True Crime in American Media [1 ed.] 1032123478, 9781032123479

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Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies

TRUE CRIME IN AMERICAN MEDIA Edited by George S. Larke-Walsh

True Crime in American Media

This book explores contemporary American true crime narratives across various media formats. It dissects the popularity of true crime and the effects, both positive and negative, this popularity has on perceptions of crime and the justice system in contemporary America. As a collection of new scholarship on the development, scope, and character of true crime in twenty-first century American media, analyses stretch across film, streaming/broadcast TV, podcasts, and novels to explore the variety of ways true crime pervades modern culture. The reader is guided through a series of interconnected topics, starting with an examination of the contemporary success of true crime, the platforms involved, the narrative structures and engagement with audiences, moving on to debates on representation and the ethics involved in portraying both victims and perpetrators of crime within the genre. This collection provides new critical work on American true crime media for all interested readers, and especially scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences. It offers a significant area of research in social sciences, criminology, media, and English Literature academic disciplines. George S. Larke-Walsh is a Full-Time Lecturer at the University of Sunderland, UK.

Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies

Celebrity and New Media Gatekeeping Success Stephanie Patrick Mediatisation of Emotional Life Edited by Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech and Mateusz Sobiech Serial Killers in Contemporary Television Familiar Monsters in Post-9/11 Culture Edited by Brett A.B. Robinson and Christine Daigle The Eurovision Song Contest as a Cultural Phenomenon From Concert Halls to the Halls of Academia Edited by Adam Dubin, Dean Vuletic and Antonio Obregón Drag in the Global Digital Public Sphere Queer Visibility, Online Discourse and Political Change Edited by Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain Sarah Lowndes Global South Discourse in East Asian Media Studies Dal Yong Jin Bias, Belief, and Conviction in an Age of Fake Facts Edited by Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner Reasserting the Disney Brand in the Streaming Era A Critical Examination of Disney+ Robert Alan Brookey, Jason Phillips and Tim Pollard True Crime in American Media Edited by George S. Larke-Walsh

True Crime in American Media

Edited by George S. Larke-Walsh

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, George S. Larke-Walsh; individual chapters, the contributors The right of George S. Larke-Walsh to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Larke-Walsh, George S., 1965- editor. Title: True crime in American media / edited by George S. Larke-Walsh. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in cultural and media studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022059378 (print) | LCCN 2022059379 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032123479 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032126678 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003225638 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Mass media and crime--United States. | True crime stories--United States. | Mass media and criminal justice--United States. Classification: LCC P96.C742 U6755 2023 (print) | LCC P96.C742 (ebook) | DDC 302.230973--dc23/eng/20230130 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059378 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059379 ISBN: 978-1-032-12347-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-12667-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-22563-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

This book is dedicated with love to Jess, Bunny and Winnie

Contents

List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xiii 1

GE ORGE S . L A RK E - W AL S H

1 Beyond Entertainment: Podcasting and the Criminal Justice Reform “Niche”

14

L INDS E Y A . S HE RR I L L

2 Chasing the Truth: Making a Murderer, Historical Narrativity and the Global Netflix Event

32

CAITL IN SH AW

3 True Crime Adaptations and the Many Faces of the Atlanta Monster

49

KYL E A. HA M M O N DS

4 True Crime, True Representation? Race and Injustice Narratives in Wrongful Conviction Podcasts

67

ROB IN B LOM , GA B RI E L B . TAI T , GW YN HU L TQUI ST, I DA S. CAG E, AND MEL OD IE K . G R I FF IN

5 Unresolved – Narrative Strategies in an Unsolved True Crime: Depictions of the JonBenét Ramsey Killing E LAYNE CHA PL I N A N D M E L IS S A CH A PL IN

83

viii

Contents

6 Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths: Images of Mafia Violence in True Crime Documentary

98

GE ORGE S. L AR K E -W A L SH A N D BL A K E W A H LERT

7 ‘Exquisitely Criminal Production Music’: Television, Ethics and the Sound of True Crime

114

TOB Y HUE L I N

8 Barthes’s “Grand Project” and the Negative Capability of Contemporary True Crime: On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error

132

M ICHAE L B U O Z IS

9 My Friend Dahmer: A Graphic‐Narrative Search for the Origins of Evil

147

JE SÚS JIM É N E Z -V AR E A

10 Forensic Fandom: True Crime, Citizen Investigation and Social Media

163

B ET HA N JON E S

11 “What Else Can I Add?”: Inverting the Narrative through Female Perspectives in Falling for A Killer, My Favorite Murder, and Murder, Mystery & Make Up

180

S TE LL A M AR I E G AY N O R

Index

196

Contributors

Robin Blom, PhD, is an associate professor of Journalism at Ball State University, USA. He is also a Ball Brothers Foundation Honors College Fellow, which allows him to teach a course for four semesters on eyewitness misidentification and social injustices related to exonerations. Blom recently published an essay in Journalism and Mass Communication Educator to encourage journalism instructors to focus more on the questionable role of the press covering crime investigations and court procedures of what later would become wrongful conviction cases. This call for action was based on his experiences as a researcher for the Innocence Institute of Point Park University. Michael Buozis, PhD, is an assistant professor of Media and Communication at Muhlenberg College, PA, USA. His research explores how different forms of media and digital communities shape public understandings of contemporary and historical social problems, from police violence to epidemics to crises in journalism. He is primarily interested in how media is shaped by the structures of power in society. His recent work has appeared in Journalism, Journalism Studies, American Journalism, Convergence, Internet Histories, and Feminist Media Studies. Ida S. Cage is a Ball State University alumna with a Masters in Public Relations with a global leadership specialization. Cage is currently a corporate analyst specialized in shaping branding, promotions, and strategic communications efforts. Elayne Chaplin, PhD, is a film scholar and staff tutor at the Open University, UK. Her research interests include the horror genre, in particular the relationship between history, political ideology, and the depictions of monstrousness in film; and more broadly focuses on sociohistorical formulations of gendered identity in cinema. Melissa Chaplin, PhD, is an independent scholar and writer who lives and works in London. She currently works as a business development manager for an independent games company. Her PhD is in International and Intercultural Communication and was conducted as part of an ARHC

x Contributors funded project, Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, The Body, Law and the State at Durham University. Stella Marie Gaynor, PhD, is a senior lecturer in Media Culture and Communication at Liverpool John Moores University UK, where she teaches across television, media, radio, podcast, and film studies. She is the author of Rethinking Horror in the New Economies of Television (2022), investigating US TV horror drama series in the 2010s. She has contributed a chapter on the international spread of The Walking Dead to Jowett & Abbott’s latest 2021 collection, Global TV Horror, and a paper to The Revenant Journal, titled “A Braindead Nation: Black Summer and Trump’s America.” She has chapters in Faith and the Zombie: Collected Essays on the Intersection of Zombies, Belief, Ideology and the Apocalypse, with an essay in The Returned, and an essay in Serial Killers in Contemporary Television: Familiar Monsters in post 9/11 Culture, exploring nostalgia for the captured killer in The Ted Bundy Tapes. Stella co-hosts the horror themed podcast, And Now The Podcast Starts. Melodie K. Griffin is a Ball State University alumna with a background in media research. Her past work explores digital folklore, media storytelling, and human-centered design. Currently, Griffin works as a media design consultant for higher education institutions across the United States. Kyle A. Hammonds (MS, University of North Texas; BS, Texas A&M University – Commerce) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication, as well as an instructor in the Department of Film & Media Studies, at the University of Oklahoma, USA. His research is at the intersection of communication, media, and culture with a special emphasis on stigma and ethics of representation in mass media and popular culture. Kyle is particularly interested in studying communicative processes of interpretation in unpacking the ways that production of pop culture texts and paratexts interact with socio-historical discourses of race, class, and nationalism. Toby Huelin is a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds investigating the use of library music in contemporary television. His research is funded by the AHRC via the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). Toby’s publications include journal articles for Music and the Moving Image, Critical Studies in Television, and the European Journal of American Culture, alongside chapters in several edited volumes. Also a media composer, Toby’s music features in the Emmy Award–winning series United Shades of America (CNN), the documentary Subnormal: A British Scandal (BBC One), and an advertising campaign for internet brand Honey.

Contributors xi Gwyn Hultquist is a master’s student in the Emerging Media Design and Development program at Ball State University, USA. Growing up with a dad who is a former lawyer, Hultquist has been aware of the trials and tribulations of the American justice system from a young age. With an undergraduate degree in computer science and a desire to be a user experience designer, humans are at the heart of her passions. She spends most days trying to work while fending off her cat and listening to the latest horror and mystery podcasts. Jesús Jiménez-Varea is an associate professor and Chair of the Department of Media Studies and Advertising of the University of Seville, Spain. His area of expertise is the intersection of popular culture, narratives, seriality, and image theory, particularly comics, along with genres such as horror and superheroes. His texts on subjects including graphic novels, vigilantism, violence, and ideology have appeared in international journals and edited collections. Bethan Jones, PhD, is a research associate at the University of York, UK, focusing on skills and training in the screen industries. Her research interests include antifandom, digital dislike and true crime, and she has been published in Sexualities, Journal of Fandom Studies, and New Media & Society amongst others. She is the coeditor of Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Society (Peter Lang, 2015) and Participatory Culture Wars: Controversy, Conflict and Complicity in Fandom (University of Iowa Press, forthcoming), as well as editor of the journal Popular Communication. George S. Larke-Walsh, PhD, is a faculty member in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of Sunderland, UK. She previously worked at the University of North Texas, USA. Her scholarly interests include both nonfiction and fiction film theories. Her publishing history includes books and articles on ethics in true crime, as well as mythologies, and masculinities in narratives about the mafia. Recent publications include “‘Don’t Let Netflix Tell You What to Think!’: Getting to Know the Accused/Convicted in Making a Murderer and other True Crime Injustice Narratives” in M. Mellins and S. Moore (eds) Critiquing Violence in the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022; “Injustice Narratives in a Post-Truth Society: Emotional Discourses and Social Purpose in Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four” in Studies in Documentary v.15, n.1, 2021. Caitlin Shaw, PhD, is a lecturer in Television Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. She is the coeditor of The Past in Visual Culture: Essays on Memory, Nostalgia and the Media (2017), and her work appears in the Journal of Popular Film and Television, the Journal of British Cinema and Television, and the Journal of Popular Television. She is currently

