May 30, 2018 • 53 mins
Whether in fiction or in real life, the concept of the serial killer occupies a unique space in the American zeitgeist. Audiences across the planet flock to films about serial killers, and readers across the world peruse headlines of true life crimes with morbid (in some cases, obsessive) curiosity. And, for many, this fascination goes further than reading a book or watching a film. Join the guys as they shine a light on the controversial, secretive trade of relics known as murderbilia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They call me Ben. You are here,
You are you, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. Featuring, of course, our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled Decond, who I have a have it
on good authority, has never himself purchased something involved with
(00:46):
the murder. Oh well, that's nice. That is certainly a
claim to fame that Paul can attest to. He's got
a whole heck of a lot of cool posters though
from movies, right right, and then murders may occur in
those works of fiction, they definitely do. But Mission Control
is not the kind of cat to go out and
(01:07):
read about maybe a series of stabbings and say I
need to buy that knife, I want a piece of
that action. I want a shoe from a victim or
something like that. Yeah, I was I couldn't believe that
that existed before we did this episode. Ben. It's a
weird thing. Of course, Paul, I promised we will stop
(01:30):
using you as an example that, as far as we know,
none of us, Paul included, have purchased this sort of
memorabilia previously on stuff they want you to know. We
had explored numerous stories of serial killers, specific cases such
as our unfortunately ongoing uncought serial killer series, and larger
(01:53):
phenomena such as the Highway of Tears or even the
East Area rapist slash original night Stalker. Right right, Uh,
D'Angelo had just been caught, and we had mentioned this,
I think just briefly in a in an earlier episode.
We might have to do an entire follow up on
that because it leads to some wide reaching implications for
(02:15):
genetic testing DNA basis. Didn't we do a whole episode
on the We did a whole original We did? We did, Yeah,
and uh, we wondered whether he would be caught. We
did speculate on his age, and overall we we weren't wrong.
Remember we said he might be listening. He could have
been listening. That's true. He could have. I don't know
(02:37):
if he's a fan of podcast allegedly as a recluse,
but they found him through some relatives DNA. Well, we'll
we'll dig into that, so stay tuned. One thing's for sure, though,
there are probably going to be people who attempt to
um to associate themselves with this in one way or another.
(03:00):
You know, it's a it's a very cold comfort for
the surviving victims, and it's a it's a closure point
for people who spent years, decades of unpaid time investigating this.
Today we're touching on serial killers, but in a little
bit of a different way. We're not looking at so
many specific cases, and we're not tracing murders themselves. Instead,
(03:23):
we're exploring an industry that sprang up around these grizzly tragedies,
a monetization of monsters made flesh. And here are the facts.
We've already explored how law enforcement and criminologists defined serial killers,
along with the problems inherent in that definition, and the
difference between the way these murders are depicted in fiction
and the way they actually behave. But we haven't explored
(03:47):
the other side of the dark mirror. We haven't looked
at the public fascination with these crimes and the public
fascination with the people who commit them. Yeah, and this
stuff probably might let's say, might not apply to you,
but it's overwhelmingly likely that somebody you are an acquaintance with.
(04:08):
Harbor's this weird curiosity. I say weird for me and
for I guess for the social mores of the world.
It is a bit strange, this fascination with serial killer killers, murderers,
people who go out and take lives. Um. People like
this read exhaustive biographies. They read accounts of the the
actual killers activities, what occurs before the m o of
(04:32):
the killer. Um. They can likely compare differences in motivation
between killers and execution and apprehension for multiple killers. So
we're talking about someone who's able to say, well, the
difference between John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer is the following. Yeah,
and would will sit down with you at a bar
and tell you the differences for an hour. I have
(04:55):
been guilty of that. Yeah, I think, And UM, I
think everybody has that fascination to some degree, right, Yeah,
because it is so different from normal everyday activities. Yeah.
And there's a book we found from called Why We
Love Serial Killers, in which criminologist Dr Scott Bond explores
(05:17):
the nature of this and he notes the same things
we've seen in previous arguments about this. Fascination says there's
a difference between perceptions of killers and reality. Uh. And
he does a lot of myth busting in this book.
If you were at all interested in this topic, we
highly recommend it. One of the myths bust is that
the majority of serial killers are believed to be white males. However,
(05:41):
according to the FBI, the race by race, the racial
breakdown of serial killers is about the same proportion as
that of the US population at large, and based on
the Radford University serial Killer database, which holy smokes, is
a real thing. Uh, only forty six of serial killers
since nineteen have been white men. And that's using data
(06:04):
for a little less than four thousand killers, or maybe
right at four thousand now that they've added the night stalker.
Here's a thing, you know, none of us, including Paul
michelin Man mission Control, decond own any of this um
these keepsakes of any kind of serial killer. And yet
I'm I'm fond of serial killer movies. I'm not as
(06:27):
into true crime as it would seem literally everyone else
on the planet is. But it is obviously a huge
booming business. Where do you think that fascination comes from
that makes you know, the average Jane and John Doe
off the street want to kind of dig into some
of the stuff, whether it's in reading books about it right,
listen to true crime podcast, watching films, or you know,
(06:49):
exploring some of this uh this darkness. Yeah, and we
have to we'll stick with this perception of of serial
killers being overwhelmingly white and male to hit on this
because when we bring up fiction in the zeitgeist, what
we see is that even if the facts bear out
that not all these killers or white males, the ones
(07:11):
who get remembered in pop culture do tend to be
white male killers, and Bond has a couple of theories
about this. He says the gender difference may come down
to a matter of method. Female killers, in his argument,
tend to be less uh use less gory methods like
(07:31):
poison and rather than shooting. But one of the most
famous or infamous female serial killers in the U s,
Eileen Wornos, was murdering people with a gun. Bond thinks
that's the reason why she reached fame. But only nine percent,
around nine percent of serial killer since nineteen ten have
been women, uh have been African American, and few have
(07:55):
achieved celebrity status. There's the disturbing thing there is it
choice of victims. Bond believes most serial killers tend to
kill within their own race, and that white victims, especially
white female victims, usually get wider media attentions. So there's
a there's a loop here between victims and killers and
the media. And so this racial bias, as disturbing as
(08:18):
it is, is real, and according to Bond, he says,
although it may not seem fair, affluent white neighborhoods are
given priority over poor black or Latino neighborhoods by state
officials in the assignment of valuable policing resources. This negatively
impacts the ability of law enforcement personnel to pursue serial
murder cases in poor racial minority communities. So society is
(08:40):
valuing these victims less and it's making as a result, uh,
it's making the crimes terrific as this sounds, uh, be
presented or perceived as somehow less important. And this means
that the infamy of the killer also becomes lower. Yeah,
(09:01):
because they're they're not spending the resources to catch the
people that do them. And when you're not spending the
resources to catch them, you're not getting the media attention.
You're not. I mean, there's all he Bond makes all
these unfortunate points about the reality of our situation racial bifurcation,
and so there to that point, if we if we
(09:23):
use this information and we we ask ourselves the same
question Noel was asking. You're asking about fascination with serial killers.
We have to ask ourselves, does this mean we are
more fascinated with a stereotype rather than an actual phenomenon.
But we can't go too far, too fast down that path,
because it turns out there's solid evidence for the American
(09:45):
obsession with serial killers, and it's not particularly promising news.
There have been more than d serial killers in the
US since nineteen hundred. England, who has the next highest total,
has had only hundred and forty two twenty two. We
also in the States have higher rates of violent crime,
(10:09):
and that might be why some killers are more famous
than others, because again throughout the world, even though serial
killers exist in other countries throughout the world, when people
picture a serial killer, they usually picture either Jack the
Ripper or someone from the States. Yeah, this is highly bothersome,
this American obsession with it, And I wonder how much.
(10:30):
You know, there's there are all things that we can
we can go down, and there's there's more that we're
getting in here about fiction, about Americans obsession with fictionalizing
these kinds of things. It does feel like the advent
of the film industry in the United States probably is
linked with with this. But yes, that I was getting
(10:51):
at it's like we're not obsessed with it and that
we empathize with killers or that we see ourselves in
serial Killer. I think there's some part of us that
maybe is fascinated because it makes us feel superior in
some way. It's like we do not have this compulsion
or you know, I'm wondering. I'm asking you guys, like,
where where do you think it comes from? Because I've
always kind of been stuck on that because it is
(11:11):
so grizzly and unpleasant, and yet it is something that
seems to catch people's imaginations, you know, the world over. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's true that many of the stories, the way
they're presented, whether by just the facts Criminologist, or whether
by the film industry, they all have the marks of
gripping fiction. High stakes danger, fire knives, mysteries, and clear
(11:36):
heroes and villains often right, and research shows I think
this is pretty fascinating. Research shows that there are a
couple of groups of people who enjoy these graphic, frightening stories,
and they can have a number of very different motivations.
The study from about adolescence said that some were gore watchers,
(12:00):
meaning they professed and and like a confidential environment that
they were watching horrific movies because they enjoyed the blood
and guts. They tend to have low levels of empathy,
strong need for adventure seeking. And then there were thrill
watchers who got the adrenaline Russia, being scared, that roller coaster,
feeling right, and they have high levels of adventure seeking,
(12:23):
but they also have, you know, high levels of empathy.
And the gore watchers identified with the killers rather than
the victims. The thrill watchers identified with neither the I
guess you would say they identify with the plot. You know.
Just so it's not just um all in our minds,
our spartphones are television. There's a physiological thing that happens here.
