7 Comments
founding
Sep 25, 2020Liked by Best Evidence

Sounds like someone has been watching Love After Lockup again! I am definitely guilty of finding a killer’s account of a crime compelling. It’s similar to reading a novel written in first person, and brings a feeling of immediacy. However, no one wants to glorify the criminal or provide a pulpit for philosophies or conspiracy theories that are better left to languish in prison. That’s one reason I appreciate the I Am A Killer series on Netflix. We hear the perpetrator’s account, but then we hear from others surrounding the case, and they have an opportunity to respond to the criminal’s words. The result may not form a 360-degree picture of the jailed party, but it does give us a far better understanding of the individual and the crime. That person no longer controls the narrative. Other than Pablo Escobar, I don’t know anyone who can make being in jail look like a fun, interesting or entitled experience. So I think there’s a lot to be said by these kinds of first-person docus provided there’s balance in the telling.

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Sep 26, 2020Liked by Best Evidence

I have just finished listening to the Audible podcast Donor 9623 on Audible. Donor 9623 is interviewed in the final episode. If the interview with the serial killer is contextualized, meaning including both psychological/psychiatric perspectives as well as fact checks, I think that such interviews could provide a lot of valuable information about many relevant aspects. There's no reason to take the serial killer's testimony at face value, IMO.

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Sep 26, 2020Liked by Best Evidence

I’m thinking of this from a research perspective, assuming that the point of any such interview has to be to give us additional insight into the killer, to give us greater understanding. When we do qualitative interviews, there’s a general rule against asking “Why,” the idea being that people generally don’t know why they do what they do, and why questions elicit a post-how justification for whatever you’re asking about. So, instead, we focus on process questions, the hows, and try to use the hows to tell us about the whys. Unfortunately, in my experience of these interviews, the killers really like to talk about the whys- their internal states, what they were thinking- and spend less time on the hows, and (to my mind) gloss over or lie about the hows. That’s understandable- whys might help paint a sympathetic or cognitively disordered view of the killer, while hows are likely to elicit disgust from any reasonable audience.

To my mind, that’s the problem- the killers own views are the statements most likely to inspire others, and bring sympathy. The parts that are most useful to society are the ones they talk about least. I think that giving a killer control over their own narrative is basically always a bad idea, because it’s not in their interest to give us the information that’s most beneficial to society. So, I’d say that it can be good to talk to them- but I wouldn’t let them have control of the narrative. Ideally, I wouldn’t quote them directly, but extract the bits that can be used to further understanding of their crimes and psychoses, understanding that they’re the people least likely to have the distance to understand themselves.

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Sep 26, 2020Liked by Best Evidence

I think it's in the framing, how the narrative around the interview is structured, and the kinds of questions (I like Dan C's process vs introspection rule of thumb). I'm currently watching Love Fraud where footage of the subject just shows him hoisting himself by his own petard.

(not related to serial killers but: I hope Eve is doing much better and congratulations Sarah on your BOOK!!)

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Sep 30, 2020Liked by Best Evidence

Geesh, I thought about this in the literal sense. Coming from the land of Richard Ramirez and others, I would say, "Never, unless you want to be their next victim." I seriously think that, when real estate became cost prohibitive here in the Golden State, most of these fellas (and they are mostly - so far - fellas) moved to the Pacific Northwest, which also has a lot of undeveloped land to dump bodies in. So, unless you are not Clarise Starling, just don't.

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