Humanity’s Obsession with True Crime

These thoughts were written by Emily, one of our 2020 summer interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

We humans have incalculable differences when it comes to day-to-day life and interests, but one thing that seems to be a common thread throughout all walks of life is our morbid fascination with death, murder, and true crime.

As a true crime fanatic myself, I was rewatching hours of the hit YouTube series Buzzfeed: Unsolved and noted the giant number of views and likes. Tens of millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes. And this show is not just an isolated case. On Netflix’s daily top ten, one can almost always find a true crime documentary trending. Jeffery Epstein: Filthy Rich, Unsolved Mysteries, Athlete A, and Fear City: New York vs. the Mafia are titles that have all been in Netflix’s top ten for weeks in the past few months. Not to mention the dozens of other true crime documentaries and docu-series that became instant hits as Netflix churns them out. Now, some view this obsession with grizzly murders and horrific criminals as a concerning trend while others don’t see the harm in learning all the details in these crimes, but that is another discussion all itself.

What I am addressing is the belief that this fascination is a result of our changing society and thus is a new development. Adults – minus millennials – are quick to blame the lack of filtering entertainment for children. You know, the classic statements about how there is too much violence in video games, movies, shows, etc. However, looking back to how serial killers and true crimes were received in the past show that this intense interest in murder and crime has been around for centuries.

Let’s start at a name that is claimed to be the first serial killer – Jack the Ripper. Possibly the most infamous serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper terrorized the White Chapel district of London for a horrific autumn in 1888. After killing four women in the street and one in her apartment (and possibly others, but they have not been confirmed), it was not just the police who were obsessed with the identity of Jack the Ripper. This is seemingly normal as most were focused on finding the killer so the town could stop living in fear, but some might say that the manhunt might have gone a tad too far in the obsession department. Civilians formed their own little investigation groups who tried to track down The Ripper and they poured over every piece of evidence – plausible and implausible – in their search. Even after the case went cold, people throughout the 20th century continued to dedicate their lives to attempting to find Jack the Ripper’s identity. They even have an official name – Ripperologists. There’s a magazine of the same name dedicated to the mystery of Jack the Ripper that started in 1995 and is published bi-monthly. Back in the time of the Ripper killings, there was a man named Walter Sickert who created paintings inspired by the Ripper’s murders. Sickert also allegedly dressed up as Jack the Ripper and walked on the streets as such in his free time. 

Going even further back, ever since documentation of public executions, the general public treated the executions as social events. Men, women, and even children would all be in attendance and it was an opportunity to dress up for a day on the town. Some even treated them as family affairs. And the fascination with murder wasn’t just unique for Jack the Ripper or public executions. H.H. Holmes, the Zodiac Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, the list goes on. Ted Bundy, who raped and murdered at least 30 women, received hundreds of love letters while in prison. 

Clearly, our interest in serial killers spans across time and are not isolated incidents. Society today seems to be “more” obsessed with grotesque murders, serial killers, and true crime, but I argue that it feels as such due to social media emphasizing this trend. While the intrigue surrounding murder has been a subject of human interest for centuries, what that says about human nature remains to be seen.