river represents the Pishon, based on the following reasoning:
1) Genesis says the Pishon flows around the land of Havilah, where there is gold. Jefferson County, which is adjacent to the Ohio River, is the location of the Fort Knox gold bullion depository. Also within the county there is a city named Hollyvilla, a name which sounds similar to 'Havilah'.
2) There is said to be bdellium and onyx in the land around the Pishon. Bdellium (Hebrew bedolach) is an aromatic gum like myrrh that is exuded from a tree. According to the University of Kentucky Department of Horticulture website, the Black Tupelo tree, also know as the Blackgum or Sourgum, is native to Kentucky.[a] As the alternate names suggest, this tree exudes gum.
Onyx is a cryptocrystalline form of quartz. Quartz is quite common in Kentucky. According to Kentucky Agate, State Rock and Mineral Treasure of the Commonwealth, "In 2000 the Kentucky Legislature passed House Bill 123, which designated Kentucky agate [a type of quartz] as the official state rock of Kentucky."[b]
a. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment, Department of Horticulture "Black Gum" page. Web. URL = http://www.uky.edu/hort/Black-Gum.
b. McIntosh, Roland L. and Warren H. Anderson. Kentucky Agate, State Rock and Mineral Treasure of the Commonwealth. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2013. Google Books, p. 12. URL = https://books.google.com.
