Your True Crime Habit

[ula]

 ..as much as possible? 

Decades ago I picked up Ann Rules True Crime books and have been a fan ever since.

Options were very limited until recently.

Now there’s a feast of choices online and numerous True Crime TV channels.

Im hoping there continues to be so much interest in this genre and we don’t go back to 

the days of Slim Pickens’!

[auntjess]

As a Buried in the Backyard watcher, I had to share this!

[MargeGunderson]

That shouldn’t be funny, but it is! I suspect that a lot of true crime aficionados have a slightly darker sense of humor than most.

[GeorgiaRai]

I think the Fatal Vision mini-series in 1984 was what first drew me in.  After watching, I read the book, then moved on to other authors & other crimes - Ted Bundy, Diana Downs, etc.   

These days, I watch Dateline, 48 Hours, and countless shows on ID, Oxygen and HLN, and spend (waste?!) a ton of time reading the Websleuths forums.  I'm also currently fascinated by the recent developments via forensic genealogy and how it's shedding new light on cases we've followed for years. 

One inexplicable element to my true crime habit: I set it aside in November & December to overdose on cheesy made-for-tv-Christmas movies.   

 

[Annber03]

I guess in some respects "Unsolved Mysteries" may have planted that seed for me. The ghost/haunting stories were the ones I was most interested in when I watched that show as a kid, but occasionally some of the ones about trying to solve crimes were interesting, too.

Then when "Snapped" first started airing on TV, my mom would watch that show and I started watching it with her. From there I started watching a lot of stuff on what was then known as CourtTV-"Forensic Files", "Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justice", "The Investigators", and the like, and then "Dateline" and "48 Hours" as well. Then when we got the Investigation Discovery channel, that just added to the list. 

I haven't had a chance to read as much in the true crime genre, but I have read In Cold Blood, The Cases that Haunt Us, and I started reading a couple books on Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing when I worked at a bookstore, but never got a chance to finish those. I'll need to get those books and pick up where I left off. 

I've said it before, but for me it's the "what" and "why" of it all that I find most interesting. So many people go through certain awful situations and don't commit crimes, so what drove these particular people to do so? And why this method or this level of violence, why these victims? Stuff like that.

And yes, the forensic elements are fascinating, too. Both in how they can work wonders (you can find, like, a strand of fabric that'll ultimately manage to tie the case together), and the technological advancements you speak of, and also the instances in which they can fail, through contamination, ineptness, outdated understanding of methods, etc. And in that same vein, I also really appreciate how this genre can highlight cases where people were wrongly convicted, and bring attention to gross incompetence and abuses within our system, as well as explore ways to try and hold people accountable and make the system better and fairer for everyone.