xii Contributors working on a monograph, Retrospective Television: Contemporary Quality Drama’s Past Worlds, for Palgrave Macmillan. Lindsey A. Sherrill, PhD, is an assistant professor of Business Communication at the University of North Alabama. Before a decade-long career in wholesale management, Lindsey spent several years writing for smalltown newspapers, where her fascination with unsolved and missing persons’ cases began. Her dissertation, “‘Suddenly, the Podcast Was Sexy’: An Ecological and Social Movement Theory Approach to True Crime Podcast Phenomena,” won the 2020 University of Alabama College of Communication & Information Sciences Outstanding Dissertation Award. Lindsey’s research has been published in the Journal of Broadcast & Electronic Media, Communication Research, Telematics and Informatics, Newspaper Research Journal, and Journalism Studies. Gabriel B. Tait, PhD, is an associate professor of Diversity and Media at Ball State University. His research areas include photojournalism, participatory photography, and the role photography plays in constructing and representing cultural identities. He also created his visual research methodology called, “Sight Beyond My Sight.” Dr. Tait’s tenure as a photojournalist has spanned nearly 30 years. He covered stories on conflict and reconciliation in Israel, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Syria, and 25 other countries. He has also led research on ethnic tensions and cultural identity in Liberia, which has sought ways to embrace peace in a post-civil war society. Blake Wahlert is a Reference Librarian for the Knox County Public Library system in Knoxville, Tennessee. He holds a Master of Science in Information Sciences from the University of Tennessee and a Master of Arts in Media Industry and Critical Studies from the University of North Texas where he wrote his thesis on the films of Frederick Wiseman.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the editorial staff at Routledge for their support of this project, especially Suzanne Richardson for her patient guidance. I also wish to thank the University of Sunderland for giving me the time to complete the project, and of course I want to thank all the contributors for their hard work and commitment to the scholarship and to deadlines. Edited collections are such valuable resources for readers. I am honored to have guided this book to completion.

Introduction George S. Larke-Walsh Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the University of Sunderland, UK

Why is true crime so popular? This is an interesting question to which there is no easy or stable answer. Debate has been raised across the entire spectrum of media stakeholders – producers, audiences and critics – and has occured for many different reasons. Sometimes, it is attached to a celebration of the genre and its ability to reach such large audiences, but just as often it occurs in an attitude of despair at the seemingly endless productions dominating modern media, specifically popular streaming platforms. Questions on the genre’s popularity have also given rise to serious, but essentially irresolvable debates within academic faculties (such as sociology, psychology, criminology, journalism and media studies), where scholars seek to explore the genre’s structures and socio-historical purposes. The collection of work I have collated here has been developed as a response to such questions and debates. It examines the genre from a variety of academic perspectives and keeps an open mind about its qualities and its failings. It does not claim to provide a definitive answer to the genre’s popularity, but it will provide insights into why the question is asked and how specific productions or patterns of production affect its image in public as well as academic spheres. True crime is an expansive non-fiction genre that, at its heart, examines actual events that occur, involving real people. Therefore, this collection suggests questions and debates about its popularity occur because true crime speaks to a wide variety of concerns affecting media and society. As true crime is an act of storytelling, broadly speaking the topic has existed in one form or another since human social communities began. We make sense of ourselves and our relationships with others through the sharing of stories, and thus within that practice stories of misdeeds and violence are bound to hold significance. Evidence of printed versions of crime appear as early as the 17th century in religious pamphlets offering the final confessions of the condemned. These were mainly designed to promote salvation by suggesting even the worst sinners can be saved, and while the religious impulses for them can be linked to defining, or re-confirming spiritual or civic responsibilities, the testimonies also most likely hinted at gruesome or salacious details of the crimes. It is therefore also fair to suggest such practices invited responses that included both disgust and intrigue. As printed news DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-1

2 George S. Larke-Walsh developed, details of crime scenes, calls for witnesses and trial details also began to dominate the way cases were presented. Here, civic duty and compelling storytelling merged to create eye-catching headlines and intimate narratives in an effort to keep audiences both entertained and informed. In the 20th century, true crime books began to offer even more details of specific crimes through specific case studies. A pivotal example for American publishing is Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966),1 which focuses on the killings of four members of the clutter family in rural Kansas. Capote’s detailed examination of the case includes psychological profiles of the two killers as well as offering social commentary on the surrounding rural community as well as the victims. Capote painstakingly describes the investigative processes, meanings, causes and effects of the crime and the book’s popular and critical success confirms true crime as a most compelling form of mystery narrative and social commentary. In the 20th and 21st century, television series and feature documentaries have explored the psychological and/or sociological motivations behind criminal acts and provided insights into the judicial process. Recently, the focus has shifted to what Biressi (2004) has termed the “fallout” of crime through an emphasis on victims, bystanders and witnesses. She links this to “entertainment television’s enthusiastic adoption of therapeutic discourses of revelation, truth-telling and self-exposure, and of popular notions of ‘trauma’ as the kernel of these revelations” (401). Hence, while the purpose and structure of true crime texts have developed over time, even this brief glimpse into the history of true crime suggests that it houses a wide variety of social and psychological impulses and reactions, and perhaps, this is why the genre endures. It is also evident that much that is labelled true crime can also be labelled popular entertainment. Tanya Horeck argues that “many contemporary true crime texts are exercises in media manipulation” (2019: 10). They are packaged as “entertainment products” (11) whose main purpose is to titillate rather than engage in serious factual study. Similarly, Seltzer (2007) considers true crime as committed to its cliches (44) and Worden (2020) suggests its focus on storytelling means “in the true crime narrative, genre precedes reality” (68). Criticism of true crime is wide ranging, but I have often found the most intense criticism is levelled at texts involving unsolved or contested convictions.2 This may partly stem from a tendency for audiences and critics to demand solutions or results in order to justify a text’s worth. Such demand necessitates such things as the clear identification of a perpetrator, or the overturning of a conviction – basically a concrete solution to the mystery – as a justification for the text’s existence. I would argue that these impulses are driven by the, sometimes unconscious, valuing of capitalist commercial criteria that demand quantifiable goals and results. For instance, the podcasts Serial (2014 –) and Teacher’s Pet (2018 –) are two series whose critical reputations have been raised by the real-world legal events that have occurred since they were first aired.3 In effect, their social purpose has been secured by affecting real world events in a perceptibly

Introduction 3 positive manner. It could be argued that most true crime texts present themselves as having the potential for positive social impact, but the external demand for certainty means that until that impact can be convincingly identified the text remains on the fringes of critical acceptability. Two high-profile Netflix series, Making a Murderer (2015, 2018) and Tiger King (2020), are examples that have attracted intense criticism. While their devotion to audience engagement/entertainment is a valid focus of debate, it is important to note that it is not just the way in which crimes are presented, but also desires for truths to be proven that affect the social value of a true crime text.

True Crime, Documentary and Ethics Documentaries are generally considered to offer factual reports on real events, but such a basic description cannot hope to encapsulate the immense scope and impact of the form. To quote Nichols (2010), “Documentaries stimulate epistephilia (a desire to know) in their audiences. At their best, they convey an informing logic, a persuasive rhetoric, and a moving poetics that promises information and knowledge, insight and awareness” (40). Therefore, any exploration of the form must engage with the effects of documentary on its audience as much as on the techniques employed by the makers. Furthermore, while we tend to discuss documentary as primarily a visual form, this “desire to know” about real events has long been stimulated by both written and oral communication. While, the popularity of featurelength documentaries has increased since the emergence of streaming platforms, television documentary has held its position as a mainstay within most terrestrial and streaming offerings. 2021 Netflix viewing figures suggest documentary as their second most popular television format in the USA behind drama; in the UK and Ireland, it sits at number one. The styles and topics that appear to dominate the image of television documentary in 21st century are the various foci of reality television and true crime. Bruzzi (2016) has suggested a link between the two that stems from more general shifts in the ways audiences are encouraged to engage with contemporary media texts. She suggests audiences are captured through calls to participate and “to decide, vote, make up our minds” (274) about contestants, or subjects. While such connections to reality television might suggest a shared emphasis on constructed conflict, Bruzzi suggests such participation may work to legitimize the genre as a socially constructive form. This is echoed in Aguaya’s (2013) article on participatory media culture. She argues the film Paradise Lost (1996) “transformed passive consumers of communication into deliberating agents” (240) and the community activism inspired by the film contributed in part to the eventual release of the three wrongly convicted young men. Again, Bruzzi and Aguaya’s works suggest a direct relationship between a true crime text and real-world solutions. This helps to establish the genre’s

4 George S. Larke-Walsh legitimacy and therefore it is not surprising that such debates appear throughout this collection. This includes the opening chapter by Lindsey Sherrill on the emergence of true crime podcasts. Participatory activism has increased in recent years through an exponential rise in the production of podcasts that encourage audiences to help decipher mysteries or engage with new information about old events. However, such an increase has brought new criticisms focused on the quality and constructiveness of such activities. The ethics and civic purpose of audience participation is an important area of debate in any aspect of mass media, but now that social media has joined the true crime sphere and opened-up spaces for instant, “real-time” discussions on events as they unfold, the ethics of such practices have changed shape yet again. Later in this collection, Bethan Jones’s chapter on the Gabby Petito case focuses on the challenging ethics of social media activism or, as in the Petito case, real-time participation and speculation. When self-proclaimed amateur sleuths use social media platforms to investigate, or comment upon ongoing criminal investigations, it adds a whole new dimension to debates about the social value or ethics of the genre form. In short, this collection explores many of these themes noted above that appear in contemporary American media. With chapters on feature films, streaming series, podcasts and novels, it examines the popularity and perceived social purposes of true crime. As editor, I included a range of topics to encourage readers to consider the ways true crime pervades modern culture, and to assess the demands it faces in how it is received and understood. To this end, rather than simply presenting a summary of the chapters, I will explain some of the reasons for their inclusion, suggest possible links and outline areas for further research.