(12:46):
Just like we talked about dopamine and social media. You
get a increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, increased blood
glucose levels, and you also get again a fit a
dose dopamine when you're watching these things. It's the neurotransmitter
famously associated with pleasure, mainly food and sex, but also
(13:07):
occurs during time times of fear, and it's good for
our survival. I mean, we don't have to go true
granular here, but there is physiological evidence and so in
a very real way, depictions of serial killers can function
for adults the way that monster movies function for kids. Well, yeah,
(13:27):
my son writer is a bit too young to do
this kind of thing, although he we did recently watch
Toy Story in which there's that the little kid next
door that tortures toys. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah,
it's scarier than I had remembered. And you know, about
two and a half it's like, okay, maybe we shouldn't
(13:48):
watch something like this anymore. But of course, you know,
he can handle something that has a a monster monster
just fine, and he thinks it's fun, not you know,
nothing to graphic, but something like Wanna that has a
big volcano monster in it. You just think it's because
it's I don't know, it's it's not as real as
a little kid that's actually scary. How do you handle Halloween?
(14:11):
I don't know about you guys, but for me as
a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. And it has
some scary themes in there that maybe don't really hit
you when you're when you're a child. Well, yeah, at
his age, you just kind of have to keep him
away from it a lot of it. But there's you know,
dressed up like a dragon. Come on, that's fun because
your kids a bit a little bit older. Yeah, Shell,
(14:33):
she dressed up as a creepy um dead doll last
year with like corpse makeup on stuff. She's not. But
she also dressed up as Satan when she was only four,
so she's got a she's got a history creepy, creepy
Halloween costumes. She's all about the spooky stuff except when
(14:53):
she's not. Except when it's too much. She likes to
control it, you know what I mean. And that's the thing.
Sometimes you don't know, like that seen in toy story
to one kid who could be totally fine, the kid,
it could traumatize them for life, you know. Well, just
to jump back into the dopamine dosing that people get
from watching this kind of fiction and experiencing it through
a crime drama on television or UM some of the
(15:15):
murder shows that exist throughout it is. It's really interesting
to me that that you can sit on your couch,
or you can sit in a movie theater and get
those same feelings that you would if you were out
having a fantastical meal somewhere, or let's say, being amorous
with your your loved one. UM and we talked in
our Hidden Brain episodes about this is one of the
(15:38):
one of the reasons that horror movies are so good
for that kind of date situation, because it's causing these
things to occur in your brain. But when you get
into the mind of some of the adolescents who are
the gore watchers, that frightens me. It feels like there
needs to be some kind of process of uh cataloging
(16:02):
the gore watchers. Oh that sounds awful when I say
it out loud, but I feel like they should. They
should at least be on the radar. I don't know.
You know, it's now more than ever it's possible to
do something like that. But the question is should we
agreed as a society. But they're always saving lives anyway,
(16:23):
where where does this all leave us? This physiological stuff,
it's real. The stereotypes are real, the facts are remain disturbing.
We'll explore this after a word from our sponsors. And
what we see now is that the mythical killers, those
(16:44):
who don't fit into the existing sort of narrative, are
becoming separated from the facts of their cases. So with
each new film, novel, or other fictional iteration about someone
like h Ed Gaing right the loose bags for the
Texas Chainsaw massacre film, the franchise, any part of the
(17:05):
story that doesn't fit into the mold of deranged, middle
aged white guy, possibly with a dark secret. Any any
stuff that doesn't fit there is just shed. It's just
on the cutting room floor, and the stereotype becomes more streamlined.
And now there's this increasing trend. I'm really interested in
in hearing opinions on this. There's this increasing trend of
(17:26):
serial killers as protagonist. I watched Dexter. I thought it
was cool for the first few seasons, and then it
jumped the shark pretty seriously. Yeah, well there's another one.
Did you guys watch Luther at all? I like Luther
a lot. The Alice Morgan character from the first episode.
I won't spoil it too much because it's relatively new,
but it's a straight up serial killer that becomes the
(17:50):
love interest. Like what, Yeah, it's sort of like one
of those like tortured loves too or is this forbidden
love kind of situation? And she's a threat to him
as well, Yeah, pretty pretty constantly. No, I see what
you're saying. And she is designed. That character is designed
to make you to to kind of appeal to you,
do to make you like see from her side, you know,
(18:11):
because even now we'll be getting too much in the spoiltarritories.
But some of the crimes that she commits, she has
this really intense rationalization for committing that you almost can
kind of buy into in a way. It's weird. Well
that's what all of these do. I am so excited
to watch this show. No, that's very good. Um so
behind behind the curtain, both Matt and Will have much
much better taste than me in general. So if you
(18:35):
guys have some advice on the show, I am in
also in dress Elbow is dude, I mean, come on,
just watching for him? Is he a real smoke show?
I heard that last week tonight, I like this. Yeah,
we didn't make that one enough, folks. That's that's all
John Oliver or his writers. So yeah, so we identify
with these people, right. One of in the one of
the most famous examples, of course, is had him Elector
(18:57):
by the third novel, he's pretty much a tortured anti
hero that eats people. Well, that's kind of what I
was getting a too earlier. Is trying to kind of
like come to put my finger on or put a
collective thumbs on what this is. Like, I feel like
that um identifying feature is almost an evolution because, like
(19:18):
you know, earlier serial killer films, typically the killer is
you don't even know who it is. It's just this unseen,
murderous force of chaos and destruction. It's a monster. It's
a monster exactly. But now you know, because we need more,
we have to twist it around to make it where
well we kind of see where this person is coming from.
This that like, I kind of like Dr Lecter. He's interesting,
(19:40):
but isn't that closer to reality? Probably an actual human,
three dimensional character that is doing awful things. It's true,
but it's separated from the fiction part of it. I'm
wondering why the fascination with true crime and grizzly accounts
of crime scenes and um serial killer stories that are
you know, um the subject of lots of nonfiction and
(20:03):
obviously the podcast industry is kind of lousy with the stuff.
Right now, You're welcome, Thanks, thank you one of the
masterminds behind the enormously fascinating Atlanta Monster podcast. Well, what
aspect of it is is we all like we all
(20:26):
like our tragedies at an arm's length, and things like
Penny Dreadfuls were super popular. This um focus on gore
is is somehow linked to our understanding of our own survival.
And I love that you mentioned the evolution from faceless
(20:48):
monster to three dimensional character, because in older days these
things were straight up cautionary tales. Don't go into the woods,
the wolf will lead you. Look at this girl of
ill repute out late the mean streets of London. There's
a lot of victim blaming and this stuff, and it
(21:09):
still happens in horror movies today, and unfortunately it happens
sometimes with victims of real life killers. But I think
part of it. No, you raised a good point when
you said, um, you mentioned superiority. I am not that monster, right,
I am not that victim. If I'm in a horror
(21:30):
movie and I hear a door creek by the front
of the haunted cabin, I get back in my Toyota torcell,
hope it starts and drive away. Certainly, don't run up
the stairs to run or go who's there? You're gonna
fumble the keys, yeah, and then the car will will
(21:50):
choke A boy, you've got four flat tires, buddy. So
maybe it's our way of safely experiencing and exploring these
things and then on the dark side. At some point,
whenever we as individuals see or hear about a crime
(22:12):
or a social transgression, whether it's shoplifting, whether it's cheating
on one spouse, or whether it's like, uh, swindling someone
out of a deal, like we hear about corporate scandals
or something you're about Mark Zuckerberg and whatnot, on some
level we all kind of do a gut check and
run it past ourselves and think would I do that?
(22:36):
You know, in in some cases there's a threshold. It
might be, well, I'm not going to steal ten dollars
from petty cash at a company. But if I steal
a hundred and fifty million and I get an island,
then you know, yeah, maybe maybe I'll just won't have
a Facebook profile. First thing you have to do is
work for a company that has that kind of money.
(22:58):
That's true, that's true. But you see what I'm saying though,
It's like we we we and we ask ourselves. Am
I someone who would kill? What would it take for
me to kill? You know? Like, would I kill to
avenge loss of a relative or a loved one? What
I killed to protect one? That's the answer most people have, right, Yeah,
(23:19):
what I killed just for the thrill of it? Right?
Would I kill if I felt there was a divine
message compelling me to? Like Abraham and the Bible, Yeah,
if God asks you to sacrifice your son, I'm just
gonna go ahead and say please don't, please don't. God
will be okay with it. Yeah. I think it's a
(23:42):
very strange story. But regardless of this fascination, you may
ask yourselves, why are we talking so much about this?
Because we're walking toward something stranger. This lion leonization and
in some cases, deification of serial murders, regardless of what
the motive tion is, leads to strange and disturbing situations.
(24:03):
You know, there are copycat killers, people who use a
ongoing killers activities as a as a cover in some
cases to get away with murder and pin it on
the other person or even an homage to that killer. True. Yeah,
And then there are obsessive fans of incarcerated murderers and
(24:26):
serial killers. They supply prisoners with money, they send books
and other stuff to them, and in some cases they
marry them while they're in prison. Yep. Charles Manson is
a great example of that several times. I believe you're correct, man,
I believe it's he's been married several times. Man. But
(24:48):
that's not all. Here's where it gets crazy. Now we're
entering the world of serial killer memorabilia. What this episode
is all about. It's also called murderabilia, and it's that.
Of course, word has just been the portmant to portmanteau
of the of murder and memorabilia, which is it's fun
to say, So what is what is this? These are relics,
(25:11):
my friend, Yeah, they're relics. They can be any number
of things though right sort of talked about at the
top of the show. But they can be everything. From
an artifact generated by incarcerated serial killer or something they
did when they were out in the world. But that
ups the value a lot if they did it while
they were actually on their spree at large. Right. UM.
A lot of these killers get into crafting, you know,
(25:32):
in there in prison, Like John Wayne Gaycy became an
avid painter UM while he was on death row, and
his paintings to this day are I think some of
the most valuable items in circulation in this pretty small,
close knit community. But it could also be UM artifacts
associated with the murder, like, for example, dirt from John
(25:52):
Wayne Gaycy's crawl space. Um, you can find a pair
of his clown shoes that he wore. UM. I'm not
to make this all about Gaycy, but um, he is
one of the biggest kind of stars of this uh
this scene. There was a um an action figure that
Jeffrey Dahmer made that had human bits baked into it.
