Ever since Truman Capote, writers have struggled to both honour the victims and protect themselves. Novelist Janice Hallett investigates
Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./AlamyPhotograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamyountdown to DEATH”, “MURDERED by my boyfriend”, “Falling for a KILLER” … the language of true crime lost its potential to shock long ago, yet we continue to be drawn in. High-profile cases, solved or unsolved, seem to provide a bottomless well of fresh evidence and further mystery. What drives so many of us to consume true crime is a need to understand the extremes of humanity from the safe distance of the page or headphone.
Two months later, former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested and confessed to being the Golden State Killer. In August 2020 he was sentenced to life without parole for 13 counts each of murder and kidnapping – which, between the statute of limitations and plea bargaining, represented a mere fraction of the crimes he had committed. McNamara’s investigation was credited with raising awareness, but not generating evidence that resulted in DeAngelo’s arrest.
In his bid to understand what drove them to such extreme acts, Capote befriended Hickock and Smith through the bars of their cells. With Smith especially he seemed to build a particular rapport. Yet as the years dragged by, the harrowing case took its toll and he eventually found himself longing for the execution date, to complete the project, free himself from the claustrophobic confines of Holcomb and the tyranny of the book’s ever-retreating deadline.
Arguably, readers want a full account that paints the case vividly and engages their emotions. Are they happy to trade the facts for that buzz? Because what is left when you take the “true” out of “true crime”? Yet that dilemma is not an issue for every true crime author. Some of the best and most evocative books in this genre are by writers who already have a strong personal connection to a case. Is writing about personal traumatic events cathartic, or does it compound the trauma?in 2005, 36 years after her aunt’s murder. Jane Mixer had been a Michigan law student in 1969, 23 years old and engaged to be married when she was brutally killed.
Speaking in advance of his podcast launch in 2021, he said, “it was difficult for me to tell the story, but I hope by doing so, it facilitates other people telling their own.” Perhaps this is where a writer with a personal connection has the advantage over a reporter. They write their way out of the trauma, while an observer must write their way in.
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