How to Approach This Collection Chapters include research from both American and European academics but focuses entirely on American media. The reason for this focus is threefold: first, America tends to produce most true crime media; second, its media reaches the widest possible audience; and third, a national focus provides more opportunities for connection between the topics and thus provides a sense of chapters as various parts of a conversation on true crime. You will find similar names and media texts appearing across chapters, but all presented from differing perspectives. Hence, this collection does not offer to “solve” the true crime genre, but I hope it has many of the same attractions the genre has offered to audiences elsewhere; the thrill of the search, hints at truths and a desire to inform and question. The collection does not adhere to any given approach or judgment of the genre. Sherill’s chapter on the social value of some true crime podcasting contrasts with Hammonds’ critique. Similarly, Gaynor’s suggestion that light-hearted podcasting can be progressive is countered by Jones’ caution against too

Introduction 5 much laxity in tone and approach. In short, each chapter deals with different examples and therefore offers overlapping debate derived from differing perspectives and theoretical frameworks. I will provide a discursive map of some of the interconnecting themes and this will help illustrate how the collection works together to examine contemporary American true crime media. The two opening chapters deal with the impact of the two most popular formats in contemporary American true crime media: podcasts and television streaming series. Caitlin Shaw’s chapter on the Netflix series, Making a Murderer (2015–18), examines the Netflix programming model of bingeworthy, transnational quality narratives and how that affects the ways the series can be read. It is a lead chapter because it provides a detailed examination of some of the key debates surrounding contemporary true crime programming. It has been included to inspire readers to consider whether example texts are produced to help educate audiences about crimes and the criminal system, or are they a factual offshoot of mainstream fiction, merely exploiting tragedies for public entertainment? She notes how the model restricts narrative experimentation to the extent that the series is focused almost entirely on similar character engagement found in fictional drama. In this context, she suggests the series’ factuality is a secondary element in terms of its structural appeal. The resulting cultural impact can therefore be viewed as serendipitous rather than planned and this explains why the series has been argued as profit-making entertainment as much as socially responsible sharing of information. Each chapter in this collection is careful to consider the negative as well as the positive impacts. In this instance, Shaw’s chapter provides the industry context for the structure and appeal of contemporary true crime streaming and it informs later topics such as Chaplin and Chaplin’s discussion of the unsolved JonBenét Ramsey case, my own co-authored chapter on images of the mafia and Huelin’s study of soundtracks. Furthermore, in opening debates on the motivations behind the production of true crime media, Shaw’s work also helps to contextualize Buozis’ study of Errol Morris’ 2012 book A Wilderness of Error and Jiménez-Varea’s examination of John Backderf’s 2012 graphic novel My Friend Dahmer. Two of the other early chapters focus on the development and impact of podcasts (Sherrill; Blom et al.). Lindsey Sherrill’s chapter was chosen as the lead because of its focus on the development of the form. Later chapters in the collection also include podcasts as part of their discussion (Gaynor, Hammonds and Jones) but these are not solely focused on the platform or its possible social function. Regardless, there are some notable links and so I want to first point out Lyndsay Sherrill’s role as the lead chapter. It is not surprising to see references to the release of Serial as a defining moment for the genre and many of the chapters make reference to it. Sherrill’s chapter considers the “Serial effect” in terms of how its success has encouraged the growth in true crime podcasting. Using organizational ecology and social

6 George S. Larke-Walsh movement theories as her foundation she addresses some of the criticisms levelled at true crime I detailed earlier by arguing how podcast creators have the ability to influence real-world social change. She states this is in part because the production context for Serial brought legitimacy, not only to podcasting, but also the true crime topic. Produced as an offshoot of the Public Radio series This American Life (1995 –, Chicago Public Media), the success of Serial influenced fan podcasts that discussed the show and the case, but its focus on a possible miscarriage of justice also encouraged others, including attorneys as well as journalists and fans to create their own podcasts, all linked to the justice reform movement. Sherrill’s chapter provides the structural reasons for the development of the true crime justice reform niche and encourages readers to consider the ability for podcasts to be socially responsible products. Hence, reading her chapter first helps to contextualize later chapters on more specific themes. For instance, Robin Blom, Gabriel Tait, Gwyn Hultquist, Ida S. Cage and Melodie Griffin provide a quantitative analysis of a small selection of wrongful conviction podcasts and examines their potential for offering more diverse and thus realistic representations of cases linked to justice reform movements. Their chapter is a logical companion to Sherrill’s analysis because they offer a different viewpoint on the same niche format. Contextualized within an historical overview of racial bias in American crime news, the chapter asks whether podcasts are managing to offer more realistic and effective programming. They describe why there is limited statistical data available for comparison, due in part because the numbers of wrongly convicted currently in prison, or recently released remains unknown; the reasons for this include the difficulties of access to appeals as well as the common use of Alford pleas to solve wrongful imprisonment. In consequence, the chapter refers to the national register of exonerations as a limited, but verifiable list of solved cases. They compare its statistics against popular podcast series to analyse narratives preferences and to explore racial bias. The results show podcasts tend to favour certain narratives and cases, but their diversity is better than predicted. Blom et al. add data to Sherill’s argument and thus further suggest the potential for podcasts to reflect the realities of the American justice system and thus offer socially responsible examples of true crime programming. The next chapter addresses adaptations of the “Atlanta Monster” crimes. Kyle Hammonds’ work was chosen because it blends aspects of both Sherrill and Shaw’s approaches to explore the social influences that have affected interpretations of the crimes, from reportage to fictional recreations. He focuses on contemporary news reports, Payne Lindsay’s (2019) podcast, Atlanta Monster and David Fincher’s fictional adaptation of the case in Mindhunter (Season 2, 2019). He argues that each media example is its own “adaptation” of events because it is moulded by the value structures of the content creators. His analysis uses communications theories and includes a close textual analysis of Lindsay’s podcast in which he identifies

Introduction 7 the narrative and rhetorical strategies employed to convey a sense of objectivity to its audience. Rather than maintaining an open objectivity aimed at offering the story for further interpretation, Hammonds suggests this podcast enforces narrative closure by emphasizing the objectivity of material evidence and dispassionate investigative processes. The podcast constructs a “felt-belief” that Lindsay’s approach to the events and evidence provides objective answers and thus closes the case. Such assertiveness, according to Hammonds, is at the core of many true crime adaptations that present themselves as objective analyses. Their refusal to acknowledge the complexities at the heart of a case such as the Atlanta Killings means their objectivity is a rationality constructed entirely by narrative strategies. Once these strategies are revealed, it is evident such adaptations can only ever offer subjective, socially defined interpretations. In conclusion, he suggests Fincher’s fictional interpretation of the strengths and weaknesses of the case surprisingly offers the most flexible and open narrative rationality. It allows for interpretations that acknowledge the social and institutional failings that surrounded the case and subsequent trial. Hence, in this instance, a fictional adaptation perhaps presents greater objectivity than its factual counterparts. Hammonds’ chapter encourages readers to assess the narrative rationalities of other news reporting, or podcasts and may also change perceptions of fictional adaptations. Objectivity is often revered in factual media but blind faith in its abilities tends to also suggest a definable, knowable truth is always available in every case; Hammonds’ work asks us to question such faith. My summary of Hammonds’ work might suggest the collection sees distinct differences between factual and fictional adaptations of true crime events, but of course there is a great deal of overlapping aesthetics and structures. Chaplin and Chaplin’s chapter on The Case of JonBenét Ramsey is included for the ways it expands on debates from Shaw’s opening chapter and asks similar questions as Hammonds about the veracity of documentary narratives focused on an unsolved case. Employing close textual analysis within a media studies framework they examine the ways factual narratives use strategies of fiction to suggest solutions to the crime. Focusing first on the CBS two-part series, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (2016), Chaplin and Chaplin argue the extensive use of re-enactments helps to construct a compelling case against the Ramsey family. The desire for narrative closure influences the ways in which the case is presented and doggedly insists on identifying a culprit. In the context of my earlier arguments about the social value of influencing real world actions, it is easy to see how such a documentary is appealing to desires to know “for sure” what happened. Chaplin and Chaplin note however, in this case the desire to construct a trial through media is shown to be a risky decision when the chosen culprit successfully sues CBS for their portrayal of him. The blurring of fact and fiction in the pursuit of truth is suggested as ethically dubious in this case. Turning attention to The Casting of JonBenét (2019) Chaplin and

8 George S. Larke-Walsh Chaplin examine how this documentary also functions as a reconstruction of events, but its determinedly open-ended examination of the case is careful to not offer specific accusations. However, it does focus on the family members as performative characters, thus implicitly suggesting their involvement in events as at least questionable or open to debate. Chaplin and Chaplin note how these documentaries show that, in the end, the tragedy of JonBenét’s death can often be obscured by the generic desire for narrative closure and for justice to be seen to prevail. This chapter builds on Shaw and Hammonds to encourage readers to consider the structural biases of narratives about unsolved crimes. While suspicion lingers on still living families, does the narrative constraints and/or desires for closure inherent to mainstream media help or hinder the presentation of unsolved cases? My own chapter, co-authored with Blake Wahlert, explores documentaries about the mafia. It is not focused on unsolved cases, but it does discuss how narrative formats help bolster commonly accepted truths or create mythologies about a subject. The Mafia is a popular topic in true crime, but it has received minimal critical attention. Our chapter focuses on how images of violence contribute to mythologies of mafia strength and infamy even in carefully considered anti-mafia narratives. Images are housed within intensely emotional narrative structures that suggest events as tragic but somehow inevitable. These structures reduce complex and contradictory realities of events into more accessible stories of morality and fate, which paradoxically elevates their narrative significance to the stature of classical tragedy. We understand and explain how the enormity of the violence enacted during the mafia wars in Sicily of the 1980s and 1990s is a difficult topic for documentaries to condense in such a way as to convey the human cost without simplifying the causes, effects and continued threats involved in organized crime. Hence, our chapter focuses on the narrative context for images of death and in so doing, reminds readers of the responsibilities involved in viewing tragedy particularly from afar. While addressing documentary through a similar theoretical framework as Chaplin and Chaplin, our chapter asks readers to also consider the proximity of events in their assessment of a documentary’s structural tone or value. Toby Huelin’s chapter examines another aesthetic element in true crime media that has so far lacked critical attention. He examines the ethical responsibilities involved in producing and employing soundtracks for true crime media. In similar ways to the surrounding chapters, Huelin analyses the impact of aesthetic choices. He does this by focusing in on two areas: audience emotional responses and narrative authenticity. He identifies the sources for various popular soundtracks to specific commercial music libraries that produce and house soundtracks for sale, and through analysing their content and labelling practices he traces the context of their use and the possible emotional impacts on audiences. He identifies the ways a soundtrack may obscure the distinctions between real and constructed events, and the ways re-using specific music undermines its authenticity – especially in eliciting