(26:14):
Are you serious? Yeah, all kinds of crazy stuff, man.
So basically, anything you can think of that would be
associated with any crime, the more grizzly and the more
kind of outlandish, the better. That's that's that's what we're
talking about. And then there's this whole scene of people
trading this stuff, and there's a lot of interesting legal
(26:35):
ins and outs they go into this whole world, right Ben, Yeah, yeah, No,
all three of us have have seen this stuff firsthand,
but we have seen it in museums, right, Noel, you
went to was it the Murder Museum in California? It's
the Museum of Death Museum in Los Angeles. And and
where did you guys go in d C? I believe
(26:55):
it was the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Cool,
and I think we both saw uh, some stuff from
John Wayne Gacy in those museums. Yes, that's right. Yeah,
ours was like a clown suit and a couple of
other things of his. But it wasn't just serial killers
in the places where we went. It was also the
(27:17):
one about crime in particular. Was you know, the car
from somebody who went on a crime spree that wasn't
exactly a serial killer, but had murdered a bunch of
people crime spree, um, a lot of other things like that. Yeah,
and it's still memorabilia, right, and weapons from killers from
the wild West, things like that. Yeah. The one in
(27:38):
Hollywood is a little more on the prurient side. I
would say, Um, it's filled with things like crime scene
photos of dismembered bodies. Um, a lot of photos taken
by killers themselves. There's one where a couple went on
a spree and like dismembered several victims. I think it
(27:59):
was the woman's ex husband and they like sever the
penis and things like that, and there are photographs of
all this. So this place in particular is not for
the faint of heart. There's a whole room devoted to
old embalming techniques, and there's a video that plays on
a loop of like an old embalming video tutorial that
starts off innocently enough and just gets kind of drop
(28:22):
dead horrendously graphic after a while. Um, but yeah, but
they had. There's a whole room devoted to the Heaven's
Gate called the Marshall Apple White Thing, where there is
kind of a almost a diorama set up where there
is a body in the bed covered with a purple
blanket and uh, apple whites. Um kind of sermons are
(28:42):
playing on a loop on a TV, a little small
VHS TV and it's a bunk bed kind of It's
like a whole meant to recreate the that mass suicide
that happened with the Heaven's Gate cult. So really cool,
really small. Um. I really recommend checking it out. But
it's not for the faint of heart, but really really
interesting stuff. And that the thing that was most interesting
that I saw there was a notebook had letters between
(29:04):
a killer and an art dealer who had been purchasing
this killer's work, and the killer wrote letters back to
this art dealer threatening to sue because they had not
received payment. And there's a real specific reason for why
that might have been, isn't there been? Yes, there is
(29:25):
a very specific reason. Uh. You see, we've talked about
how almost anything could qualifies this stuff. We've talked about
how we have seen this stuff in person in a museum.
But when we get into the world of private collectors,
when we get into this idea of this trade, we
(29:47):
immediately enter a ongoing, an intense debate about legality. Should
it be legal to traffic these items on a private
individual scale or to be more of an Indiana Jones approach?
Can any of us do a good Harrison Ford? No,
I can't. That may be good, yeah, man, your ear
(30:08):
leader at this he's doing a hard shake. I can't
do a Harrison Ford, I don't. I don't know what
well can you do? Get off my plane? Terrorists? Um,
that's great. You've killed my I didn't kill my wife.
Fugitive Right, those are great? Will you say? Will you
(30:29):
say the line um days belonging on museum? There we
go Indiana Joe and slaves and gentlemen? Uh so, yeah?
Should they? Should they be stuck in a museum? And
museums can use this stuff under the auspice of an
educational experience. Right, we are giving you knowledge about times
(30:51):
past and their effect on the presence, for sure. And
I think the key here too is that third party
curatorial kind of aspect, right, And the thing was getting
at um is that the reason that this this person
had not been paid or they would have no legal
recourse to sue the art dealer that was not paying them,
(31:11):
is because it's illegal for perpetrators of crimes like this
too benefit financially from the legacy of their horrific acts.
Known as the son of Sad Longs. Right. Well, it
certainly didn't work out for the National Crime Museum in Washington,
d C. That we visited, because since it has been
permanently closed. Yeah, we really really wrecked the place. But
(31:36):
that's the thing though, it's like how do you get
this stuff? And you know, we'll we'll get into more
of this in a little bit, but some of it
comes from uh, direct involvement, in direct communication with the criminals,
and that's when you start getting into this gray territory
where it's like, how do I entice them to make
work for me? You know, make stuff just for me
(31:57):
so that I can sell it. I mean, someone is literally,
whether it's a dealer or the proprietor of a museum
or what have you benefiting financially from the suffering of
hundreds thousands potentially, Right, and the son of Sam laws
are not not federal yet their state by state and
they're they're a little bit different. We can explore some
of this, but the primary question is should someone who
(32:22):
has committed multiple murders or any murder, should they be
able to profit themselves? Right like this art dealer, Uh,
should they sell a painting for five hundred dollars and
then give four hundred to someone who was a cannibal
or is accountable and just happens to be locked up
(32:42):
now dormant cannibal, a dormant, accountable and waiting. Uh. It's
weird because like with Gaycy, Gaycey is dead, right, So
people who are in this industry can sell this dead
man's stuff to each other. And that is not illegal
right now, but it's frowned upon. In two thousand one,
(33:04):
eBay stopped all of these traffic, all of these sorts
of transactions. As you has remember eBay a while back.
Oh my gosh, two thousand one so long ago. Now
you could buy all kinds of weird stuff. I bought
a haunted accordion, allegedly haunted accordion. I had no idea
that accordion was haunted. It certainly doesn't sound normally. This
(33:28):
guy's sort of a ghostly quality to it. It was
advertised as a haunted accordion. And I'm not going to
say where I was at in life, but it was
pretty late at night, three hours of the morning, and
I said, that's what I need. What's the haunted markup
for an accordion? It's got to be pretty steep. Uh.
It was not my best financial decision. But um, but
(33:49):
that aside, you know, that just says you can That
just shows you can buy anything on eBay, but effective
May seventeen, two thousand one, items associated with quote notorious
and individuals who have committed murderous crimes within the last
one hundred years we're banned. And now the serious traders
started their own websites like super not in a u
(34:12):
g HT dot com, serial Killers Inc. Dot com. And
as we record this, several people, including the u S
Center John Cornyn, are fighting too obliterate this trade. There's
an advocate named Andy Can who is participating with the
(34:32):
with legislators to try to bring this trade to a
legal end. But while they're fighting it, it means that
it's still legal in most cases. I think it was
Can that kind of got eBay to pull the plug
on this stuff, or it was his a lot of
his activism. I think that UM made them, forced them
(34:54):
to make that change. And the first question, the first
question that we run into here is should it be illegal?
Should we stop people from doing this? And if so why?
We'll get to that right after a quick word from
our sponsor. Well, I think the obvious answer is yes,
(35:20):
it should be illegal. At least people think that yes,
it should be illegal. It feels in your gut, maybe
it does. It does feel wrong, and even the eBay
rules sort of point to this, because they they do
still allow the sale of artifacts I think that are
older than a certain um date. I'm not sure exactly
what that is, but something that would be much more
(35:41):
likely to be considered a historical artifact. Um, you know,
like fossils and things like that, right, Um, that is
legal to distribute on eBay, But this stuff is not.
And I think the real reason for that is that
the people affected by this stuff directly are still living.
It is inherently in sense citive, and people are literally
(36:02):
profiting off of the suffering and torture and ruination of
people's lives. Yeah, it does. However, I feel like it
could be and probably is a free speech kind of
issue that you're dealing with here. That's one of the
arguments that the collectors and many many people in support
(36:26):
of this trade, or at least maybe supports weird word
in opposition of banning it and inspanning it. Uh. They
say that if we refuse to provide incentives for criminals
to tell their stories, then accounts of some crimes may
never be fully told. And some of those crimes, like
the JFK assassination was when they bring up maybe a
(36:46):
vital public interest. Personally, it's just one person's opinion. I
think that's a little bit disingenuous. Yeah, well, there's profit
to be made a lot of that. And then and
then to to the point to the art collector correspondence
that that we mentioned earlier, the trade becomes really murky
(37:09):
when we explore how these folks get their items direct contact,
writing to someone corrupt prison guard. Perhaps it does feel
like perhaps there could be a route somewhere in here.
And this is off book, but it feels like there
could be a route somewhere that's working with people who
hold evidence, so law enforcement that holds evidence and putting
(37:31):
it in a museum setting that is not for profit.
So it feels like there's somewhere route there if we
want to maintain it um just for historical record of
things not to do as a society. I could see that. Yeah, yeah,
and that that makes sense. I feel like that's the
(37:52):
approach that the museums we've visited have taken, or at
least I think they're too or like would would say
that that throughout their taking right. Yeah, But when it
comes to the idea of a killer directly profiting off this,
it isn't legal. The Son of Sam laws we've mentioned before,
named after Sam Berkowitz are still state by state. They
(38:14):
came They came into effect when rumors started spreading that
publishers and movie studios were offering sam Berkowitz hundreds of
thousands of dollars for his story, for the rights to
the Son of Sam's story, And obviously you would want
to move to stop that. It's not making someone a
(38:38):
millionaire because they've committed murder. Doesn't seem like the way
a society is supposed to work. And the law was
invoked in New York eleven times between seventy seven and
nineteen seventy seven, and many of these laws currently have
been repealed and replaced by other versions. However, right now
(38:59):
some states still have no active Son of Sam legislation.
