Flash Fiction and Short-Shorts

The Trouble with True Crime (from 2019)

     (The Trouble with True-Crime-- Note: This is an old opinion essay, and after some thinking, I DO NOT agree with everything I said here, but most of it-- I do. Please don't attack me.)

I never thought I'd write this. In fact, I used to love true-crime. When I was around 19 or 20 years old, I binge-watched Dark Minds, Investigation Discovery, and BuzzFeed Unsolved. (Though the only thing unsolved about BuzzFeed is what happened to their common sense.) I joked about unidentified women being called "Jane Doe", of all female animal names, because nobody would pity "Jane Bitch." I wrote poems to victims-- but it grew too emotionally draining. Poetry is therapeutic to me, yet I regret watching those hideous shows. Trembling light reigns from the cages built by pain, yet it makes me look beautiful between the bars.

Don't stop till you feel ashamed became my motto. Indeed, I felt shameful. I felt like a vulture gnawing away a rotting carcass. I felt I would be wiping Satan's ass for eternity, or swimming through lava like a sexually repressed Jaws. As much as I despise true-crime, I will not paint true-crime fans with a broad brush, because I understand that many have good intentions. (Their minds work better than my pathetic lump of brain.) It's not as simple to say, "True-crime is immoral." as it is "Opera is parkour of the human voice." As long as fans aren't knocking on my door and handing me biographies of serial-killers, I've no problem with them. The problem is with the creators of true-crime media, for harvesting amusement from the worst day of someone's life.

Humanity was created brutal-- merciless, even. Ever since we watched gladiators kill each other in the arena, we've been fascinated by death and bloodshed. Nowadays, we binge soul-crushing brutality on Netflix-- fictional series like Mindhunter and documentaries like Evil Genius. We inspect crimes the way judges inspect show-dogs, inspecting everything from their teeth to anal-glands. If they're brutal enough, they get a ribbon for making us sleep with the light on. We are finicky with mortality...like an old spinster with her cats. We only like death when it's controlled, and we know the outcome of the pain. When it's distracted. When it doesn't affect us. Real true-crime fans do not glamorize murderers, rather they are interested in the psychology of them. This argument flies at me constantly. Now, I say to this, why not study psychology-- without the gruesome loss of life? Why rewatch one's worst nightmare, for entertainment's sake? It has become nothing more than a chess game, a lazy Sunday-morning round of Sudoku. Imagine your uncle's fatal heart attack, reenacted for millions to see. His heart attack studied several times over, while his legacy is reduced to bulging eyes and sweat-soaked face contorted into endless fear. It cheapens death. It treats a painful reality as dramatic fiction. It reduces the victim into a number, a scream, a prop. What a family has lost forever, you will study in a day.

Consider Janie Hagen, whose brother Richard Guerrero was murdered by Jeffrey Dahmer. She was one of twenty people who protested Milwaukee's walking tour of the serial-killer's whereabouts. "This whole thing opens up a lot of old wounds, a lot of painful memories," Hagen said, "It's that same hurt all over again." Just try telling her you are fascinated by the man who stole her brother's life.

Now, I understand that everyone grieves differently. Author M. William Phelps claims he became interested in true-crime after the brutal murder of his sister-in-law. He has since hosted Dark Minds, and written many true-crime books. I've no problem with this-- it gives him closure. What I do not like is when people build palaces from the graves of the forgotten.

Giving murderers fame will only inspire others to do the same. In 1996, Eddie Seda was arrested for killing three people based on their zodiac signs. (Sound familiar?) Like the Zodiac Killer, he also sent cryptic letters to the police and media. He attempted to kill five more people, yet the NYPD identified Seda's fingerprints on the notes. Seda was arrested, and sentenced for life. You see, Seda was allured by the Zodiac's Killer anonymity-- there is only so much power in a human name. One could argue that without this knowledge, he still would have murdered. True. Yet he wouldn't have had the same desire for fame, without the knowledge of someone else's.

These murderers affect more people than you realize. Often, the families of murderers are distraught by their crimes. The late Joyce Flint said, "I wake up every morning and for a split second I don't know I'm Jeffrey Dahmer's mother, and then it all floods in." She attempted suicide, and had trouble finding work, even though she had a Master's degree in Family Counseling. Later, she contributed to Charles Klotsche's Silent Victims: "Even though Jeff did not hold me accountable or to blame for his demise...the rest of the world did and still does. I was his mother, I brought him into the world, therefore I must be held accountable." Karen Kuzma, the sister of John Wayne Gacy, discussed her inner conflict on the Oprah Winfrey Show. "I felt kind of cheated in a way because I didn't know part of him," she said, " ...I did love him as a brother, but I didn't like anything about what he did."

Therefore, I must not allow these families to suffer more than they have-- whether that is through blame or grief of the person they thought they knew. They don't even want to share surnames. I step back and let them grieve. Let them sob. Let them speak. Let them feel the warmth of hand-soft light.

Let's not forget the families and friends of victims. More often than not, what the killer did overshadows the lives and achievements of the victims. Consider Bundy victim Georgeann Hawkins. Her mother Edie refused several interviews because it "angered her to think of anyone profiting off her death" and said in a rare 2014 interview, "I've never, ever, ever dwelt on how she died." Lisa Little, a friend of the late Kim Leach, didn't mince words:"We wish this could get put to rest. We're tired of hearing about Bundy." Later, Little stated she preferred a docu-series about the victims, the women and girls whose lives were cut short, whose dreams will never see the light of day. I respect this, as opposed to killer-centric films. Unfortunately, they dissolve into the killer's identity, forever trapping them in a monster's shadow.

Innocent lives are lost before you are entertained.

Without victims, you have no murderer.

Without a murderer, you have no story.

Without a story, you have no "entertainment."

Tragedy should not be replayed for entertainment's sake, nor some intellectual "challenge." I understand that everyone grieves differently, but entertainment should not be part of the process. We can honor the victims without indulging in the life that destroyed them. Don't stop until they breathe. They awaken. They feel the warmth of a forgotten god. Pain doesn't build cages so we can admire how we look in the light between the bars.

Sources:

Klotsche, Charles, The Silent Victims: The Aftermath of Failed Children on Their Mothers' Lives, Pan-American Press, 2000

CBS News, "Dahmer Victim's Sister Calls Walking Tour Evil", Associated Press, March 3, 2012

First Coast News, "Friends Of Girl Murdered By Serial Killer Outraged by Ted Bundy Movies", Bailey, Crystal, January 30th, 2019

North Texas Daily, "Serial Killers Should Not Be Glorified By the Media", Maldonaldo, Adrian, September 13th, 2019

Oprah.com, "John Wayne Gacy's Sister Karen Kuzma on the Serial Killer's Last Day", February 17th, 2010

Mwilliamphelps.com