Introduction 9 emotional responses. Huelin’s scholarship encourages readers to consider the way narrative consistencies dominate productions and how this impacts emotional responses. Viewed as a group, all of these chapters, from Hammonds to Huelin, have used narrative structure and aesthetic choices to question assertions of social value in the genre, but within that they have suggested fictional structures certainly have the ability to be critical (Hammonds) and to revisit evidence through re-enactment and performance (Chaplin and Chaplin). However, historical distance audience and a focus on heroism can reduce images of violence to spectacle (Larke-Walsh and Wahlert) and can also simplify context and affect audience responses (Huelin). In short, readers are being asked to consider whether the simplification of cause and effect in many true crime narratives, while making them popular, comforting and/or enjoyable, lie at the heart of the genre’s problems of credibility? An answer to the problems of objective truth and language is found away from visual media in Michael Buozis’ chapter on the book, A Wilderness of Error (Errol Morris, 2012) for it discusses the difficulties of separating language from structures of power and thus also grapples with notions of factual objectivity. For Buozis, Morris’ book engages with the ungraspable nature of truth. He proceeds to examine its structure and intentions through Roland Barthes concept of “neutral language” encapsulated within his “Grand Project” as described in The Preparation of the Novel (2011). Buozis links Barthes’ literary concepts to the broader topic of true crime through their shared capacity to interrogate presentations of knowledge. He explains how Morris’ novel, through its refusal to offer answers, or avoid multiple contradictions and examples of conflicting evidence, works to show how reality remains unresolved and thus the only way to share a case is to lay out all the pieces for a reader/viewer to access while all the while undermining or critiquing any attempts to have the layout reduced to a singular coherence. Buozis suggests a refusal to offer certainty is the most practical response to a post-truth world. Unlike conspiracy theorists who use doubt and critique to steer others towards re-positioned, illogical truths, the ability to doubt and critique without demanding alternative truths can be embraced as a discourse of reality; a reality that is in perpetual flux but does not need to be re-positioned or explained as a certainty. The true crime genre is a perfect arena to showcase this aspect of a post-truth world, especially examples that deal with unsolved, or contested events and so, if we view Buozis’ chapter as a response to the previous ones on narrative tendencies, we have a better view of the practical problems and ideals within the debate. When narratives embrace the inconclusive nature of reality then, regardless of the legal status of a case, an ability to critique and accept facts as discursive and unstable is the clearest example of how the true crime genre can operate as a socially responsible product. Jesús Jiménez-Varea’s chapter is an appropriate companion to Buozis’ study because it focuses on the development processes involved in the

10 George S. Larke-Walsh production of a true crime text. It is an examination of truths derived from socially responsible true crime media and autobiographical authorship. It traces the development of John Backderf’s graphic novel My Friend Dahmer (2012) through its many iterations and influences in order to suggest Backderf’s development as an artist and storyteller helped to turn an autobiographical account of childhood into a pertinent discussion of speculative psychology. Jiménez-Varea suggests Backderf’s work considers the lessons that can be learned from revisiting Dahmer’s early years and the role social isolation may have had on later events. He also suggests the novel highlights the ripple effect of guilt that even brief associations with a killer may have on the lives of those affected. This chapter was chosen to encourage readers to consider the social relevance of witness testimony, described earlier through Bruzzi’s description of “the fallout” of crime. While Jiménez-Varea notes the reputation of some graphic novel production to glorify crime, he suggests it also has strong roots in expressing autobiographical experience. This chapter asks readers to consider the less common forms of true crime media and what they bring to broader discussions on the sociological effects of crime. It could be argued that Backderf’s fascination with Dahmer is a way of understanding his own past, or a desire to offer a key to the killer’s personality that may help explain why certain events happened the way they did. While Backderf adapted his story carefully to avoid associations with an exploitation of events it is evident that desires to explain or solve crimes are evident in contemporary American media. To this end, Bethan Jones’ chapter analyses the increasing use of social media to comment on or help solve crime in “real time”. Focusing on the Gabby Petito case from 2021, Jones’ chapter links the social media behaviours of people hoping to help solve her disappearance with Jason Mittel’s (2012) description of forensic fandom. She notes how the ways fans interrogate fictional texts, such as Lost or Star Trek as puzzles to be solved can also be linked to the ways people on social media approached the real case of a missing woman, Gabby Petito. Jones argues that while many of the contributors expressed their desire to help the investigation, much of the vocabulary used echoes the excitement found in engaging with fictional mysteries. She argues the realities of the case, such as respect for the victims or families involved, became lost in the excitement of analysing evidence. This edged the behaviours away from socially responsible concern for a missing woman and towards obsessive fandom over a source of entertainment. Viewed together, Jiménez-Varea and Jones’ chapters highlight the ever-present desire people have to find personal connections to real-world events. These chapters encourage readers to consider the authors of true crime media and to ask questions about motivation, as well as the impact their content has on the interpretation of real crimes and the people involved. Stella Gaynor ends the collection with a return to podcasts, television documentary, and the inclusion of more social media in a chapter aptly

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titled “What else can I add?”. Rather than debating truths, her chapter embraces female subjectivity and engages with various alternative tones of delivery found in true crime media. She explores a podcast, an Amazon television documentary series and a YouTuber’s episode all focused on the serial killer, Ted Bundy. Her chapter asks whether these specifically female-centred offerings add anything to the topic, and again explores their social function in encouraging constructive responses. Initially focusing on a comedy podcast, Gaynor explores the extent to which its mocking description of Bundy undermines some of the mythology surrounding his criminal prowess. She notes fans of the podcast (My Favorite Murder) call themselves “Murderinos” and have formed a supportive online community, thus suggesting comedy has a role in creating positive social responses to crime. The chapter goes on to explore two other very different female-centred responses to the events: a documentary that gives voice to the women involved in Bundy’s life and crimes through interviews, photographs and other intimacies, and a YouTube influencer that approaches the crime in a dispassionate manner, refusing to name any of the women in order to avoid labelling them as victims. These productions provide constructive responses to the crime and the criminal all from very different female perspectives. They suggest womencentred responses can add something to well-known events be it through comedic, emotionally intimate or dispassionate retellings that place the women involved at the centre of events and responses. Gaynor’s analysis asks readers to reconsider how true crime is packaged and whose perspective is prioritized. It also encourages a reassessment of why certain styles are dismissed as entertainment, or exploitative if they offer challenging or alternative responses.

Summary My thematic map of the collection has highlighted the key areas of debate and explains why chapters have been chosen and their place in the book’s structure. This is not a chronological study of the genre, instead the reader is guided through the true crime media landscape in a series of interconnected topics. The first chapters explore the impetuses of its current popularity through the podcast Serial, the Netflix series Making a Murderer and the adaptations of the Atlanta Monster. All three of these chapters explore production choices, platforms and audience engagement. They introduce the primary media formats associated with contemporary true crime and to interrogate their impact on popular perceptions of the justice system. These three chapters all consider the development of the notion of audiences as active participants in investigations of the crimes involved. The collection continues in its dissection of various popular approaches to true crime by expanding the focus, discussing the importance of representation in true crime by considering the political, racial and gender stereotypes

12 George S. Larke-Walsh employed in narratives on criminal events from the past, as well as examples of contemporary injustice. It explores the unsolved mystery, mafia narratives and the tendency to operate within simplistic cause-effect visions of criminal events and finally a study of musical soundtracks revisits all of the previous themes by exploring the ethics of its production and inclusion in texts. The final chapters are crucial studies of lesser-considered aspects of contemporary true crime. Jimenez-Varea’s consideration of the graphic novel leads on from Michael Buozis’ study of Morris’ literary study and again considers the search for truth by studying the role of peripheral figures in the hunt for motivation or causes of criminal behaviour. Bethan Jones’ chapter considers the influence of forensic fandom on the true crime genre, as well as on criminal investigations discussed in “real-time”. Lastly, Stella Gaynor’s chapter asks “what more can be added” to the story of Ted Bundy through analysis of female-centred texts. These chapters have been placed at the end of the collection in order to encourage readers to consider new avenues of study and to consider the impact of true crime from a transmedial point of view. It is evident the true crime genre entertains and informs, sometimes in equal measure. We aim to dissect the effects, both positive and negative, of its popularity on wider perceptions of crime and the justice system within contemporary America. As stated at the beginning of this introduction, true crime is popular and therefore speaks to a wide array of audiences and for many different reasons. The collection has been designed with this understanding in mind and to open further debate. It asks readers to consider the roles true crime plays in the dissemination of information about contemporary American culture, the legal system and civic responsibility. It engages with some of the ethics involved in the production and consumption of the genre, such as the social values assumed in narrative closure and links to real world actions. It examines whether audience engagement and activism help or hinder the efficacy, or understandings, of the judicial system. This collection encourages readers to engage with the genre as a complex and wideranging form. It suggests readers proceed with an open mind and consider the multiple ways the genre speaks to society and what it encourages in response.

Notes 1 In Cold Blood was originally published in 1965 as a four-part serial in the New Yorker magazine. The full version was published as a book in 1966. 2 See for instance, Seltzer (2007) on Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger’s Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996), Paradise Lost II: Revelations (2000), and Paradise Lost III: Purgatory (2011), or Horeck (2019) on Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos’ Making a Murderer (2015, 2018). 3 Adnan Syed’s conviction was overturned in September 2022 (Serial) and Chris Dawson was convicted of killing his wife in August 2022 (Teacher’s Pet). In both cases, the podcasts were referenced by media as having a direct impact on the legal process.

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References Agueya, Angela. 2013. “Paradise Lost and Found: Popular Documentary, Collective Identification and Participatory Media Culture”. Studies in Documentary Film. Vol. 7, No. 3. 233–248. 10.1386/sdf.7.3.233_1 Biressi, Anita. 2004. “Inside/out: Private Trauma and Public Knowledge in True Crime Documentary”. Screen. Vol. 45, No. 4. 401–412 Bruzzi, Stella. 2016. “Making a Genre: The Case of the Contemporary True Crime Documentary”. Law and Humanities. Vol. 10, No. 2. 249–280. 10.1080/175214 83.2016.1233741 Capote, Truman. 1966. In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York, Random House. Horeck, Tanya. 2019. Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era. Detroit, Wayne State University Press. Nichols, Bill. 2010. Introduction to Documentary. 2nd edition: Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Seltzer, Mark. 2007. True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity. New York, Routledge. Worden, Daniel. 2020. Neoliberal Non-Fictions: The Documentary Aesthetic from Joan Didion to Jay-Z. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press.

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Beyond Entertainment: Podcasting and the Criminal Justice Reform “Niche” Lindsey A. Sherrill Assistant Professor of Business Communication at the University of North Alabama, USA

Within months of true crime podcast Serial’s 2014 debut and assent to “cultural obsession” (Merry 2014), journalists began to describe the exploding interest in true crime podcasting as “the Serial effect” (e.g., Goldberg 2018; O’Connell 2015; Quirk 2016), and the podcast itself quickly became the subject of academic discussions and media frenzy (i.e., Berry 2015; The New School 2015). In the midst of the Serial craze, fan podcasts began to spring up to discuss theories of the case, strategize ways to free Serial’s main character, Adnan Syed, and explore the themes Serial raised. Several of these podcasts, including Undisclosed (Chaudry et al. 2015) and Truth & Justice (formerly Serial Dynasty; New Beginning, Inc. 2015), evolved to begin examining other wrongful conviction cases. These particular podcasts were distinct from the other true crime podcasts that emerged in Serial’s wake, and have elicited passionate responses from listeners by bringing attention to issues within the U.S. criminal justice system. As the format has matured, producers of these podcasts are now leveraging their popularity—and the influence of the “Serial effect”—to advocate for justice. This chapter examines the growth of this criminal justice reform focused “niche” post-Serial, through the lens of organizational ecology and social movement theories (e.g., Buechler 1993; Carroll and Hackett 2006; Hannan and Freeman 1977). Together, these theories help us to understand the hybrid nature of these podcasts as both entertainment products and social movement actors, and the role their creators are playing in affecting real-world changes. While the five podcasts explored in this chapter are far from the only criminal justice reform advocates in the true crime podcast space, they represent some of the earliest and most influential examples of this genre’s power to influence social change.