This means that in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, South Carolina, and
New Hampshire, it is still legal for anyone to go
to a prison and start some sort of financial relationship
or right to someone and say, hey, send me this,
(39:22):
I'll sell this letter, and then I'll put money in
your your account, your commissary account, all right, well, you
messed up millionaires out there that are really into this stuff,
head on over to one of those states and go
for it. Get get this, you guys. There's a there's
a really crazy article on Vice about this very topic
(39:43):
that starts off with this the description of a group
of three people gathered at an auction house UM in
Illinois called the James Quick Auctioneers. They're gathered around two
dozen paintings that they are burning, setting on fire. And
these paintings were the work of UM convicted and executed
(40:04):
murderer John Wayne Gacey, who killed about two dozen children
boys during his career as a serial killer. UM, and
before he died, his lawyers actually put forty of his
paintings up for auction and sale at this auctioneer's house.
So this was kind of like early early on in
this debate. And uh, it turned out that people were interested,
(40:29):
people were ready to drop, you know, tens of thousands
of dollars to buy this stuff up, and UM, the
people that did buy them up decided they were going
to burn them right there on the premises, UM, so
that the families of Gaycey's victims could have some kind
of closure there Yeah, what do you think about that?
(40:49):
I remember hearing a little bit about this, but I
hadn't looked into it too deeply. What what do you
think about that? Is that the right move he actually allowed?
It was this um Joe Roth and Wall Noble, who
were local businessmen. Um, they invited the families of the
victims to come and actually throw the paintings into the
(41:10):
fire themselves. I think that's pretty admirable. Yeah, it's admirable.
If it does seem like a waste of money, not
a waste of money, it's doing something admirable. It's just
it's crazy that you'd have to spend that much money
to get ahold of it just to burn it, that's true.
And then they're there in lies that kind of conundrum
here because obviously, you know they did have to pay
(41:32):
a fifteen large to get all this stuff. True, and
where does it go? I I'm not sure what the
details are. They're dust in the wind, my friend. Well,
I don't know though. I mean, if if it was
done through Gaycy's lawyers, right does it been does the
money legally have to benefit a charity? Right? Does it
have to go to a fund for the survivors? Or
(41:54):
the relatives of the victims. Hopefully it seems that right
now that stuff is functioning on a case by case basis,
because again there's no are explicit federal law for this.
There have been people who have been banned from visiting prisons.
(42:14):
We found in our research there's a murder bilia trader
named g William Harder who was banned from visiting any
Texas prisons after Texas adopted a son of Sam law
and it was revealed he had been paying murderers directly
for their belongings. So the stuff they don't want you
to know in this case, often it's going to be
(42:36):
where the money is going and how they are obtaining
these items. You know, this is um, this is pretty
I don't know, this is pretty filthy stuff. Setically, it's
a terrible round about avenue to get rich for somebody
who is insane willing to do these things. But then
(42:58):
also some people might be saying it's not about the money,
right They may be saying, we want to keep this
in the public eye. Or I just have a personal
fascination because maybe I felt maybe I lived, says someone
in the California area. When this one serial killer is operative,
and this is an important time in my life. I
(43:19):
get that part of it. What what I'm saying is
a a roundabout way to get rich for the killer
the thing where someone to go like if you're super
poor and you go to jail, but you can sell
all the stuff you murdered all these people with. But
the Son of Sam. Laws like that, you said, they're
different in different states, but is it generally kind of
the law of the land, Like, yeah, it's generally. The
(43:39):
only state that has never had any law like that
is New Hampshire and the ones that the other ones
on that list, they had one and then it got
struck down, but there supposedly working on a new one.
So that's the safeguard. I mean, like you know, in theory,
unless you launder it and figure out some roundabout way
(44:00):
of getting paid, you can't really a state can't really
benefit from this. And I think the big part of
the reason for this law was so that people couldn't
sell the rights to their story to like movies. And
you think you mentioned that at the top of the show. Um,
but people find other ways of getting this stuff, don't they.
Because the if it's coming directly from incarcerated criminals, and
(44:22):
they're making this work, they want to find a way
for it to benefit them while they're alive. Even if
they can't make money directly, people find other ways of
helping them out in order to get this murder bilia, right,
like payment in kind. Let me bring you some stuff, right,
It's like what you were talking about with people actually
being banned from going into prisons, because this is you know,
(44:44):
it's a sketchy territory, right, Yeah, it is, But there
are still legitimate reasons that someone would conduct some of
this stuff. Like the Vice article that that you've mentioned
has a story about a East Coast academic I believe
who's conducting research on school shooters and he buys almost
(45:06):
every school shooter letter that's available because it's part of
his research. So that's one argument. But still it feels
like those moments of understandable rational action for this are
few and far between. I'm not gonna say, I'm not
gonna say impossible, few and far between. And right now,
(45:27):
even though it's it's sort of a hidden industry, right now,
you can go, should you so choose, to these websites
and you can find you can find all sorts of
stuff on offer, be aware that some of it could
quite possibly be fraudulent. You can't speak to it, and
then you have to ask yourself, is it worse if
(45:47):
it's fraudulent, or it's worse Is it worse if it's real?
So the harder. The guy we have mentioned who got
banned um he noted that he has a minimum of
a thousand active users on his website. There are probably
a lot of people who just read about this, you know,
(46:08):
or vicariously experienced it. I will say, I don't know
what you guys think, but I will say, after researching
this episode, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not
getting I'm not getting you guys anything like this for
for your birthdays. Yeah, I'm good, Thank you, I really
appreciate it. Thanks for thinking about us, and likewise, not
to be too much of a diva, but please just
(46:31):
no sericular stuff for me either. A right, And here's
the thing, no matter what kind of laws get past,
this is gonna this trade is going to continue. Yeah,
black markets, gray markets. I think there are ways around it,
and it will continue to happen, and it's it's impossible
to stamp it out because the only way you can
stamp this stuff out. The most effective way to do
(46:53):
it would be denying incarcerated prisoners any and all access
of any sort to the outside world. But even then,
you've got sisters, brothers, fathers, other members of families of
killers who may need money, who are free. I see
what you're saying. You know, I don't know. Then what
would you do? You would have to entirely violate human rights?
(47:17):
What here's a question, Um, what about folks that let's
say I wanted to design a line of serial killer
themed trading cards or a line of really high detailed
serial killer themed action figures. Who do I have to
pay for the right to do that? Do I have
to pay anyone? Am I allowed to do that? If?
(47:38):
If I'm making it and paying for myself and selling
it direct, how does that work? Yeah? Who owns the
i P of serial killers? That's the thing, because it
is public domain? I mean, the stuff was reported in
the public and obviously the killers themselves can't benefit from
the i P of their image. They are public figures.
I think you know, oddly, Duff the action figure every
(48:00):
thing might might be an easier route because of the
trading cards, depending on the image you use. I might
have to pay somebody on that, unless unless it's a
mug shot ors. That's right, that's right. But I'm actually
I looked this up just now. Just look up serial
killer action figures. There are a ton of them out there,
bobble heads, action figures, um plush dolls. There's a Jeffrey Dahmer.
(48:20):
It's called the Peekaboo Jeffrey Dahmer sleigh set, and it
is Jeffrey Dahmer in his prison reds. You know, the
full body suit with the ankle, you know, cuffs and
everything on, and it comes with a little bucket of
like it's meant to be acid, I guess because he
would dissolve bodies and acid. God. Yeah, it's it's pretty
(48:42):
pretty hideous and tasteless. But is it is it? Is
it legal? You know? I mean I think it is
probably is technically, And there are some people who go
further and say is it art? Which is an argument
maybe for another day, But yeah, you're absolutely right, it is.
It is legal. People are doing it. You don't have
to pay for the rights to a real person. You
(49:07):
would have to go through a bunch of licensing stuff
to make. It's actually more difficult to make an action
figure of say Mike Myers or Jason Vorhees than it
is for Jeffrey Dahmer or something much because the licensed
holders of those properties have like people they pay to
look around online constantly for people doing like derivative kind
of like. There's a lot of fan communities that make
(49:30):
t shirts and prints based on popular products, and they
can very easily get shut down if they're you know,
making money off of it. But a lot of times
the studios and stuff will let that stuff ride. But not, No,
it's not the case. I don't think with that's a
real kick in the pants, you know, because these are
horrible people and they get action figures. There are any
(49:50):
action figures of us. We can change that. You know.
There's a place of the de Cab Mall here in Atlanta,
the North to Cab Mall where you can get a
three D photograph taking of VI, you and your family
and they will print it into an action figure set
of you and your of your family. Did you do
it now? I haven't done it yet, but I'm I'm interested.
We've got to do We should do it for the
for the team. We should do it? We should. Uh,
(50:12):
let's see Paul, would you be interested in that? Yeah, oh,
we got a pretty enthusiastic nod from Paul. Mission controled decade.
So send us some links and and let us know
as well. What what do you think? Where do you
fall in this debate? Do you believe that it is
(50:33):
unethical and we should do anything possible as a society
to prevent this trade. Do you believe that the past
is the past and that these things should be allowed
to freely float through the world as they will. Should
they only be in museum's? Should they be destroyed entirely?
(50:54):
Should we obliterate the traces of these people, you know,
like the way the Chinese government obliterated traces of people
in Tianamen Square right, or the way Stalin erased people
from photographs. Wow, when you think about it that way,
it seems like maybe we shouldn't. But anyway, what can
(51:15):
you think? What do you think? As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. You can let us know
on Instagram where we are conspiracy stuff show, or Twitter
or Facebook where we are conspiracy stuff. Definitely put all
of your information into Facebook and talk to us there
because your data is completely safe, but it is a
great way to talk to us, especially especially on our
(51:37):
here's where it gets crazy. Uh what do we call
that our page where we can all hang out. We've
been doing all kinds of stuff on there lately. Um,
and just remember, if you are going to go there, um,
be inquisitive, be you can be intense, don't you Just yeah,
that's it, okay, because we will destroy you. We will
wipe all traces of you from the group. Oh gosh, okay.
(52:00):
So we're not about just putting this out there. We
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that you just don't want to say. If you do
want to say things that maybe you are are worried
about putting on a message board, you can say them
into a microphone attached to a phone by calling us.
