According to experts, people’s fascination with true-life tales of murder, kidnappings and mayhem isn’t necessarily morbid or exploitative but grounded in basic human needs.
One day in 2007, I found myself in the basement of the Contra Costa County Superior Courthouse in Martinez, staring at a partial bloody footprint on the lid of a plastic bin. The footprint looked markedly similar to the tread on the bottom of the teenage boy’s slip-on shoe I held in my hand.
Fifteen years later, I don’t have more clarity on this case, but I know I’m not alone in going down a rabbit hole in a high-profile crime, even when the results are elusive. More casual consumers of true crime feed a genre that sprawls across TV networks, streaming services, podcasts, movies, Facebook and Reddit groups and the annual CrimeCon convention. Fans of murder and missing-person narratives consistently push crime documentaries to No. 1 spots on Netflix. And last fall, so-called web sleuths feverishly tracked the ill-fated road trip of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, making the 22-year-old woman’s disappearance a national sensation.
Oranchak and his fellow cryptographers spent 14 years trying to crack the Zodiac’s code, finally succeeding in December 2020, as the FBI acknowledged.But beyond the satisfaction of playing detective, people are hard-wired for empathy.
Crime stories appeal to our “visceral instincts” and fears for our safety, said Scott Bonn, a criminologist and author of “Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers.” Like Greek tragedies, horror movies and roller coaster rides, these stories allow us to experience terror in a controlled way — the adrenaline rush followed by catharsis.
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