Podcasting and True Crime In 2015, The Guardian called true crime media a “super-brand,” mentioning Serial as part of the biggest cultural phenomena of the year (Lawson 2015). This trend has continued, with examples like 2018 bestseller I’ll Be DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-2

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Gone in the Dark to documentaries like The Jinx (Lawson 2015) and LulaRich (Yuko September 18, 2021). One of the fastest growing mediums in the genre remains podcasting—as of 2019, there were over 1100 true crime podcasts, with new ones appearing each month (Sherrill 2020). Serial became the quickest podcast at the time to reach five million downloads (Roberts 2014), and several podcasts emerged to dissect the case. These podcasts, such as Slate’s Serial Spoiler Special (Roberts 2014), were fanoriented, with hosts gushing over details of the narrative as if it were fictionalized television. Within a few months of Serial’s release, a new kind of podcast emerged, beginning with Undisclosed, and followed closely by Truth & Justice and Breakdown. Undisclosed was hosted by a trio of lawyers devoted to proving Serial’s focus, Adnan Syed, had been wrongfully convicted. Truth & Justice used fan input via email and social media to try to discover the “real” murderer. These podcasts gained followers from Serial’s huge fan base, and, when they had exhausted available information about Syed and Lee, turned to other true crime stories with the goal of uncovering systemic criminal justice issues and drawing attention to the wrongfully convicted. These podcasts introduced a new breed of true crime predicated on the belief that fans without training in the law could impact the criminal justice system. Since Undisclosed and Truth & Justice, multiple other podcasts related to criminal justice have gained popularity. This population of podcasts is differentiated from the larger true crime podcast genre by its focus beyond entertainment. These narratives are goal-oriented, often focusing on victims, desired outcomes, or mobilization for specific causes. Susan Simpson, lawyer and a host of Undisclosed, wrote, “Do we want to grab the attention of listeners and entertain them for a few episodes, or can more be achieved? … . We don’t explore criminal mysteries for the sake of it” (October 14, 2017, paras., 8, 10). While early podcast research focused on educational and entertainment uses (e.g., Huntsberger and Stavitsky 2006; Meserko 2015), more recent scholarship has addressed fanship (Boling and Hull 2018), uses and gratifications (Perks et al. 2019), true crime podcast organizations (Sherrill 2020), and users’ political participation (Kim et al. 2016). Downey and Fenton (2003) described alternative media platforms (like podcasts), and bemoaned their lack of success compared to mainstream outlets. Carroll and Hackett (2006) pointed to a sea change in the development of alternative media, writing, “Alternative media are not simply a political instrument but a collective good in themselves, as they short-circuit corporate control of public communication and foster democratic conversations” (88). The podcasts discussed in this chapter—those related to both true crime entertainment and social movement causes—represent a growing body of alternative media acting to facilitate this public communication.

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The True Crime “Niche” Podcasts of particular genres exist within larger “communities” of podcasts, and organizational ecology helps explain how these communities grow and develop. Organizational ecology examines environmental influence and the dynamic nature of populations of organizations (e.g., Hannan and Freeman 1977). Within organizational communities, populations may exist within a niche, defined by the similarities of member organizations’ structures, resource requirements, production capabilities, services rendered, and target consumers (Baum and Singh 1994). A single podcast related to criminal justice reform might overlap into true crime or investigative journalism niches through the genre of its content (true stories about real cases) and its targeted audience (nonfiction podcast fans). Changes in population size are vital to the health of organizations because of finite resources within the community (Hannan and Freeman 1977). New organizations must compete with more established organizations for resources. This “liability of newness” can be lessened by co-option, the creation of relationships with existing organizations and leaders (e.g., Baum and Shipilov 2006). An organization which has relationships with government or other social structures, either through its community or individual members, has institutional embeddedness and improved survival chances due to access to resources (Baum and Shipilov 2006). Tied to institutional embeddedness is legitimacy. Carroll and Hannan (1989) described legitimacy for media organizations as the “taken-for-granted right of existence” and “value as a source of information” (529). Legitimacy can develop through shared values within a social system, the ability or willingness to evolve as the system evolves, and ability to participate in interorganizational transaction of resources within the community (Dowling and Pfeffer 1975). Other paths to legitimacy include acceptance by established members of the community, adherence to community-approved goals, charitable contributions, and cooption by inviting influential leaders into the organization. While establishing legitimacy can bring more resources to an organization, being low in legitimacy may cause a loss of resources (Dowling and Pfeffer 1975). For example, by being produced by the well-established, well-funded This American Life public radio program in conjunction with The Public Radio Exchange, Serial entered the podcast population with significant legitimacy and institutional embeddedness advantages as compared to independent, startup podcasts.

True Crime and Social Movement Theories Social Movement Theory approaches focus on organizational or institutional factors of movements, or on the meeting of macrolevel societal change and microlevel collective identity (e.g., Cohen 1985; McAdam 1999; McCarthy and Zald 2001; Melucci 1985). Economic structure, shared identity, socioeconomic stress, and ideology may all lead to collective action and social

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movements (Melucci 1985). Alternative and “grass-roots” media can serve as catalysts for social change (Downey and Fenton 2003). The focus of modern social movement scholarship is collective identity, a dynamic process of social construction, occurring through interaction within a group or between groups (Buechler 1993; Cohen 1985; Melucci 1985). These interpersonal interactions also result in “collective learning,” a necessary component of social movements (Eder 1985). The ideological basis of collective identity creates diversity across demographic group and allows for “counter-hegemonic coalition formation” (Carroll and Hackett 2006, 94). Groups secure the resources needed to act collectively through the process of resource mobilization. This mobilization is predicated on movements acting as normal, rational, political challenges from actors with grievances (Buechler 1993; Canel 1997; Cohen 1985; McCarthy and Zald 2001). Melucci (1985) includes resources in his definition of collective identity as “a shared definition of the field of opportunities and constraints offered to collective action” (793). Three main issues affect mobilization: prior group resources, the process of pooling and directing resources, and the addition of resources from supporters outside of the organized group (Jenkins 1983). Resources may be monetary (capital, labor, and facilities), informational (i.e., a member with legal knowledge or technical expertise), or structural (i.e., access to mass media), and when combined with shared identity and goals, may lead to a successful movement. McAdam (2017) also stresses the necessity of “mobilizing emotions” (194) such as anger at injustice or fear of threat, to create collective action. It is in the conceptualization of resources that social movement theory most closely converges with organizational ecology. Structural and material resources can be viewed as the actual technologies (i.e., Apple’s iTunes player) and institutional backing that propelled the growth of this population. Podcasting is relatively inexpensive, requiring very few initial investments and allowing independent, amateur podcasters to enter the market and compete with established producers. In addition to Serial, multiple podcasts are backed by National Public Radio or other mainstream outlets. Many independent podcasts, through their use of co-option and collective identify, have acquired the necessary legitimacy to partner with institutions and share resources, such as collaboration with the Innocence Project. The human/informational component of resources can be seen in networking between niche members and willingness to share case information across organizations. These podcasts also share the resource of cultural capital (e.g., Eder 1985), allowing them to connect with listeners and work from within society to affect change. Both organizational ecology and social movement theories focus on resources, motivations, actors, and the development of formal or informal organizations. The exponential growth of true crime podcasts, specifically those related to criminal justice reform, suggests that this phenomenon is of scholarly interest both to the study of population emergence and movement

18 Lindsey A. Sherrill mobilization. Using a focus on relationships, collaboration, and shared resources, this analysis explores how a growing criminal justice reform movement has used podcasting to build identity and networks.

Leveraging the Serial Effect for Real Change When Serial first aired, podcasting was nearly 15 years old, but had yet to reach widespread consumption. In 2004, The Guardian called internet radio a “booming” phenomenon, (Hammersley 2004), but in the ensuing decade, the medium languished, existing mainly as a place for replays of radio broadcasts and independent talk shows. Rabia Chaudry, the lawyer who initially approached Serial’s creators, admitted to having never listened to a podcast at the time: I didn’t listen to podcasts and I didn’t know how big they were. I actually thought: Should I really go with a radio story? I wonder if this is the right thing to do; maybe this won’t have such a big impact. Who’s going to listen to this? (Merry 2014, para. 3) Chaudry was not alone in her skepticism. In 2006, only 22% of Americans over age 12 knew the term “podcast.” From 2009 to 2015, that number was below 50%. By 2021, 78% of U.S. adults were familiar with podcasting, while 28% were weekly listeners (Edison Research 2021). Through social media presence and intense mainstream coverage of the series, Serial drew new fans who could not get enough of the story, and new podcasts sprang up to discuss the case as it unfolded week by week (Hesse 2016; Merry 2014). The initial attention to Serial did not immediately affect the entire podcast community, but rather its specific niche. Total podcast listenership growth remained slow, while Serial fans began consuming multiple related podcasts. Concurrently, Apple made changes to its software which made the podcast player a permanent application on all iPhones and allowed for one-click streaming. This upgrade allowed easier access by consumers and greater visibility to podcast creators and movement leaders (Quirk 2016). From a population ecology perspective, Serial exists as an organization within two overlapping niches inside a larger community. At the community level, Serial is part of an Americana tradition of long-form storytelling and of the true crime genre. While this chapter focuses on the development of a criminal justice reform niche, Serial undeniably helped to grow the broader true crime niche as well (Sherrill 2020). The earliest Serial legacy podcasts, such as Slate’s Spoiler Special and Crime Writers on Serial, published episodes in the days between Serial’s weekly releases. These and similar podcasts discussed each episode, taking questions from listeners, and exploring alternative theories of the case. While these podcasts created

