Why We Love Serial Killers (29 page)

Any and all misinformation about serial killers included in the official statements of law enforcement authorities is quickly disseminated to the public via the news media. That is due to a symbiotic relationship that exists between both agencies. Specifically, law enforcement authorities require channels of communication to disseminate their official messages, and the news media need tantalizing or juicy content to attract large public audiences. Journalists must rely on state authorities to provide them with the official explanations, definitions, and details of serial homicide cases. Therefore, the news media generally
report whatever they are told by state officials without question. The cooperative, “no questions asked” relationship that exists between law enforcement authorities and the news media means that inaccuracies, stereotypes, and myths about serial killers can be disseminated to the public without anyone even being aware that it is happening.

The Role of the News Media

From a moral panic perspective, the news media are the second most important set of actors in the social construction of folk devils, exceeded only by the public in terms of its influence. The news coverage of folk devils is typically stylized and exaggerated in order to entice a wide public audience. Journalistic hyperbole makes them appear to be much more threatening to society than they actually are. Public concern and anxiety are heightened through journalistic exaggeration and, as a result, folk devils are demonized in the minds of the public. It must be remembered that the entertainment news media have a vested interest in tantalizing and even scaring the public. Sensationalized news content attracts a wide audience, and a large audience attracts highly coveted advertising revenue.

Serial homicide has long occupied a high-ranking position in media perceptions of what constitutes a newsworthy story, and so it should not be surprising that the news media are so instrumental to the social construction of serial killers. This dates back to the London murders of Jack the Ripper in 1888 and it continues to this day in the media attention paid to the likes of the Long Island Serial Killer in New York. The Ripper case was the first serial killer story in history to cause a widespread media frenzy and that was due entirely to the proliferation of inexpensive broadsheet newspapers in Victorian London in the late nineteenth century. By the fall of 1888, at the height of the Ripper’s killing spree, one million newspapers with updated stories on the case were sold each day—an unprecedented circulation of newspapers at the time.

It’s quite obvious why the Ripper case held tremendous appeal to journalists in the nineteenth century, just as serial killer cases continue to lure the news media today. As noted by Roy Hazelwood, the news media are hungry for stories that will attract a large audience and excite readers. There is an old adage among newspaper reporters that says, “If it bleeds, it leads,” indicating the priority given to stories that contain violence.
A serial killer case offers blood—in the extreme—and it also provides the public with a tantalizing melodrama of good versus evil to follow. A serial killer case offers tremendous excitement each day as the news media shares updates on the investigation provided by law enforcement officials. Such cases frequently include graphic sexual activity, and the public nature of the investigation highlights the real possibility of harm befalling additional members of the public until the perpetrator is apprehended. In many ways, a serial killer case offers every juicy element that a journalist might want in a news story.

One of the most sensationalized and hyped serial killer stories in US history was that of Jeffrey Dahmer, who was framed as the “Milwaukee Cannibal” by the entertainment news media. Dahmer raped, murdered, dismembered, and ate seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991 in Wisconsin. The unrivaled gruesomeness of the case virtually ensured that it would become one of the best-known serial homicide stories of all time. Although the crimes took place in Milwaukee, media interest was nation- and worldwide. The
New York Times
, for example, ran either a half- or full-page feature article on the case for ten consecutive days following Dahmer’s arrest in July 1991. There were numerous features and interviews on all of the major network television talk shows and news programs such as ABC’s
20/20
and CBS’s
48 Hours
. According to news reports in the
Milwaukee Journal
, an estimated 450 journalists came to Milwaukee to cover the case and the ensuing trial of Dahmer. A common news headline about the killer at the time asked the question, “Jeffrey Dahmer: Man or Monster?”

Shortly after Dahmer’s capture, the August 12, 1991, cover of
People
magazine read:

Horror in Milwaukee: He was a quiet man who worked in a chocolate factory. But at home in apartment 213 a real-life “Silence of the Lambs” was unfolding. Now that Jeffrey Dahmer has confessed to 17 grotesque murders, his troubling history of alcoholism, sex offenses and bizarre behavior raises a haunting question: Why wasn’t he stopped?

Major news and entertainment news media outlets, including
People
magazine and many others, focused on the cannibalistic aspect of Dahmer’s case to reinforce a connection with the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The blockbuster film
The Silence of the Lambs
, which starred Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, was at the very height of
its popularity and cultural impact at exactly the right time for this connection. It had been released to US audiences on January 30, 1991, only six months prior to Dahmer’s capture. By linking him to Hannibal Lecter, the news media dehumanized Jeffrey Dahmer and framed him as a stylized super predator and cannibal. The vast impact of this particular case is evidenced by the wide appeal of morbid cannibalism-themed jokes and atrocity tales based on Jeffrey Dahmer that remain popular today, despite the fact that he was killed in prison by a fellow inmate in 1994.

