What does my fascination with serial killers say about me?
Yes, I’m one of those women – and I’m okay with it.
An audio version of this article (by me) is available here:
Any good friend of mine – hell, who am I kidding? – any vague acquaintance will know that I’m obsessed with serial killers. I’ll usually bring it up in conversation within about 10 minutes. (15 minutes when I’m in Amsterdam and people are speaking Dutch – “Oh sorry, I thought you said “Richard Ramirez”, not “rijst ramen”.)
(Note: a serial killer is defined as someone who murders three or more people with a significant period of time between each killing.)
As someone already interested in criminal psychology, it is the sheer audacity of their transgressions that gets me – the extreme violation of social norms. These are crimes of malevolence, lunacy, arrogance and astonishing hubris. They stretch the limits of imagination and incredulity. Also, by their very nature (i.e. repeated killing over a period of time), the stories inevitably involve haggard detectives in badly-fitting suits diligently hunting the wrong suspects while chain-smoking in a Ford Capri. (Ach, feed that shit into my veins!) Each tale offers a snapshot of culture captured in time – sepia-tinged fashions, prejudices, tech and headlines. How the perpetrators and the suspects are treated in public and private give an insight into schisms in society that affect how we live day-to-day, not just during high-stakes drama.
10,000 hours? Don’t make me laugh
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success, he famously claims that it takes 10,000 hours of study to become an expert in something. That makes me an expert on serial killers about 10,000 times over. When I left Channel 4, my boss at the time (hi! I know you read this!) calculated how many hours I’d spent watching The O.C. while ‘working’ and announced the figure with great awe during his speech at my leaving lunch. It was a lot of hours. (In my defence, we had little TVs attached to our desks and the show was always on. That didn’t mean I was watching.) (Ha! Yes it did! It’s fantastic television.)
Anyway, my point is that I can’t even imagine trying to work out how many hours I’ve dedicated to investigating serial killers. It probably equates to about half of my life. When I’m not reading books on them or on the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit (where criminal profiling was invented), I’m watching docs or dramas, and listening to podcast after podcast after podcast.
Acknowledging that doesn’t make me mad, sad or ashamed. “But you could have learned dozens of languages in that time!” Oh, bore off. What could be more important than learning how to slowly convince a serial killer that you love being his fantasy wife until he gradually grants you more and more freedoms and then one day he forgets to padlock the basement door and YOU’RE OUTTA THERE. S’LATERS SUCKER!
You know what would help me to escape a serial killer? A coffee buzz. If you enjoy my work, you can tip me here – thank you!:
Why are women so fascinated by this stuff?
Women are twice as likely to listen to true crime podcasts as men, and it’s estimated that true crime show viewers skew around 80% female. It’s such a ‘thing’ that US sketch show SNL made a song about it and one of my favourite viral videos imagines a woman merrily watching a murder show with the voiceover detailing a savage physical attack while her partner looks on aghast.
I think this is down to several reasons:
Women are raised to be on the lookout for nutters. Warned about ‘bad men’ from the time we have baby teeth, many of us will no doubt have encountered a few who we suspect in different circumstances could have turned full Bundy. To realise that our nightmares have come true for some people feeds a dark need to know more because, “That could have been me.”
True crime podcasts, documentaries and series often frame serial killer stories as puzzles to be solved, making us feel safer and more in control if we can work them out: “I’ll definitely see it coming/I’d recognise someone like him/I wouldn’t be polite/I’ll know how to get out of it.” Knowledge is power.
The majority of victims in these crimes are female and so women have a natural empathy with, and compassion for, the survivors and the lost, as well as their loved ones. We want to know about and honour them – and we want to acknowledge that recognition within ourselves.
During the solving of the case, there are often moments in which emotion and intuition win out over dogged professional practicality. Family or friends will have a hunch, widely dismissed by scoffing police, which ends up being spot-on. With women still denigrated as unreliable witnesses, this is immensely satisfying.
There’s a universal desire to try to understand people’s motives as well as to understand ‘evil’. What could make someone do something like that? It offers a psychological thrill – we’re exploring the darkness of human nature in a safe way, from a distance.
The (previously mentioned) sheer audacity of serial killing may tap (and I’m spitballing here) into a ghastly intrigue: there’s a freedom and entitlement to such wanton violence that is so alien to traditional ideals of femininity that fuck it if women might not feel a perverse thrill in dipping their toes in for a moment. (Please see the final scene of series four of the Handmaid’s Tale for reference. You know the one.)
Just One More Thing
None of which is to say that it’s only women who are fascinated by this stuff or that anyone who is wants to be a serial killer, wants to know one, or wants to be anywhere near one. (Having said that, if any need a ghostwriter, I’m available!) I’m not embarrassed or ashamed about my fascination with this, although I do acknowledge it’s morbid. However, if you want to know the top 10 things my thousands upon thousands of hours of research has taught me, let me know and I’ll write a piece on it. (If you signed up for articles about cancer, apologies.)
*Exceedingly modest reminder that I have written eight bestselling mental-health books which have been translated into dozens of languages. I’ve also written a book about the TV show Friends which would make a delightful gift for any Friends obsessives. All are available to buy online or at your local bookshop.
I love this piece! Exactly - why shouldn't women be interested in true crime when we've grown up being told to be on the look out? At (my all-girls') school, a policeman came in regularly to tell us how to look out for, and avoid, creepy men, as well as teaching us some sweet moves to escape. It was simultaneously terrifying and empowering.
I've written two books of true crime from the 1800s. One was specifically about poisoning crimes when the accused were mostly women, the other was the first book-length biography of "the father of forensic science" (my mum, who is also fascinated by crime, was *so impressed* when I told her a copy had made its way into the FBI's library in Quantico). My counsellor, meanwhile, was absolutely flummoxed that I'd written about such dark things and was trying to get to the bottom of it. In the end, he seemed to think that it was because, for the first ten years of my life, my dad was an undertaker. In fact, our family car was a black Volvo estate which doubled as a private ambulance and smelt of formaldehyde and meat left out on a warm day (really). *That* was why. Although since then, I've realised that plenty of women are voracious fans of true crime, and they can't all have "funeral director" in the "father's occupation" box on their birth certificates.
Jo - I absolutely want to read about the top 10 things your research taught you. Morbid, yes. Fascinating, oh yes. Bring. It. On.