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a tiny niche of Serial related programs, they did not step outside of the true crime genre, and many only existed around the time that Serial was releasing new material. Unlike the fan podcasts, the criminal justice reform-focused shows had clear real-world goals. Undisclosed, hosted by attorneys Chaudry, Simpson, and Colin Miller, focused on evidence and criminal statutes and maintained a companion website with actual case documents, photos, and a statement of their mission: “As attorneys, we pride ourselves on looking dispassionately at facts, analyzing those facts, and applying the appropriate law in our analysis. Our goal is to get to the truth of what happened on January 13, 1999” (Chaudry et al. 2015). Truth & Justice’s host Bob Ruff was not a legal expert or journalist, but his initial goal to help in Syed’s case eventually led to investigation of other cases (New Beginning, Inc. 2015). By April 2017, the iTunes Top 100 listed four podcasts that fit the criminal justice reform niche (Up and Vanished, In the Dark, The Vanished, Someone Knows Something), and Serial remained on the chart for over 900 straight days (iTunes Chart 2017). These podcasts (and their lower-rated counterparts) built on Serial’s popularity and narrative example, but also formed listener communities to act with tangible goals. These podcasts focused on systemic issues like wrongful convictions, unjust laws, or lack of law enforcement coordination in missing person cases. Some covered ongoing cases, while others focused on precedent or history. Still others attempted to investigate forgotten or mishandled cold cases. These narratives also addressed some of the criticism of the true crime genre, such as how people of color, the poor, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other marginalized people are often portrayed as the criminals in true crime, but seldom as the victims (e.g., Cecil 2020; Doane et al. 2017). The following section explores the evolution of several Serial legacy podcasts. Undisclosed Undisclosed was one of the earliest entries to this niche and has one of the strongest resumes. During its first season, co-host Simpson discovered evidence that drastically changed the prevailing narrative and was directly responsible for securing the post-conviction release hearing that ruled in favor of Syed (later overturned by Maryland’s Supreme Court; Allyn Nov. 25, 2019). In season 2, Undisclosed partnered with the Georgia Innocence Project to explore the probable wrongful conviction of Joey Watkins. By this time, Undisclosed had established enough revenue of its own to enter the charitable donation stage of legitimacy. With the help of addendum-host actor Jon Cryer and direct listener contributions, Undisclosed donated $30,000 to 22 charities and $70,000 to the Georgia Innocence Project. Undisclosed’s 2017 coverage of Freddie Grey’s death in the custody of Baltimore police is a prime example of an alternative media narrative to main-stream media coverage (i.e., Downey and Fenton 2003). On July 19, 2021, Dennis Perry, the subject of

20 Lindsey A. Sherrill season 3, was exonerated based on reporting and evidence from the Undisclosed team and the Atlanta Journal Constitution (Georgia Innocence Project 2021). The Undisclosed team continued to record, blog, work with think-tanks, and appear on academic panels, until, on March 7, 2022, they announced the podcast was coming to an end in an episode entitled “It’s a Wrap.” Over the course of their seven year run, Undisclosed covered 27 cases, finding new evidence in favor of nearly all their defendants, and was directly involved in 10 exonerations, two stays of execution, one commutation, one granting of parole, and new petitions for relief or appeals for multiple others (Chaudry et al. 2015; Wheeler Sept. 13, 2019). Truth and Justice (Serial Dynasty) Bob Ruff’s podcast is another that has fully embraced the role of contributing to the criminal justice reform movement. In its second season, Truth and Justice set out to explore the case of Kenny Snow, an inmate in Smith County, Texas. Over the course of the season, Ruff discovered another inmate, Ed Ates, convicted of murdering Elnora Griffin in 1993. This investigation led to the Texas Innocence Project taking on Ates’s case, a new lawyer for Snow, new details in the overturned conviction of Kerry Max Cook, and revelations of several decades of gross misconduct in Smith County. The podcast gained enough advertising and donation revenue to hire a full-time production assistant, helped reunite Ates with his estranged family, solicited donations for the Texas Innocence Project, and led to the creation of a Free Ed Ates group to raise money for Ates’s defense. Ates was granted parole based on evidence discovered by Truth and Justice’s host and fans (Hall July 23, 2019), and his attorney issued a public statement crediting the podcast: “This good thing has happened to a good man and his precious family because of you. You are the difference makers” (Clayton April 2, 2018, para. 2). In its third season, Truth and Justice again worked with the Texas Innocence Project. In 2019, Ruff signed a contract with the Oxygen Network for a televised version of the reinvestigation of the notorious West Memphis Three case (Inside Radio May 8, 2019). While it has received its share of criticism, (including being called irresponsible and biased by prosecutor Colleen Barnett; Paparella et al. August 16, 2019), Truth and Justice stands out as an example of collective identity and mobilization. The podcast has utilized its “army” of listeners to crowd source information because, as Ruff puts it, “with thousands of listeners out there, someone knows something” (New Beginning, Inc. 2015). Breakdown Unlike several of the other podcasts in this chapter, Breakdown is produced by professional journalists and was one of the earliest newspaper-produced

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true crime podcasts (Sherrill 2020). Its title refers to the theme of “breakdowns” in the legal system and “breaking down” complex issues. Bill Rankin, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s senior legal affairs writer, was inspired by Serial to tackle his own case. The first season addressed the 2007 arson and murder conviction of Justin Chapman and focused heavily on how Georgia’s thinly stretched public defender system affected Chapman’s case. Rankin used his contacts to find attorneys willing to help Chapman and chronicled the process from an “insider’s” perspective, explaining legal terms and journalistic methods. Chapman was awarded a new trial, and the prosecutor declined to refile charges, freeing Chapman after eight years in prison. The Southern Political Report credited Breakdown’s coverage of the case with raising local awareness of the importance of holding judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys accountable (Wolf November 23, 2016). Breakdown S2 followed the case of a father accused of intentionally leaving his toddler in a hot car to die. While the season did not explicitly focus on criminal justice reform, it addressed the role of media coverage in jury and venue selection, the ethical and legal issues surrounding character testimony, and pushed the audience to consider alternative theories to the main-stream narrative. Breakdown also furthered the perception of legitimacy for podcasts as its popularity was mentioned specifically by Judge Mary Staley as a motivation for the change of venue (S2, ep. 6). Breakdown began its third season in 2017 with a deep dive into a series on criminal medical malpractice concurrently covered by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. After a hiatus and editorial changes, Breakdown returned to cover the case of a mentally ill veteran shot and killed by a DeKalb County police officer (Rankin and Boone September 27, 2019) and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, delving into issues of race, law enforcement misconduct, and media access to ongoing trials (AJC September 20, 2021). Up and Vanished Up and Vanished began as an independently produced “passion-project” by Payne Lindsey, a nonjournalist and documentary filmmaker inspired by true crime media to investigate the 2005 Tara Grinstead case. The podcast began with the goal of bringing attention to a case that had been forgotten after years of dead-end leads, and addressed criticism of law enforcement in cold cases, but the evolution of Up and Vanished illustrates an important concept of both organizational ecology and social movement theories: the negotiation of boundaries within a population, often through communicative processes between consumers, creators, and the media that may cause creators to reevaluate their content or processes (Sherrill 2019; Weber et al. 2016). Lindsey co-opted legitimacy by announcing the project on the Generation Why true crime podcast (founded in 2013) and mobilized the resource of his investigative skills as a documentarian. Up and Vanished S1 became immensely popular for its Serial-like real-time discovery format, rising to #7

22 Lindsey A. Sherrill on the iTunes Top 100 (iTunes Chart 2017). While Up and Vanished may not have been directly responsible for the advances in the case, the renewed attention encouraged law enforcement to reexamine evidence, eventually securing confessions from two suspects (Kovac February 23, 2017). The podcast’s success was also a major factor in the now-overturned media gag order placed on the case after the arrests (Associated Press March 5, 2018). The evolution of Up and Vanished following the arrests in the Grinstead case opened discussions about ethics and boundaries for true crime producers, particularly for those who, like Lindsey, are not journalists (Mahdawi October 16, 2018; Robinson-Green June 14, 2017). Lindsey has been accused of taking undue credit for solving the case and of generally unethical behavior, particularly in the way he treated certain interviewees on the podcast (for example, the girlfriend of a suspect; see S1, ep. 9). Reddit threads devoted to the podcast called Lindsey “tacky,” “an arrogant prick,” and “self-serving” (Reddit 2019), and the 2018 Done Disappeared podcast openly satirized his voice and style. Lindsey’s follow-up podcast, Atlanta Monster, while a commercial success, has been questioned for its ethics by some (Larson February 12, 2018) while at the same time being called by others “thoughtful and poignant” (Wicker February 2, 2018). Like Ruff, Lindsey landed an Oxygen Network contract for a special on the Grinstead case (Bricker November 17, 2018). Lindsey has since turned his attention to missing Native American women in Up and Vanished S3, noting a responsibility to use his platform to shed light on forgotten victims (Ho September 16, 2021). In the Dark When In the Dark S1 aired, it was not as a classic “whodunnit.” The longtime suspect at the heart of the case of the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling in 1989 had just confessed, drastically changing the narrative of the already-in-production podcast. While this break in the case might have derailed many investigative podcasts, host Madeleine Baran and the team at American Public Media (APM) pivoted to instead focus on other issues in the case—including how investigators failed to take similar crimes seriously and the effect Wetterling’s death had on federal policy. Media critics praised In the Dark S1, with headlines like “The podcast In the Dark isn’t just the new Serial. It’s better” (St. James September 28, 2016). While the first season was well received, season 2 brought criminal justice reform focused true crime from a niche obsession all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Listeners were introduced to the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black Mississippi man, who, due to mistrials and overturned convictions precluding double jeopardy, had been tried for the same quadruple homicide six times and spent 23 years in jail without an upheld conviction. Baran told the Clarion Ledger that those statistics—six trials for the same crime—were what drew APM to the case (Zhu

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September 10, 2020). Baran, over the course of 20 episodes, detailed the team’s investigative work during the year they spent in Mississippi. Many of these findings were what true crime audiences had begun to see as standard in wrongful conviction cases, such as questionable analysis of forensic evidence, unreliable eye witnesses, overlooked alternative suspects, and systemic racial bias. Other parts of the podcast were groundbreaking, such as their “show, don’t tell” approach to explaining the investigative journalism process. This included audio of the team sorting through mountains of court files in a warehouse or walking the escape route the prosecution had argued Flowers had used after allegedly committing the murders. Entertainment journalists praised these stylistic choices, calling them important techniques for modeling transparency and rebuilding waning trust in journalism (e.g., St. James July 7, 2018). As part of their investigation, Baran and team also embarked on a massive data journalism project, aggregating information about race and jury selection from hundreds of trials in Mississippi that proved a pattern of racial discrimination in the area and from Flowers’ prosecutor, Doug Evans (American Public Media 2022). Presenting data journalism in a compelling and entertaining way via audio might have been enough to make In the Dark an important true crime podcast, but the events that followed secured its spot in the canon. On June 21, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Flowers’ most recent conviction on the basis of racially motivated jury selection, citing evidence from APM and the podcast (Inside Radio June 21, 2019). Flowers was released on bail, and, in 2020, charges were finally dropped when prosecutors decided against a seventh trial (Slotkin September 5, 2020). In the Dark, from its season 1 exploration of investigative missteps to its day in the Supreme Court to its two Peabody Awards for “transcending the genre and advancing its scope of possibility” (Peabody Awards 2016, para. 1), exemplifies true crime podcasting’s potential for going beyond the luridness of much of true crime entertainment. Baran told the Clarion Ledger after Flowers’ release, “As investigative reporters, we’re not trying to solve crimes, and we’re not interested in crimes itself [sic]. We’re interested in these larger structures and powerful people and institutions” (Zhu September 10, 2020, para. 9). Sadly, in July of 2022, In the Dark’s parent company, American Public Media, announced the cancellation of the podcast and layoffs of APM staff (Melo 2022).