Much like law enforcement authorities, the news media frequently refer to serial killers in supernatural terms by using inflammatory words such as “evil,” “monster,” or “devil” to describe them. For example, Jeff Kamen, a veteran journalist who covered the David Berkowitz trial and sat close to him in court, said, “Sitting there near him I felt as if I was in the presence of pure evil.” Twenty-five years following the arrest and incarceration of Berkowitz, the
New York Post
ran a retrospective story under the headline “A Summer in Fear of the Monster Next Door.” In another example, following the arrest of BTK in 2005, the
Washington Post
ran a story about Dennis Rader with the headline “The Devil Inside” and
Newsweek
magazine ran an article about his wife that was titled “Married to a Monster: Paula Rader.” Similarly, after Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten to death in prison by a fellow inmate the cover of
People
magazine referred to his demise as the “Death of a Madman.”

Milwaukee policemen carry away the dismembered parts of the victims of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in 1991. (photo credit: Associated Press)

Although the Internet makes it relatively easy to find individual examples of news articles that refer to serial killers in supernatural terms, I decided to do my own quantitative analysis of news content to get an idea of how prevalent such references are in major news media outlets. I decided to investigate the
New York Times
due to its long celebrated history, large circulation, and prominence as a daily news source and agenda setter in US society. I wanted to investigate a major weekly news source, as well, so I decided to investigate
Time
magazine for the same reasons that I chose the
New York Times
—that is, history, scope, and prestige. I used Google to query the number of articles in which the words “serial killer” appeared in the two publications between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 2013. I then queried the number of articles about serial killers in the two publications that also contained any of the following terms: “monster,” “evil,” or “devil.”

NYPD officers of the 84th Precinct in Brooklyn read news of the capture of David Berkowitz, August 11, 1977. (photo credit: Associated Press)

The
New York Times
published 5,680 articles about serial killers during the eighteen-year time frame I requested. Of those articles, 577 contained the word “monster,” 745 contained the word “evil,” and 661 had the word “devil.” Therefore, a total of 1,983 or 35 percent of the
New York Times
articles about serial killers contained one or more of the supernatural descriptors. In
Time
magazine there were 449 serial killer articles published between 1995 and 2013. Of those articles, fifty-seven contained the word “monster,” sixty-seven contained the word “evil,” and thirty-three included the word “devil.” Therefore, a total of 157 or 35 percent (once again!) of the
Time
magazine articles contained one or more of the supernatural descriptors of serial killers.

Interestingly, the word “evil” was used more frequently than either “monster” or “devil” to describe serial killers in both of the publications I analyzed. As previously discussed, the use of the word “evil” to label someone is particularly devastating because it strips the bearer of all humanity. It is fascinating to me that the two publications contained the same percentage of articles in which one of the three supernatural words was used to describe serial killers. Although the percentage (35 percent) is significant, I suspect that it would be even higher in more sensationalized types of media such as true crime magazines. The point is that even well-respected journalists employed by two of the leading news publications in the world used supernatural or inhuman terminology to describe serial killers more than one-third of the time over the past twenty years.

It has been empirically demonstrated that a direct, positive relationship exists between the number of stories in the news media about serial killers and the size of the readership or viewership.
¹⁰⁷
Stated differently, more serial killer stories lead to larger audiences for news media outlets. In a study of news articles published in the
New York Times
about three different serial killers from different time periods—the Boston Strangler (1960s), Son of Sam (1970s) and the Night Stalker (1980s)—it was determined that journalists did not report news so much as “create a market for a relatively minor series of incidents compared to all of the other carnage and violence taking place on the planet at the same time.”
¹⁰⁸
It was not only other violence that was supplanted in the media by the serial killer stories. Dr. Jeffrey Kottler, the psychologist who conducted the research, concluded from his study that the serial killers he examined were elevated to criminal rock star status and enjoyed fame and notoriety that exceeded that of
scientists, authors, politicians, and other professionals who were doing groundbreaking work in their fields and helping mankind instead of killing people.

At least one veteran journalist deplores the tendency of crime reporters to hype serial killers in their news stories because it transforms them into celebrity monsters. Despite the fact that he himself uses inflammatory language to describe serial predators, Jeff Kamen told me he believes that the glorification of killers by journalists is self-serving, unethical, and does great harm to the families of victims. Kamen said:

It is outrageous when reporters fan the flames of public hysteria and glorify these lowlifes. It may entice readers but it’s wrong. Psychopaths like Bundy and BTK love media attention so don’t give it to them. Just present the facts without embellishment. Think of the victims’ families. They’ve already suffered so much. They don’t deserve to see these creatures take a bow.

Jeff Kamen’s admonishment of the news media is powerful and poignant. Journalists who rely on hyperbole and exaggeration to present serial killers as supernatural monsters are doing so for their own selfish purposes—that is, to entice their audience—and they are demonstrating no regard for the consequences of their actions. Similar to law enforcement authorities who perpetuate serial killer myths and stereotypes, journalists who do the same thing are acting unethically. The news media blur the distinction between reality and fiction and obscure the truth about serial homicide when they turn the killers into stylized and cartoonish super predators. By engaging in such unethical behavior, journalists are doing a gross injustice to society, and they also provide an undeserved public forum for cold-blooded murderers who crave the limelight and public attention. In other words, exaggerated journalistic rhetoric may be good for the financial bottom line of the media but it desensitizes society to the terrible reality of serial murder. Moreover, it gives psychopathic serial killers exactly what they desire—a bright spotlight on the public stage.