We are one eight three three st d w y
(52:21):
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So give us a call, like, do it, do it
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They have those things. Send us an email. We are
(52:42):
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They call me Ben. You are here,
You are you, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. Featuring, of course, our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled Decond, who I have a have it
on good authority, has never himself purchased something involved with
(00:46):
the murder. Oh well, that's nice. That is certainly a
claim to fame that Paul can attest to. He's got
a whole heck of a lot of cool posters though
from movies, right right, and then murders may occur in
those works of fiction, they definitely do. But Mission Control
is not the kind of cat to go out and
(01:07):
read about maybe a series of stabbings and say I
need to buy that knife, I want a piece of
that action. I want a shoe from a victim or
something like that. Yeah, I was I couldn't believe that
that existed before we did this episode. Ben. It's a
weird thing. Of course, Paul, I promised we will stop
(01:30):
using you as an example that, as far as we know,
none of us, Paul included, have purchased this sort of
memorabilia previously on stuff they want you to know. We
had explored numerous stories of serial killers, specific cases such
as our unfortunately ongoing uncought serial killer series, and larger
(01:53):
phenomena such as the Highway of Tears or even the
East Area rapist slash original night Stalker. Right right, Uh,
D'Angelo had just been caught, and we had mentioned this,
I think just briefly in a in an earlier episode.
We might have to do an entire follow up on
that because it leads to some wide reaching implications for
(02:15):
genetic testing DNA basis. Didn't we do a whole episode
on the We did a whole original We did? We did, Yeah,
and uh, we wondered whether he would be caught. We
did speculate on his age, and overall we we weren't wrong.
Remember we said he might be listening. He could have
been listening. That's true. He could have. I don't know
(02:37):
if he's a fan of podcast allegedly as a recluse,
but they found him through some relatives DNA. Well, we'll
we'll dig into that, so stay tuned. One thing's for sure, though,
there are probably going to be people who attempt to
um to associate themselves with this in one way or another.
(03:00):
You know, it's a it's a very cold comfort for
the surviving victims, and it's a it's a closure point
for people who spent years, decades of unpaid time investigating this.
Today we're touching on serial killers, but in a little
bit of a different way. We're not looking at so
many specific cases, and we're not tracing murders themselves. Instead,
(03:23):
we're exploring an industry that sprang up around these grizzly tragedies,
a monetization of monsters made flesh. And here are the facts.
We've already explored how law enforcement and criminologists defined serial killers,
along with the problems inherent in that definition, and the
difference between the way these murders are depicted in fiction
and the way they actually behave. But we haven't explored
(03:47):
the other side of the dark mirror. We haven't looked
at the public fascination with these crimes and the public
fascination with the people who commit them. Yeah, and this
stuff probably might let's say, might not apply to you,
but it's overwhelmingly likely that somebody you are an acquaintance with.
(04:08):
Harbor's this weird curiosity. I say weird for me and
for I guess for the social mores of the world.
It is a bit strange, this fascination with serial killer killers, murderers,
people who go out and take lives. Um. People like
this read exhaustive biographies. They read accounts of the the
actual killers activities, what occurs before the m o of
(04:32):
the killer. Um. They can likely compare differences in motivation
between killers and execution and apprehension for multiple killers. So
we're talking about someone who's able to say, well, the
difference between John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer is the following. Yeah,
and would will sit down with you at a bar
and tell you the differences for an hour. I have
(04:55):
been guilty of that. Yeah, I think, And UM, I
think everybody has that fascination to some degree, right, Yeah,
because it is so different from normal everyday activities. Yeah.
And there's a book we found from called Why We
Love Serial Killers, in which criminologist Dr Scott Bond explores
(05:17):
the nature of this and he notes the same things
we've seen in previous arguments about this. Fascination says there's
a difference between perceptions of killers and reality. Uh. And
he does a lot of myth busting in this book.
If you were at all interested in this topic, we
highly recommend it. One of the myths bust is that
the majority of serial killers are believed to be white males. However,
(05:41):
according to the FBI, the race by race, the racial
breakdown of serial killers is about the same proportion as
that of the US population at large, and based on
the Radford University serial Killer database, which holy smokes, is
a real thing. Uh, only forty six of serial killers
since nineteen have been white men. And that's using data
(06:04):
for a little less than four thousand killers, or maybe
right at four thousand now that they've added the night stalker.
Here's a thing, you know, none of us, including Paul
michelin Man mission Control, decond own any of this um
these keepsakes of any kind of serial killer. And yet
I'm I'm fond of serial killer movies. I'm not as
(06:27):
into true crime as it would seem literally everyone else
on the planet is. But it is obviously a huge
booming business. Where do you think that fascination comes from
that makes you know, the average Jane and John Doe
off the street want to kind of dig into some
of the stuff, whether it's in reading books about it right,
listen to true crime podcast, watching films, or you know,
(06:49):
exploring some of this uh this darkness. Yeah, and we
have to we'll stick with this perception of of serial
killers being overwhelmingly white and male to hit on this
because when we bring up fiction in the zeitgeist, what
we see is that even if the facts bear out
that not all these killers or white males, the ones
(07:11):
who get remembered in pop culture do tend to be
white male killers, and Bond has a couple of theories
about this. He says the gender difference may come down
to a matter of method. Female killers, in his argument,
tend to be less uh use less gory methods like
(07:31):
poison and rather than shooting. But one of the most
famous or infamous female serial killers in the U s,
Eileen Wornos, was murdering people with a gun. Bond thinks
that's the reason why she reached fame. But only nine percent,
around nine percent of serial killer since nineteen ten have
been women, uh have been African American, and few have
(07:55):
achieved celebrity status. There's the disturbing thing there is it
choice of victims. Bond believes most serial killers tend to
kill within their own race, and that white victims, especially
white female victims, usually get wider media attentions. So there's
a there's a loop here between victims and killers and
the media. And so this racial bias, as disturbing as
(08:18):
it is, is real, and according to Bond, he says,
although it may not seem fair, affluent white neighborhoods are
given priority over poor black or Latino neighborhoods by state
officials in the assignment of valuable policing resources. This negatively
impacts the ability of law enforcement personnel to pursue serial
murder cases in poor racial minority communities. So society is
(08:40):
valuing these victims less and it's making as a result, uh,
it's making the crimes terrific as this sounds, uh, be
presented or perceived as somehow less important. And this means
that the infamy of the killer also becomes lower. Yeah,
(09:01):
because they're they're not spending the resources to catch the
people that do them. And when you're not spending the
resources to catch them, you're not getting the media attention.
You're not. I mean, there's all he Bond makes all
these unfortunate points about the reality of our situation racial bifurcation,
and so there to that point, if we if we
(09:23):
use this information and we we ask ourselves the same
question Noel was asking. You're asking about fascination with serial killers.
We have to ask ourselves, does this mean we are
more fascinated with a stereotype rather than an actual phenomenon.
But we can't go too far, too fast down that path,
because it turns out there's solid evidence for the American
(09:45):
obsession with serial killers, and it's not particularly promising news.
There have been more than d serial killers in the
US since nineteen hundred. England, who has the next highest total,
has had only hundred and forty two twenty two. We
also in the States have higher rates of violent crime,
(10:09):
and that might be why some killers are more famous
than others, because again throughout the world, even though serial
killers exist in other countries throughout the world, when people
picture a serial killer, they usually picture either Jack the
Ripper or someone from the States. Yeah, this is highly bothersome,
this American obsession with it, And I wonder how much.
(10:30):
You know, there's there are all things that we can
we can go down, and there's there's more that we're
getting in here about fiction, about Americans obsession with fictionalizing
these kinds of things. It does feel like the advent
of the film industry in the United States probably is
linked with with this. But yes, that I was getting
(10:51):
at it's like we're not obsessed with it and that
we empathize with killers or that we see ourselves in
serial Killer. I think there's some part of us that
maybe is fascinated because it makes us feel superior in
some way. It's like we do not have this compulsion
or you know, I'm wondering. I'm asking you guys, like,
where where do you think it comes from? Because I've
always kind of been stuck on that because it is
(11:11):
so grizzly and unpleasant, and yet it is something that
seems to catch people's imaginations, you know, the world over. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's true that many of the stories, the way
they're presented, whether by just the facts Criminologist, or whether
by the film industry, they all have the marks of
gripping fiction. High stakes danger, fire knives, mysteries, and clear
(11:36):
heroes and villains often right, and research shows I think
this is pretty fascinating. Research shows that there are a
couple of groups of people who enjoy these graphic, frightening stories,
and they can have a number of very different motivations.
The study from about adolescence said that some were gore watchers,
(12:00):
meaning they professed and and like a confidential environment that
they were watching horrific movies because they enjoyed the blood
and guts. They tend to have low levels of empathy,
strong need for adventure seeking. And then there were thrill
watchers who got the adrenaline Russia, being scared, that roller coaster,
feeling right, and they have high levels of adventure seeking,
(12:23):
but they also have, you know, high levels of empathy.
And the gore watchers identified with the killers rather than
the victims. The thrill watchers identified with neither the I
guess you would say they identify with the plot. You know.
Just so it's not just um all in our minds,
our spartphones are television. There's a physiological thing that happens here.
(12:46):
Just like we talked about dopamine and social media. You
get a increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, increased blood
glucose levels, and you also get again a fit a
dose dopamine when you're watching these things. It's the neurotransmitter
famously associated with pleasure, mainly food and sex, but also
(13:07):
occurs during time times of fear, and it's good for
our survival. I mean, we don't have to go true
granular here, but there is physiological evidence and so in
a very real way, depictions of serial killers can function
for adults the way that monster movies function for kids. Well, yeah,
(13:27):
my son writer is a bit too young to do
this kind of thing, although he we did recently watch
Toy Story in which there's that the little kid next
door that tortures toys. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah,
it's scarier than I had remembered. And you know, about
two and a half it's like, okay, maybe we shouldn't
(13:48):
watch something like this anymore. But of course, you know,
he can handle something that has a a monster monster
just fine, and he thinks it's fun, not you know,
nothing to graphic, but something like Wanna that has a
big volcano monster in it. You just think it's because
it's I don't know, it's it's not as real as
a little kid that's actually scary. How do you handle Halloween?