The Niche as a Movement: Theoretical Perspective Serial started a pop-culture conversation around systemic issues in the criminal justice system, including wrongful conviction, coerced confessions, police misconduct, institutional racism, and sentencing of minors. The podcasts that emerged in Serial’s wake have been largely “grass-roots” efforts from a motley crew of creators. Many of these productions rely on crowdsourcing in their investigative work and follow in the tradition of

24 Lindsey A. Sherrill democratic media activism defined as not just a “symbolic challenge” to dominant mass media but also a challenge to “the system of symbolic production” (Carroll and Hackett 2006, 100). While early researchers had bemoaned the state of alternative media, describing it as having, “a spectacular lack of success … and suffer[ing] greatly from a lack of audience, professionalism, and finance” (Downey and Fenton 2003, 196), Serial and the podcasts that followed redefined the possibilities of the medium. Serial entered the market with built-in resources: a following of This American Life fans, a staff of professional journalists and producers, and financial backing. Legacy podcasts built upon Serial’s resources and legitimacy. They were able to do this partly through “selective diffusion” (i.e., Aldrich and Pfeffer 1976) of communication and resources within their growing population. Both Undisclosed and Truth & Justice kept open dialogue with listeners through social media and drew in experts, volunteers, and donations. Both used the principle of co-option (Dowling and Pfeffer 1975) to establish legitimacy. Undisclosed’s host Chaudry was familiar, a known and respected voice who had been portrayed as the real gatekeeper in the Serial story. Truth & Justice used co-option by interviewing Jim Clemente, a well-known former FBI profiler and later host of his own true crime podcast. Clemente’s presence raised Truth & Justice from a fan podcast to a legitimate contributor to the population. Undisclosed and Truth & Justice also practiced interorganizational transaction of resources as they shared information and promoted the other’s podcast. The legitimacy of these podcast organizations was at times threatened by criticism. Undisclosed was accused of bias by listeners who felt Chaudry was too close to the case. Serial Dynasty often veered into wild theorizing and conspiracy accusations. Yet both continued to maintain avid fan bases and procure resources for multiple seasons. Part of the post-Serial podcast’s evolution was certainly an attempt to mimic qualities of Serial (called “isomorphism”; Hannan and Freeman 19771). Per Aldrich and Pfeffer’s (1976) research on isomorphism and innovation: “Innovation … may be a result of imperfect attempts to imitate other organizations perceived to be successful” (87). The resulting heterogeneity of these imperfect attempts kept fans interested. Rather than competing for listeners, these podcasts were related and yet different enough that fanship did not equal mutually exclusive membership (Diani 2013). The ability to innovate allowed these podcasts to exist after the Serial frenzy calmed and their initial goals were met. Journalists have tackled the question of what has made this medium so successful in drawing listeners (i.e., Columbia Journalism Review 2016). Narrative podcasts follow the tradition of long form journalism, providing in-depth analysis beyond “click-bait” headlines in mainstream outlets. Like traditional journalists forced to navigate social media as print media moved online, podcast hosts add a human dimension to their storytelling. The long form storytelling also allows for the building of complex arguments and

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correction of mistakes. Hosts and listeners share a sense of real-time discovery as stories develop between episode releases. Crime reporter Justin George told the Washington Post that this sense of being “in” the story was part of why Serial and its legacy podcasts became so addictive to listeners: The things that she’s [host Sarah Koenig] saying on the radio are the things maybe a print reporter would be saying in the newsroom—this kind of talking out loud: ‘This is what I think. Does this make sense?’ But that doesn’t end up in the finished product. As she’s discovering new things, the listeners are discovering new things. (Merry 2014, para. 8) While the newer podcasts do not all share Serial’s slick production and editing, all of them rely on the engaging personalities of their hosts, a complex narrative form, and a sense of real-time discovery as cases unfold (McHugh 2016). Hosts use examples to highlight a kinship between listeners and victims of crimes or missteps of the criminal justice system, and often use analogies from mythology, literature, television, and movies to create a sense of the timelessness of the issues they address. These characteristics are built both on isomorphic mimicry (as organizational ecology would suggest) and collective identity (as in social movement theory). As noted above, the podcasts that grew from Serial’s legacy had explicit goals. Their goals were not destruction of U.S. criminal justice structures, but rather awareness of issues and improvements within the existing frameworks. While these organizations operate as their own entities, they form networks across the population. These inter- and intra-organizational networks illustrate Diani’s (2013) “system of relationships” (145) across both ecological populations and movement organizations. This follows Melucci’s (1985) explanation of networking for movement growth: “Visibility … provides energies to renew solidarity, facilitates creation of new groups and recruitment of new militants attracted by public mobilization which then flow into the submerged network” (800–801). Truth & Justice co-opted Melucci’s language of militancy, referring to listeners as “the truth and justice army” (New Beginning, Inc. 2015). Collective identity is seen in the interactions of podcasts within this niche. Many host roundtable discussions with other true crime podcasts. Undisclosed focused on these network relationships explicitly after their first season, inviting hosts, lawyers, journalists, and documentarians into the addendum episodes for added case perspective. These roundtable discussions not only addressed the criminal justice reform goals of the movement, but also shared the methods of investigation, storytelling, and production that made their individual endeavors successful. Melucci (1985) predicted such increased dependence on communication networks across social movements might create “a morphological shift in the structure of collective action” (800).

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Conclusion The Serial legacy podcasts have proven that a small, motivated group can utilize digital media to begin a collective movement for real change. The principles of organizational ecology and social movements theory help to explain this phenomenon and offer directions for more research. More thorough qualitative and quantitative study of the podcast population may help us to understand the processes of resource mobilization, co-option, and storytelling that are most effective for propelling a movement. As suggested by Diani (2013), analysis of the relational patterns within social movement fields and organizations may explain the emergence and evolution of networks and populations. More empirical work is needed to assess the impact that these podcasts have on listeners and society at large. More research is needed on the synthesis of organizational ecology and social movement theories, as their similarities and overlap suggest the possibility of complimentary or combined models. Analysis also suggests that there may be another step in social movement development that is seldom mentioned in the existing literature, a cyclical return to collective learning and reorganization as movements evolve, such as Undisclosed’s, Truth & Justice’s, and Up and Vanished’s evolution after their original cases.

Note 1 Isomorphism refers to mimicry of successful organizational forms by new entrants to a market or population ( Hannan and Freeman, 1977). While some isomorphism is conscious, as organizational leaders seek to copy the most successful aspects of more mature entities, other organizational similarities will arise as organizations adapt to similar environmental conditions.

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30 Lindsey A. Sherrill O’Connell, Mikey. 2015. “The ‘Serial’Effect: Programmers Ramping Up on Podcasts”. The Hollywood Reporter, April 13, 2015. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ lifestyle/lifestyle-news/serial-effect-programmers-ramping-up-786688/ Paparella, Andrew, Jospeh Angier, Lauren Effron, and Allie Yang. 2019. “Amateur Sleuths Take On Case of Woman In Prison for Stabbing, Bludgeoning Husband To Death: ‘There Were No Bones Behind’ Conviction”. ABC News, August 16, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/US/amateur-sleuths-case-woman-prison-stabbingbludgeoning-husband/story?id=59477363 Peabody Awards. 2016. In the Dark. https://peabodyawards.com/award-profile/inthe-dark/ Perks, Lisa G., Jacob Turner, and Andrew Tollison. 2019. “Podcast Uses and Gratifications Scale Development”. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 63(4), 617–634. 10.1080/08838151.2019.1688817 Quirk, Vanessa. 2016. Guide to Podcasting. https://www.gitbook.com/book/ towcenter/guide-to-podcasting/details. Rankin, Bill, and Christian Boone. 2019. “Breakdown S07, Ep. 1: ‘They’re here to Help me’”. Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 27, 2019. https://www.ajc. com/news/breakdown-season-judgment-call-episode-podcast-debuts/JAX5nz1t54 ByiXK9e7oyBM/ Reddit. 2019. “Why all the Hate for Payne Lindsey?” Accessed January 19, 2020. https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrimePodWatch/comments/7z6mj0/why_all_the_ hate_for_payne_lindsey/ Roberts, Amy. 2014. “The “Serial” podcast: By the numbers”. CNN, December. 23, 2014. http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/18/showbiz/feat-serial-podcast-btn/ Robinson-Green, Rachel. 2017, June 14. “The Ethics of Amateur Podcast Sleuthing”. The Prindle Post, June 14, 2017. https://www.prindlepost.org/2017/ 06/ethics-amateur-podcast-sleuthing/ Sherrill, Lindsey. 2019. “Suddenly, the Podcast Was Sexy”: An Ecological and Social Movement Theory Approach to True Crime Podcast Phenomena. [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Alabama]. Proquest.com. Sherrill, Lindsey. 2020. “The “Serial Effect” And the True Crime Podcast Ecosystem”. Journalism Practice. 10.1080/17512786.2020.1852884 Simpson, Susan. 2017. “The Unlikely Role of True Crime Podcasts in Criminal Justice Reform”. Quartz, Oct.October 14, 2017. https://qz.com/1101889/theunlikely-role-of-true-crime-podcasts-in-criminal-justice-reform Slotkin, Jason. 2020. “After 6 Trials, Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Curtis Flowers”. NPR, September 5, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/910061573/ after-6-trials-prosecutors-drop-charges-against-curtis-flowers St. James, Emily. 2016. “The Podcast In the Dark isn’t Just the new Serial. It’s Better”. Vox, September 28, 2016. https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/9/28/ 13066062/in-the-dark-podcast-review St. James, Emily. 2018. “Journalism has a Trust Problem. The Podcast In the Dark Proposes a Compelling Solution”. Vox, July 7, 2018. https://www.vox.com/ 2018/7/7/17542176/in-the-dark-season-2-review-podcast The New School. 2015. Serial and the Podcast Explosion [panel discussion]. February 5, 2015. https://livestream.com/TheNewSchool/Serial-and-the-PodcastExplosion.

