As part of our series on Popular Culture and True Crime, our final tutorial looks at why women seem such devoted true crime fans. Tutorials I and II dealt with the fascination with serial killer trading cards and murderabilia (the collection of mementos), respectively. While I've written about crime all my life, I wouldn't call myself a true crime fan. In fact, I'm new to podcasts and true crime radio and I rarely have time for true crime stories on TV. Writing's pretty time … [Read more...]
Popular Culture and True Crime – Tutorial II – Murderabilia.
In a recent blog (go here), I discussed the furor created by the creation of serial killer trading cards* back in 1992. A similar controversy has erupted over the growing practice of collecting artifacts and even bits of hair from those involved in serial killings. The controversy surrounding Murderabilia. It's an odd world where people collect and own bits of a stranger or infamous person, even if it's as innocent as a lock of … [Read more...]
Popular Culture and True Crime – Tutorial I – Serial Killer trading cards?
About the same time that Michael Aamodt, a professor at Radford University in Virginia, started cataloguing serial killers, trading cards popped up. Aamodt's Serial Killer Data Base, compiled with the help of students, is academic, respectable. See here for a prior blog re Aamodt's Radford work. Serial killer Trading cards are not respectable, at least they weren't back in 1992. They are still bought and sold on Amazon, Etsy, and Ebay. Aamodt's catalogue has over five thousand entries … [Read more...]
‘40 Years a Prisoner’- Film about MOVE vs Philly Cops.
How well I remember the days leading up to what seemed like just another incident of conservative urban police officials not understanding evolving radical beliefs and ideologies of the time. I'd just finished grad school in West Philadelphia, but still got MOVE updates from friends I'd visited in the Powelton Village area in the 1970s. MOVE MOVE isn't an acronym. It's just the name of a Panther-esque revolutionary group that was anti-govt, anti-corp, and anti-tech. Called 'emselves … [Read more...]
Why are so many fascinated by Serial Killers?
Are you spending hours binging on TV shows and documentaries about serial killers these days? Fascinated by serial killers? One might say Covid-19 is to blame. But many of you were fascinated by serial killers as a child. There was something about them. Many of them appeared quite charming, intelligent, attractive, and engaging. As an illustration, let's look at a relatively unknown serial killer, Rodney Alcala, who embodies many of these traits. With his hip hair style and dazzling … [Read more...]
Crime – Extremist Mass Murder – Tutorial – Proud Boys and Others Pose Threat.
My bad. I've overlooked extremist mass murder in recent posts. However, in my blog tutorial about multicide, I covered many types of mass murder in the US. And using data from the GunViolence.org Archive, I showed how many mass shootings we've had in recent years. Also, using CNN data, I showed how many Rampage Killings we've also had going back to the 1940s. Extremist Mass Murder President Trump's message to extremists during the first Presidential Debate to "Stand Down and Stand … [Read more...]
Serial murderers, their killing fields, and sacred rituals. II
In my last post, I talked about killing fields where some serial killers conduct their sacred rituals.** But many killers don't have access to a remote outdoor places or even a basements or crawl spaces to do this. So they must rely on souvenirs to re-live the sense of power or the psychological high they got from killing. Souvenirs and scared rituals. If you're like me, you love bringing home souvenirs home from a vacation as a nice reminder of the great trip you had. During Covid-19 … [Read more...]