(14:11):
I don't know about you guys, but for me as
a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. And it has
some scary themes in there that maybe don't really hit
you when you're when you're a child. Well, yeah, at
his age, you just kind of have to keep him
away from it a lot of it. But there's you know,
dressed up like a dragon. Come on, that's fun because
your kids a bit a little bit older. Yeah, Shell,
(14:33):
she dressed up as a creepy um dead doll last
year with like corpse makeup on stuff. She's not. But
she also dressed up as Satan when she was only four,
so she's got a she's got a history creepy, creepy
Halloween costumes. She's all about the spooky stuff except when
(14:53):
she's not. Except when it's too much. She likes to
control it, you know what I mean. And that's the thing.
Sometimes you don't know, like that seen in toy story
to one kid who could be totally fine, the kid,
it could traumatize them for life, you know. Well, just
to jump back into the dopamine dosing that people get
from watching this kind of fiction and experiencing it through
a crime drama on television or UM some of the
(15:15):
murder shows that exist throughout it is. It's really interesting
to me that that you can sit on your couch,
or you can sit in a movie theater and get
those same feelings that you would if you were out
having a fantastical meal somewhere, or let's say, being amorous
with your your loved one. UM and we talked in
our Hidden Brain episodes about this is one of the
(15:38):
one of the reasons that horror movies are so good
for that kind of date situation, because it's causing these
things to occur in your brain. But when you get
into the mind of some of the adolescents who are
the gore watchers, that frightens me. It feels like there
needs to be some kind of process of uh cataloging
(16:02):
the gore watchers. Oh that sounds awful when I say
it out loud, but I feel like they should. They
should at least be on the radar. I don't know.
You know, it's now more than ever it's possible to
do something like that. But the question is should we
agreed as a society. But they're always saving lives anyway,
(16:23):
where where does this all leave us? This physiological stuff,
it's real. The stereotypes are real, the facts are remain disturbing.
We'll explore this after a word from our sponsors. And
what we see now is that the mythical killers, those
(16:44):
who don't fit into the existing sort of narrative, are
becoming separated from the facts of their cases. So with
each new film, novel, or other fictional iteration about someone
like h Ed Gaing right the loose bags for the
Texas Chainsaw massacre film, the franchise, any part of the
(17:05):
story that doesn't fit into the mold of deranged, middle
aged white guy, possibly with a dark secret. Any any
stuff that doesn't fit there is just shed. It's just
on the cutting room floor, and the stereotype becomes more streamlined.
And now there's this increasing trend. I'm really interested in
in hearing opinions on this. There's this increasing trend of
(17:26):
serial killers as protagonist. I watched Dexter. I thought it
was cool for the first few seasons, and then it
jumped the shark pretty seriously. Yeah, well there's another one.
Did you guys watch Luther at all? I like Luther
a lot. The Alice Morgan character from the first episode.
I won't spoil it too much because it's relatively new,
but it's a straight up serial killer that becomes the
(17:50):
love interest. Like what, Yeah, it's sort of like one
of those like tortured loves too or is this forbidden
love kind of situation? And she's a threat to him
as well, Yeah, pretty pretty constantly. No, I see what
you're saying. And she is designed. That character is designed
to make you to to kind of appeal to you,
do to make you like see from her side, you know,
(18:11):
because even now we'll be getting too much in the spoiltarritories.
But some of the crimes that she commits, she has
this really intense rationalization for committing that you almost can
kind of buy into in a way. It's weird. Well
that's what all of these do. I am so excited
to watch this show. No, that's very good. Um so
behind behind the curtain, both Matt and Will have much
much better taste than me in general. So if you
(18:35):
guys have some advice on the show, I am in
also in dress Elbow is dude, I mean, come on,
just watching for him? Is he a real smoke show?
I heard that last week tonight, I like this. Yeah,
we didn't make that one enough, folks. That's that's all
John Oliver or his writers. So yeah, so we identify
with these people, right. One of in the one of
the most famous examples, of course, is had him Elector
(18:57):
by the third novel, he's pretty much a tortured anti
hero that eats people. Well, that's kind of what I
was getting a too earlier. Is trying to kind of
like come to put my finger on or put a
collective thumbs on what this is. Like, I feel like
that um identifying feature is almost an evolution because, like
(19:18):
you know, earlier serial killer films, typically the killer is
you don't even know who it is. It's just this unseen,
murderous force of chaos and destruction. It's a monster. It's
a monster exactly. But now you know, because we need more,
we have to twist it around to make it where
well we kind of see where this person is coming from.
This that like, I kind of like Dr Lecter. He's interesting,
(19:40):
but isn't that closer to reality? Probably an actual human,
three dimensional character that is doing awful things. It's true,
but it's separated from the fiction part of it. I'm
wondering why the fascination with true crime and grizzly accounts
of crime scenes and um serial killer stories that are
you know, um the subject of lots of nonfiction and
(20:03):
obviously the podcast industry is kind of lousy with the stuff.
Right now, You're welcome, Thanks, thank you one of the
masterminds behind the enormously fascinating Atlanta Monster podcast. Well, what
aspect of it is is we all like we all
(20:26):
like our tragedies at an arm's length, and things like
Penny Dreadfuls were super popular. This um focus on gore
is is somehow linked to our understanding of our own survival.
And I love that you mentioned the evolution from faceless
(20:48):
monster to three dimensional character, because in older days these
things were straight up cautionary tales. Don't go into the woods,
the wolf will lead you. Look at this girl of
ill repute out late the mean streets of London. There's
a lot of victim blaming and this stuff, and it
(21:09):
still happens in horror movies today, and unfortunately it happens
sometimes with victims of real life killers. But I think
part of it. No, you raised a good point when
you said, um, you mentioned superiority. I am not that monster, right,
I am not that victim. If I'm in a horror
(21:30):
movie and I hear a door creek by the front
of the haunted cabin, I get back in my Toyota torcell,
hope it starts and drive away. Certainly, don't run up
the stairs to run or go who's there? You're gonna
fumble the keys, yeah, and then the car will will
(21:50):
choke A boy, you've got four flat tires, buddy. So
maybe it's our way of safely experiencing and exploring these
things and then on the dark side. At some point,
whenever we as individuals see or hear about a crime
(22:12):
or a social transgression, whether it's shoplifting, whether it's cheating
on one spouse, or whether it's like, uh, swindling someone
out of a deal, like we hear about corporate scandals
or something you're about Mark Zuckerberg and whatnot, on some
level we all kind of do a gut check and
run it past ourselves and think would I do that?
(22:36):
You know, in in some cases there's a threshold. It
might be, well, I'm not going to steal ten dollars
from petty cash at a company. But if I steal
a hundred and fifty million and I get an island,
then you know, yeah, maybe maybe I'll just won't have
a Facebook profile. First thing you have to do is
work for a company that has that kind of money.
(22:58):
That's true, that's true. But you see what I'm saying though,
It's like we we we and we ask ourselves. Am
I someone who would kill? What would it take for
me to kill? You know? Like, would I kill to
avenge loss of a relative or a loved one? What
I killed to protect one? That's the answer most people have, right, Yeah,
(23:19):
what I killed just for the thrill of it? Right?
Would I kill if I felt there was a divine
message compelling me to? Like Abraham and the Bible, Yeah,
if God asks you to sacrifice your son, I'm just
gonna go ahead and say please don't, please don't. God
will be okay with it. Yeah. I think it's a
(23:42):
very strange story. But regardless of this fascination, you may
ask yourselves, why are we talking so much about this?
Because we're walking toward something stranger. This lion leonization and
in some cases, deification of serial murders, regardless of what
the motive tion is, leads to strange and disturbing situations.
(24:03):
You know, there are copycat killers, people who use a
ongoing killers activities as a as a cover in some
cases to get away with murder and pin it on
the other person or even an homage to that killer. True. Yeah,
And then there are obsessive fans of incarcerated murderers and
(24:26):
serial killers. They supply prisoners with money, they send books
and other stuff to them, and in some cases they
marry them while they're in prison. Yep. Charles Manson is
a great example of that several times. I believe you're correct, man,
I believe it's he's been married several times. Man. But
(24:48):
that's not all. Here's where it gets crazy. Now we're
entering the world of serial killer memorabilia. What this episode
is all about. It's also called murderabilia, and it's that.
Of course, word has just been the portmant to portmanteau
of the of murder and memorabilia, which is it's fun
to say, So what is what is this? These are relics,
(25:11):
my friend, Yeah, they're relics. They can be any number
of things though right sort of talked about at the
top of the show. But they can be everything. From
an artifact generated by incarcerated serial killer or something they
did when they were out in the world. But that
ups the value a lot if they did it while
they were actually on their spree at large. Right. UM.
A lot of these killers get into crafting, you know,
(25:32):
in there in prison, Like John Wayne Gaycy became an
avid painter UM while he was on death row, and
his paintings to this day are I think some of
the most valuable items in circulation in this pretty small,
close knit community. But it could also be UM artifacts
associated with the murder, like, for example, dirt from John
(25:52):
Wayne Gaycy's crawl space. Um, you can find a pair
of his clown shoes that he wore. UM. I'm not
to make this all about Gaycy, but um, he is
one of the biggest kind of stars of this uh
this scene. There was a um an action figure that
Jeffrey Dahmer made that had human bits baked into it.
(26:14):
Are you serious? Yeah, all kinds of crazy stuff, man.
