Crime shows need to stop making serial killers heroes

Even the dying Carl Williams’ voice is louder than his victims. Letters written by the convicted murderer and drug trafficker to his ex-wife Roberta were published in August 2019.

Roberta herself was recently arrested for allegedly kidnapping and threatening to kill a film producer.

The frequent portrayal of true crime in podcasts, streaming series and books has increased our interest in violent and dangerous criminals and means victims are being ignored.

In fact, Ivan Millett, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer are famous pseudonyms. Yet the victims of violent murderers – Deborah Everest, Karen Campbell, or Tony Hughes – are largely forgotten.

My students and I often watch true crime documentaries as inspiration for discussions about criminal motives, or victim choice.

In one such tutorial recently, a student admired, even said he was attracted to, the infamous American serial killer Ted Bundy. Or at least Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron is.

Bundy killed at least 30 women, assaulted many others, and escaped from prison twice. He was probably active from the late 1960s to 1978.

Bundy was the subject of a recent four-part Netflix series titled ‘Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes’, based on ‘present-day interviews, archival footage and audio recordings made on death row’. Prepared on

The series premiered in January 2019, 30 years after Bundy’s execution.

Netflix made a movie about the case called ‘Extremely Wicked and Shockingly Evil and Wild’, starring Efron, following up on the real-life series of Bundy’s crimes.

I saw my student’s love for him. She was willing to overlook the gruesome violence because Efron was a charismatic and attractive person, and the same was true of Bundy –

I wondered if the glamorization of criminals through true crime was making people unaware of the plight of victims. And, if it was so, the impact it had on the surviving victims and their families.

Some victims are speaking out. A recent article focused on Bill Thomas, whose sister Kathy was murdered in Parkway, Virginia in 1986, a case that remains unsolved.

Thomas Bill attends the annual Crime Con to draw attention to his sister’s murder and pressure the FBI to investigate further.

To do this they have to stand up to people dressed as serial killers.

We are particularly affected by forgotten cases. Even when we don’t know who the perpetrator is, the gory details of the crimes overwhelm the pain and suffering of the victims.

I recently came across these forgotten cases while writing a book. It aims to focus on the victims. Each case was added with the hope of learning something new. A new forensic technique that may lead to this, another victim who may be part of the sequence and whose case remains unsolved.

Victims’ identities become embedded in the identity of the person who victimized them, and I want to try to eliminate some of that.

Narcissistic killers like Evan Millat and Daniel Holdem (who brutally murdered Carly Pierce Stevenson and her 2-year-old daughter, Khandalis Pierce in 2010) maintain their notoriety by writing letters from prison. Millat’s letters to his nephew Alastair Shipsey were published in 2016.

Hold’em Letters was turned into a podcast by The Daily Telegraph. But recent events have seen a shift in focus.

This section contains related reference points (Related Nodes field).

Victimology (the study of victims) is growing as a criminological discipline and academics and victim advocates have been saying for some time that the focus needs to shift from perpetrators to victims. But our cries are going in vain.

The Christchurch mosque shootings on March 15, 2019 drew attention when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern refused to name the perpetrator—a 28-year-old Australian man who live-streamed the atrocity. and issued a manifesto outlining conspiracy theories of white genocide.

Instead, he urged the public to name the victims. It was a powerful message that the offender would not be given the attention he sought.

New Zealand went further and made it a criminal offense to copy, distribute or display live video of a shooting, punishable by up to 14 years in prison for an individual, or $100,000 for a corporation. A fine of up to

A man was sentenced to almost two years in prison for sharing a video he made of a video game, which included crossball and a body count.

Later that year, a 24-year-old woman, Michaela Dunn, was identified as the victim of a knife attack in Sydney.

when he was allegedly murdered in a CBD apartment by 20-year-old Mert Nye. He then took his knife to the streets and was caught by the crowd.

Tributes have been paid to the victim, who her mother described as a ‘beautiful, loving woman’ who traveled a lot to study at university.

But publicizing violent crimes and their perpetrators can do more harm.

Nine days after the Christchurch shooting, there was an arson attack at a mosque in California. The perpetrator was a fan of the Christchurch attacker.

Yet I hope that if Ardern’s ethics are applied to future events, our interest in violent criminals will diminish and our sensitivity to the impact of their crimes will return.

We can always learn from real crime events, but we must be wary of the glamorization of criminals and the proper respect for victims and their families.

Note: This article first This conversation was published on and its translation is being presented with his permission. Xanthi Mellett is a forensic criminologist at the University of Newcastle, UK.