Fascination with true crime is nothing new. In 1924, the first true crime magazine, True Detective hit the racks, remaining a firm favourite among the darkly curious until its final issue in 1995. In its first few decades of publication its readers hid it under mattresses, only daring to sneak a peek when their husbands were at work and delivered subscriptions were rare as fans of the magazine did not even want the postman to know they were trawling its mildly shocking pages. Men could more readily discuss their interest in mysteries and murder, their wives could not be seen to be interested in such ‘distasteful’ material. Thank heavens for 2019 where we have entire TV channels, website, podcasts, books and YouTube channels dedicated to mysteries and tragedies that tickle our mind and terrify us.
Cover of the October 1961 issue of True Detective (http://pulpcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/true-detective.jpg)
95 years after the publication of the first True Detective magazine what has really changed? We can, in most cases, be more open about our interest but we are as obsessed with the subject matter of murder, mystery and all that is deeply twisted as we ever were and the question remains, why? Why do we care so much if the mystery is solved, if the perpetrator goes to jail or if the victim gets justice? Billy Jensen in his book, Chase Darkness with Me, puts forward two theories, the first I touched on in my first post on this blog and it is that as adults we come to the realisation that the monsters we learned to fear as children are real and they are sometimes sitting in the office cubicle next to us or they are our neighbour or our father or our sister. The other theory is an interesting one to me and I think it may apply quite well to South Africa, Jensen believes that by following a true crime story from beginning to end we see order created from chaos – and we like it. Let’s admit it, we have a fair amount of chaos in our beautiful country – political turmoil, corruption, load shedding, droughts – could our true crime obsession be the way we even the playing field. Or maybe it’s not that deep after all and we really just like hearing about some truly screwed up people.
For me, it’s probably a mixture of all of the above but in my consumption of true crime material I have found two things that stand out for me: it is a really good way to truly understand the human condition (or blow your mind with its confoundedness) and it’s a truly important way to remember the victim. One thing I would like to avoid in my blog and podcast is any glorification of the perpetrator. I will discuss them, I will study them and try to understand their incomprehensible actions but the true point of anything I put out for your consumption will be to make the victim human again. To give them back their face, their name, the quirks that made them who they were before they crossed paths with evil.
In case you are wondering, I am not going to warble on endlessly about my opinions on the theory of true crime. I will get to the actual cases. Soon. I promise.