So basically, anything you can think of that would be
associated with any crime, the more grizzly and the more
kind of outlandish, the better. That's that's that's what we're
talking about. And then there's this whole scene of people
trading this stuff, and there's a lot of interesting legal
(26:35):
ins and outs they go into this whole world, right Ben, Yeah, yeah, No,
all three of us have have seen this stuff firsthand,
but we have seen it in museums, right, Noel, you
went to was it the Murder Museum in California? It's
the Museum of Death Museum in Los Angeles. And and
where did you guys go in d C? I believe
(26:55):
it was the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Cool,
and I think we both saw uh, some stuff from
John Wayne Gacy in those museums. Yes, that's right. Yeah,
ours was like a clown suit and a couple of
other things of his. But it wasn't just serial killers
in the places where we went. It was also the
(27:17):
one about crime in particular. Was you know, the car
from somebody who went on a crime spree that wasn't
exactly a serial killer, but had murdered a bunch of
people crime spree, um, a lot of other things like that. Yeah,
and it's still memorabilia, right, and weapons from killers from
the wild West, things like that. Yeah. The one in
(27:38):
Hollywood is a little more on the prurient side. I
would say, Um, it's filled with things like crime scene
photos of dismembered bodies. Um, a lot of photos taken
by killers themselves. There's one where a couple went on
a spree and like dismembered several victims. I think it
(27:59):
was the woman's ex husband and they like sever the
penis and things like that, and there are photographs of
all this. So this place in particular is not for
the faint of heart. There's a whole room devoted to
old embalming techniques, and there's a video that plays on
a loop of like an old embalming video tutorial that
starts off innocently enough and just gets kind of drop
(28:22):
dead horrendously graphic after a while. Um, but yeah, but
they had. There's a whole room devoted to the Heaven's
Gate called the Marshall Apple White Thing, where there is
kind of a almost a diorama set up where there
is a body in the bed covered with a purple
blanket and uh, apple whites. Um kind of sermons are
(28:42):
playing on a loop on a TV, a little small
VHS TV and it's a bunk bed kind of It's
like a whole meant to recreate the that mass suicide
that happened with the Heaven's Gate cult. So really cool,
really small. Um. I really recommend checking it out. But
it's not for the faint of heart, but really really
interesting stuff. And that the thing that was most interesting
that I saw there was a notebook had letters between
(29:04):
a killer and an art dealer who had been purchasing
this killer's work, and the killer wrote letters back to
this art dealer threatening to sue because they had not
received payment. And there's a real specific reason for why
that might have been, isn't there been? Yes, there is
(29:25):
a very specific reason. Uh. You see, we've talked about
how almost anything could qualifies this stuff. We've talked about
how we have seen this stuff in person in a museum.
But when we get into the world of private collectors,
when we get into this idea of this trade, we
(29:47):
immediately enter a ongoing, an intense debate about legality. Should
it be legal to traffic these items on a private
individual scale or to be more of an Indiana Jones approach?
Can any of us do a good Harrison Ford? No,
I can't. That may be good, yeah, man, your ear
(30:08):
leader at this he's doing a hard shake. I can't
do a Harrison Ford, I don't. I don't know what
well can you do? Get off my plane? Terrorists? Um,
that's great. You've killed my I didn't kill my wife.
Fugitive Right, those are great? Will you say? Will you
(30:29):
say the line um days belonging on museum? There we
go Indiana Joe and slaves and gentlemen? Uh so, yeah?
Should they? Should they be stuck in a museum? And
museums can use this stuff under the auspice of an
educational experience. Right, we are giving you knowledge about times
(30:51):
past and their effect on the presence, for sure. And
I think the key here too is that third party
curatorial kind of aspect, right, And the thing was getting
at um is that the reason that this this person
had not been paid or they would have no legal
recourse to sue the art dealer that was not paying them,
(31:11):
is because it's illegal for perpetrators of crimes like this
too benefit financially from the legacy of their horrific acts.
Known as the son of Sad Longs. Right. Well, it
certainly didn't work out for the National Crime Museum in Washington,
d C. That we visited, because since it has been
permanently closed. Yeah, we really really wrecked the place. But
(31:36):
that's the thing though, it's like how do you get
this stuff? And you know, we'll we'll get into more
of this in a little bit, but some of it
comes from uh, direct involvement, in direct communication with the criminals,
and that's when you start getting into this gray territory
where it's like, how do I entice them to make
work for me? You know, make stuff just for me
(31:57):
so that I can sell it. I mean, someone is literally,
whether it's a dealer or the proprietor of a museum
or what have you benefiting financially from the suffering of
hundreds thousands potentially, Right, and the son of Sam laws
are not not federal yet their state by state and
they're they're a little bit different. We can explore some
of this, but the primary question is should someone who
(32:22):
has committed multiple murders or any murder, should they be
able to profit themselves? Right like this art dealer, Uh,
should they sell a painting for five hundred dollars and
then give four hundred to someone who was a cannibal
or is accountable and just happens to be locked up
(32:42):
now dormant cannibal, a dormant, accountable and waiting. Uh. It's
weird because like with Gaycy, Gaycey is dead, right, So
people who are in this industry can sell this dead
man's stuff to each other. And that is not illegal
right now, but it's frowned upon. In two thousand one,
(33:04):
eBay stopped all of these traffic, all of these sorts
of transactions. As you has remember eBay a while back.
Oh my gosh, two thousand one so long ago. Now
you could buy all kinds of weird stuff. I bought
a haunted accordion, allegedly haunted accordion. I had no idea
that accordion was haunted. It certainly doesn't sound normally. This
(33:28):
guy's sort of a ghostly quality to it. It was
advertised as a haunted accordion. And I'm not going to
say where I was at in life, but it was
pretty late at night, three hours of the morning, and
I said, that's what I need. What's the haunted markup
for an accordion? It's got to be pretty steep. Uh.
It was not my best financial decision. But um, but
(33:49):
that aside, you know, that just says you can That
just shows you can buy anything on eBay, but effective
May seventeen, two thousand one, items associated with quote notorious
and individuals who have committed murderous crimes within the last
one hundred years we're banned. And now the serious traders
started their own websites like super not in a u
(34:12):
g HT dot com, serial Killers Inc. Dot com. And
as we record this, several people, including the u S
Center John Cornyn, are fighting too obliterate this trade. There's
an advocate named Andy Can who is participating with the
(34:32):
with legislators to try to bring this trade to a
legal end. But while they're fighting it, it means that
it's still legal in most cases. I think it was
Can that kind of got eBay to pull the plug
on this stuff, or it was his a lot of
his activism. I think that UM made them, forced them
(34:54):
to make that change. And the first question, the first
question that we run into here is should it be illegal?
Should we stop people from doing this? And if so why?
We'll get to that right after a quick word from
our sponsor. Well, I think the obvious answer is yes,
(35:20):
it should be illegal. At least people think that yes,
it should be illegal. It feels in your gut, maybe
it does. It does feel wrong, and even the eBay
rules sort of point to this, because they they do
still allow the sale of artifacts I think that are
older than a certain um date. I'm not sure exactly
what that is, but something that would be much more
(35:41):
likely to be considered a historical artifact. Um, you know,
like fossils and things like that, right, Um, that is
legal to distribute on eBay, But this stuff is not.
And I think the real reason for that is that
the people affected by this stuff directly are still living.
It is inherently in sense citive, and people are literally
(36:02):
profiting off of the suffering and torture and ruination of
people's lives. Yeah, it does. However, I feel like it
could be and probably is a free speech kind of
issue that you're dealing with here. That's one of the
arguments that the collectors and many many people in support
(36:26):
of this trade, or at least maybe supports weird word
in opposition of banning it and inspanning it. Uh. They
say that if we refuse to provide incentives for criminals
to tell their stories, then accounts of some crimes may
never be fully told. And some of those crimes, like
the JFK assassination was when they bring up maybe a
(36:46):
vital public interest. Personally, it's just one person's opinion. I
think that's a little bit disingenuous. Yeah, well, there's profit
to be made a lot of that. And then and
then to to the point to the art collector correspondence
that that we mentioned earlier, the trade becomes really murky
(37:09):
when we explore how these folks get their items direct contact,
writing to someone corrupt prison guard. Perhaps it does feel
like perhaps there could be a route somewhere in here.
And this is off book, but it feels like there
could be a route somewhere that's working with people who
hold evidence, so law enforcement that holds evidence and putting
(37:31):
it in a museum setting that is not for profit.
So it feels like there's somewhere route there if we
want to maintain it um just for historical record of
things not to do as a society. I could see that. Yeah, yeah,
and that that makes sense. I feel like that's the
(37:52):
approach that the museums we've visited have taken, or at
least I think they're too or like would would say
that that throughout their taking right. Yeah, But when it
comes to the idea of a killer directly profiting off this,
it isn't legal. The Son of Sam laws we've mentioned before,
named after Sam Berkowitz are still state by state. They
(38:14):
came They came into effect when rumors started spreading that
publishers and movie studios were offering sam Berkowitz hundreds of
thousands of dollars for his story, for the rights to
the Son of Sam's story, And obviously you would want
to move to stop that. It's not making someone a
(38:38):
millionaire because they've committed murder. Doesn't seem like the way
a society is supposed to work. And the law was
invoked in New York eleven times between seventy seven and
nineteen seventy seven, and many of these laws currently have
been repealed and replaced by other versions. However, right now
(38:59):
some states still have no active Son of Sam legislation.
This means that in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, South Carolina, and
New Hampshire, it is still legal for anyone to go
to a prison and start some sort of financial relationship
or right to someone and say, hey, send me this,
(39:22):
I'll sell this letter, and then I'll put money in
your your account, your commissary account, all right, well, you
messed up millionaires out there that are really into this stuff,
head on over to one of those states and go
for it. Get get this, you guys. There's a there's
a really crazy article on Vice about this very topic
(39:43):
that starts off with this the description of a group
of three people gathered at an auction house UM in
Illinois called the James Quick Auctioneers. They're gathered around two
dozen paintings that they are burning, setting on fire. And
these paintings were the work of UM convicted and executed
(40:04):
murderer John Wayne Gacey, who killed about two dozen children
boys during his career as a serial killer. UM, and
before he died, his lawyers actually put forty of his
paintings up for auction and sale at this auctioneer's house.
So this was kind of like early early on in
this debate. And uh, it turned out that people were interested,
(40:29):
people were ready to drop, you know, tens of thousands
of dollars to buy this stuff up, and UM, the
people that did buy them up decided they were going
to burn them right there on the premises, UM, so
that the families of Gaycey's victims could have some kind
of closure there Yeah, what do you think about that?
(40:49):
I remember hearing a little bit about this, but I
hadn't looked into it too deeply. What what do you
think about that? Is that the right move he actually allowed?
It was this um Joe Roth and Wall Noble, who
were local businessmen. Um, they invited the families of the
victims to come and actually throw the paintings into the
(41:10):
fire themselves. I think that's pretty admirable. Yeah, it's admirable.
If it does seem like a waste of money, not
a waste of money, it's doing something admirable. It's just
it's crazy that you'd have to spend that much money
to get ahold of it just to burn it, that's true.
And then they're there in lies that kind of conundrum
here because obviously, you know they did have to pay
(41:32):
a fifteen large to get all this stuff. True, and
where does it go? I I'm not sure what the
details are. They're dust in the wind, my friend. Well,
I don't know though. I mean, if if it was
done through Gaycy's lawyers, right does it been does the
money legally have to benefit a charity? Right? Does it
have to go to a fund for the survivors? Or
(41:54):
the relatives of the victims. Hopefully it seems that right
now that stuff is functioning on a case by case basis,
because again there's no are explicit federal law for this.
There have been people who have been banned from visiting prisons.
(42:14):
We found in our research there's a murder bilia trader
named g William Harder who was banned from visiting any
Texas prisons after Texas adopted a son of Sam law
and it was revealed he had been paying murderers directly
for their belongings. So the stuff they don't want you
to know in this case, often it's going to be
(42:36):
where the money is going and how they are obtaining
these items. You know, this is um, this is pretty
I don't know, this is pretty filthy stuff. Setically, it's
a terrible round about avenue to get rich for somebody
who is insane willing to do these things. But then
(42:58):
also some people might be saying it's not about the money,
right They may be saying, we want to keep this
in the public eye. Or I just have a personal
fascination because maybe I felt maybe I lived, says someone
in the California area. When this one serial killer is operative,
and this is an important time in my life. I
(43:19):
get that part of it. What what I'm saying is
a a roundabout way to get rich for the killer
the thing where someone to go like if you're super
poor and you go to jail, but you can sell
all the stuff you murdered all these people with. But
the Son of Sam. Laws like that, you said, they're
different in different states, but is it generally kind of
the law of the land, Like, yeah, it's generally. The
(43:39):
only state that has never had any law like that
is New Hampshire and the ones that the other ones
on that list, they had one and then it got
struck down, but there supposedly working on a new one.
So that's the safeguard. I mean, like you know, in theory,
unless you launder it and figure out some roundabout way
(44:00):
of getting paid, you can't really a state can't really
benefit from this. And I think the big part of
the reason for this law was so that people couldn't
sell the rights to their story to like movies. And
you think you mentioned that at the top of the show. Um,
but people find other ways of getting this stuff, don't they.
Because the if it's coming directly from incarcerated criminals, and
(44:22):
they're making this work, they want to find a way
for it to benefit them while they're alive. Even if
they can't make money directly, people find other ways of
helping them out in order to get this murder bilia, right,
like payment in kind. Let me bring you some stuff, right,
It's like what you were talking about with people actually
being banned from going into prisons, because this is you know,
(44:44):
it's a sketchy territory, right, Yeah, it is, But there
are still legitimate reasons that someone would conduct some of
this stuff. Like the Vice article that that you've mentioned
has a story about a East Coast academic I believe
who's conducting research on school shooters and he buys almost
(45:06):
every school shooter letter that's available because it's part of
his research. So that's one argument. But still it feels
like those moments of understandable rational action for this are
few and far between. I'm not gonna say, I'm not
gonna say impossible, few and far between. And right now,
(45:27):
even though it's it's sort of a hidden industry, right now,
you can go, should you so choose, to these websites
and you can find you can find all sorts of
stuff on offer, be aware that some of it could
quite possibly be fraudulent. You can't speak to it, and
then you have to ask yourself, is it worse if
(45:47):
it's fraudulent, or it's worse Is it worse if it's real?
So the harder. The guy we have mentioned who got
banned um he noted that he has a minimum of
a thousand active users on his website. There are probably
a lot of people who just read about this, you know,
(46:08):
or vicariously experienced it. I will say, I don't know
what you guys think, but I will say, after researching
this episode, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not
getting I'm not getting you guys anything like this for
for your birthdays. Yeah, I'm good, Thank you, I really
appreciate it. Thanks for thinking about us, and likewise, not
to be too much of a diva, but please just
(46:31):
no sericular stuff for me either. A right, And here's
the thing, no matter what kind of laws get past,
this is gonna this trade is going to continue. Yeah,
black markets, gray markets. I think there are ways around it,
and it will continue to happen, and it's it's impossible
to stamp it out because the only way you can
stamp this stuff out. The most effective way to do
(46:53):
it would be denying incarcerated prisoners any and all access
of any sort to the outside world. But even then,
you've got sisters, brothers, fathers, other members of families of
killers who may need money, who are free. I see
what you're saying. You know, I don't know. Then what
would you do? You would have to entirely violate human rights?
(47:17):
What here's a question, Um, what about folks that let's
say I wanted to design a line of serial killer
themed trading cards or a line of really high detailed
serial killer themed action figures. Who do I have to
pay for the right to do that? Do I have
to pay anyone? Am I allowed to do that? If?
(47:38):
If I'm making it and paying for myself and selling
it direct, how does that work? Yeah? Who owns the
i P of serial killers? That's the thing, because it
is public domain? I mean, the stuff was reported in
the public and obviously the killers themselves can't benefit from
the i P of their image. They are public figures.
I think you know, oddly, Duff the action figure every
(48:00):
thing might might be an easier route because of the
trading cards, depending on the image you use. I might
have to pay somebody on that, unless unless it's a
mug shot ors. That's right, that's right. But I'm actually
I looked this up just now. Just look up serial
killer action figures. There are a ton of them out there,
bobble heads, action figures, um plush dolls. There's a Jeffrey Dahmer.
(48:20):
It's called the Peekaboo Jeffrey Dahmer sleigh set, and it
is Jeffrey Dahmer in his prison reds. You know, the
full body suit with the ankle, you know, cuffs and
everything on, and it comes with a little bucket of
like it's meant to be acid, I guess because he
would dissolve bodies and acid. God. Yeah, it's it's pretty
(48:42):
pretty hideous and tasteless. But is it is it? Is
it legal? You know? I mean I think it is
probably is technically, And there are some people who go
further and say is it art? Which is an argument
maybe for another day, But yeah, you're absolutely right, it is.
It is legal. People are doing it. You don't have
to pay for the rights to a real person. You
(49:07):
would have to go through a bunch of licensing stuff
to make. It's actually more difficult to make an action
figure of say Mike Myers or Jason Vorhees than it
is for Jeffrey Dahmer or something much because the licensed
holders of those properties have like people they pay to
look around online constantly for people doing like derivative kind
of like. There's a lot of fan communities that make
(49:30):
t shirts and prints based on popular products, and they
can very easily get shut down if they're you know,
making money off of it. But a lot of times
the studios and stuff will let that stuff ride. But not, No,
it's not the case. I don't think with that's a
real kick in the pants, you know, because these are
horrible people and they get action figures. There are any
(49:50):
action figures of us. We can change that. You know.
There's a place of the de Cab Mall here in Atlanta,
the North to Cab Mall where you can get a
three D photograph taking of VI, you and your family
and they will print it into an action figure set
of you and your of your family. Did you do
it now? I haven't done it yet, but I'm I'm interested.
We've got to do We should do it for the
for the team. We should do it? We should. Uh,
(50:12):
let's see Paul, would you be interested in that? Yeah, oh,
we got a pretty enthusiastic nod from Paul. Mission controled decade.
So send us some links and and let us know
as well. What what do you think? Where do you
fall in this debate? Do you believe that it is
(50:33):
unethical and we should do anything possible as a society
to prevent this trade. Do you believe that the past
is the past and that these things should be allowed
to freely float through the world as they will. Should
they only be in museum's? Should they be destroyed entirely?
(50:54):
Should we obliterate the traces of these people, you know,
like the way the Chinese government obliterated traces of people
in Tianamen Square right, or the way Stalin erased people
from photographs. Wow, when you think about it that way,
it seems like maybe we shouldn't. But anyway, what can
(51:15):
you think? What do you think? As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. You can let us know
on Instagram where we are conspiracy stuff show, or Twitter
or Facebook where we are conspiracy stuff. Definitely put all
of your information into Facebook and talk to us there
because your data is completely safe, but it is a
great way to talk to us, especially especially on our
(51:37):
here's where it gets crazy. Uh what do we call
that our page where we can all hang out. We've
been doing all kinds of stuff on there lately. Um,
and just remember, if you are going to go there, um,
be inquisitive, be you can be intense, don't you Just yeah,
that's it, okay, because we will destroy you. We will
wipe all traces of you from the group. Oh gosh, okay.
(52:00):
So we're not about just putting this out there. We
are not about censorship. But there's just there's some things
that you just don't want to say. If you do
want to say things that maybe you are are worried
about putting on a message board, you can say them
into a microphone attached to a phone by calling us.
We are one eight three three st d w y
(52:21):
t K. We will get your message and perhaps it
will make its way onto the show at some point.
So give us a call, like, do it, do it
right now? Pull over though, pull over first if you're
listening us in the car, please, okay, And if you
don't want to do any of that stuff, you just
want to send us a message. You can do it anonymously.
They have those things. Send us an email. We are
(52:42):
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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