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2

Chasing the Truth: Making a Murderer, Historical Narrativity and the Global Netflix Event Caitlin Shaw Lecturer in Television Studies at the University of Bristol, UK

In 1996, Hayden White argued that “the power of modern media” lay in their ability to render events “resistant” to historical narrativization. According to him, the “contingency of the videographic recording of the event” (1996, 23) welcomes multiple interpretations, making it difficult for a single, official narrative to take hold. White theorized this on the cusp of proliferating digital technologies which would exponentially broaden the depth and breadth of instantly accessible information, simultaneously facilitating convergence between media. This new media landscape has, in turn, impacted television, blurring the lines between it and other media and transforming its methods of storytelling, distribution and audience engagement (Evans 2011; Johnson 2019). Central to this has been Netflix, which began streaming content in 2007 and releasing in-house original content in 2013, becoming, as Mareike Jenner argues, a “dominant challenger to linear television, viewing practices, [and] nationalised media systems” (2018, 3). Its development of a distribution method characterized by releasing all program episodes together and nearly simultaneously throughout the global regions in which it operated, as well as its effective use of media convergence to transform its serial releases into social media events, were fundamental in this process. When, in 2005, Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos began documenting Steven Avery’s and Brendan Dassey’s trials for the murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, they could not envision that it would one day be distributed according to Netflix’s transnational streaming model. Inspired by a New York Times article, they travelled to Wisconsin to document Avery, who, shortly after exoneration from a crime for which he had been wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years, was charged in Halbach’s murder alongside his nephew, Dassey, who confessed to assisting. Ricciardi and Demos envisioned this as a possible subject for a graduate thesis film, seeking to determine if justice would be administered fairly on this occasion. What unfolded was a complex story of seeming corruption in the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department and Calumet County District Attorney’s Office, media manipulation leading to the widespread presumption of Avery’s and Dassey’s guilt,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-3

Chasing the Truth 33 and subsequent high-profile trials in which Avery’s and Dassey’s defense teams argued they had been respectively framed by police and coerced into falsely confessing. Ricciardi and Demos captured footage between 2005 and 2007 which they worked on for several years, approaching such channels as HBO and PBS but facing difficulty finding a distributor (Murphy 2015). This may have been in part because, although its story likened it to what George S. Larke-Walsh refers to as “injustice narratives”, which she notes have long enjoyed “significant social credibility” (2022, 54), and although its events transpired in the wake of the popular TV serial injustice narrative The Staircase (Canal+, 2004; Canal+, 2013; Netflix, 2018), it did not feature a high-profile subject like The Staircase’s Michael Petersen and nor was the case so widely known outside Wisconsin. However, in 2013, Ricciardi and Demos reached a ten-episode deal with Netflix. The resultant text was Making a Murderer (2015–8), Netflix’s first long-form single-subject documentary serial, and this chapter will explore its textual and extratextual relationship to the streaming service. I will consider how Making a Murderer uses textual devices established in Netflix’s dramatic programming, including a transnational address facilitated by genericity and an emphasis on character as well as a complex narrative which encourages binge-watching, to connect it to the streaming service’s identity and widen its appeal. However, in keeping with Netflix’s expansive transnational viewership, which encompasses manifold tastes and desired levels of complexity, I will suggest that it also exploits these elements to encourage empathy, a sense of agency and critical reflection on broader socio-political issues. It thus works within the Netflix model, inviting more complex engagements without requiring them. I will then examine how its distribution and ensuing participatory new media event, propelled by online viewer interactions and public engagement from its key figures, replicated the explosion of interpretations which White suggests modern media facilitate, rupturing a previously largely regional narrative shaped by hegemonic forces. If the contingency of live coverage of events passively reveals the indiscernibility of historical truth, Making a Murderer evidences how a new media event can encourage active participation in this concept.

Making a Murderer as Netflix Text: ‘Quality’ Television and Layered Meaning Understandably, Making a Murderer is often positioned alongside other contemporary true crime programming. Stella Bruzzi calls it the most “notorious example to date” (2016, 250) of an emergent strain of serialized true crime beginning with The Staircase and also including HBO program The Jinx (2015) and the podcast Serial (2014–). Making a Murderer is indeed comparable, but it is difficult to label as these texts’ direct generic successor. While it benefited from release shortly after The Jinx and Serial,

34 Caitlin Shaw its long journey from inception to screen meant that it was not conceived to align with them. In format, narrative structure and address, it owes at least as much to Netflix’s brand of “quality” drama, which the service was keen to promote at the time of Making a Murderer’s release, as to previous true crime. The service had only two years prior begun releasing its own inhouse content, beginning with its revival of Fox’s Arrested Development (Fox, 2003–6; Netflix, 2013–9) and continuing with House of Cards (2013–8) and Orange is the New Black (2013–9). Jenner notes that to establish itself as a worthy competitor in the “quality” television market, Netflix invested in “relatively high-budget programming” that adhered to “a concept of ‘quality’ mostly guided by HBO” (2018, 226), characterized by stylized cinematicity, serialized narrativity and controversial, challenging subject matter. To this established concept, Netflix introduced the strategy of releasing all episodes at once, mainstreaming the previously “marginalised practice” (ibid., 109) of binge-watching. In turn, its binge model and multi-regional distribution inspired textual adaptations to the “quality” concept. Jenner identifies the removal of obvious episode breaks and particularly complex narrativity—notable in Arrested Development’s “scenes that are difficult to de-code” until future episodes, creating a “narrative web” (2016, 266)—to encourage binge-watching. Similarly, Casey J. McCormick considers how House of Cards narratively plays with temporality, reflecting “the trajectory of the binge experience” (2016, 104–5). Jenner also argues that Netflix’s programs follow a “grammar of transnationalism” suitable to their release in numerous global regions. They use genre to promote accessibility, cite popular mediations of national pasts while de-emphasizing critical historical specificity, emphasize “quality” aesthetics over challenging subject matter and appeal to loosely defined “transnational value systems” which present Netflix as a company that celebrates “differences in the context of … liberal humanism” (2018, 230). These strategies highlight the enormously disparate audiences to which Netflix’s programs must appeal, and Jenner notes that this is not only true across regions but also among viewers within each region, who have differing tastes and desired levels of intellectual engagement. She writes that while Netflix relies on concepts of “‘quality’ TV and bingewatching as structuring forces”, it has “increasingly moved towards more popular tastes” to reflect “the broader spectrum of audience tastes it caters to” (ibid., 139). Netflix’s tension between establishing itself as a purveyor of high-end content and promoting popular accessibility has been argued to extend to documentary. Sundeep Sharma suggests that while Netflix has made feature-length documentary “a core pillar of its service” to “highlight its connection to quality” (2016, 143), widening the visibility of independent films, its commercial status renders it unlikely to support very experimental documentaries. This can be seen to apply to its documentary serials, as Daniel LaChance and Paul Kaplan suggest in their reading of Making a

Chasing the Truth 35 Murderer. They argue that while “on its surface” it “rejects lowbrow sensationalism and titillation”, it “shares with lowbrow crimesploitation a melodramatic sensibility” (2020, 86), presenting simplistic moral binaries and emphasizing the question of Avery’s and Dassey’s innocence over broader problems in the criminal justice system. They compare it to Brett Story’s more experimental film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016), which, by way of twelve vignettes, presents “the prison as a violent expression of a post-industrial political and economic order” (ibid., 93). By this comparison and by their denigrating use of the term “middlebrow” to describe Making a Murderer, they imply that its aim to reach a wide audience—and, in turn, to profit—results in a program with a veneer of “quality” that is in fact simplistic and problematic. This falsely assumes that a text can masquerade as one thing but in fact be another; if qualities which seem in conflict are identifiable in Making a Murderer, they are all to some extent present. However, the serial does avoid considerable experimentation, in many ways conforming to the characteristics which Jenner and McCormick identify. It exhibits aspects of Netflix’s “grammar of transnationalism”, blending the traditional true crime mode with features of “quality” fiction drama. Among these are Making a Murderer’s cinematic, poetic aesthetics and its complex characterization, facilitated by the serialized narrative structure which “quality” dramas have increasingly favored. Demos comments that “in many ways, we structured this as a character-driven story” which includes “intimate moments” and invites engagement with “their wants, their obstacles”, stressing that these are “dramatic terms” (JCCSF 2017). This, in turn, minimizes the story’s relationship to Wisconsin’s history. Jenner argues that Netflix’s fictional programs like The Crown (2016-) and Stranger Things (2016-) “formulate a ‘transnational’ version of history” (2018, 229) which eschews regional specificity. Making a Murderer, although non-fiction and not typically understood as a history documentary, likewise presents a historical narrative, particularly in its initial installment, or Part 1, which mainly recounts events occurring a decade before its release. By centering on Avery’s and Dassey’s individual experiences, it shifts the focus away from that history’s regionally specific social, cultural and political implications, universalizing it and appealing to a generalized “liberal humanism”. Structurally, the serial also invites bingewatching, encouraging popularity: it constructs a “narrative web” by introducing information gradually with limited explanation, resists closure at the end of episodes and manipulates temporality in its slow, absorbing pacing. Yet, as Netflix seeks to appeal to numerous levels and styles of interaction, Making a Murderer’s Part 1 is a layered text. It engages different modes of address at once: while it works within the Netflix format, it also exploits it to invite deeper engagement without demanding it for comprehension. This is notable, for instance, in its utilization of the long-form narrative format both to absorb viewers, in turn manipulating them to accept its perspective, and to self-consciously reflect on the manipulability

36 Caitlin Shaw of historical narratives. The program has often been accused of bias, and while it resists explicitly affirming Avery’s or Dassey’s innocence, it certainly conveys the perspective that the investigation is plagued by police corruption and a presumption of guilt which the prosecution upholds. This gives it a conspiratorial quality, enhanced by its often foreboding soundtrack, and the slow, gradual way in which it reveals information invites decoding. This, in turn, directs viewers toward accepting its narrative, compounded by the fact that Ricciardi’s and Demos’ participation is concealed: they never appear onscreen and their serial largely emulates the style of observational documentaries. However, Making a Murderer’s historical narrative is clearly demarcated as oppositional, an alternative to the media narrative which has solidified in public consciousness as the official history of the event. The program exploits the space its serialization affords it to underscore the official narrative’s manipulation. It allows, for instance, for the inclusion of “in-between” moments that expose the seams of media narrativity: a sequence of media interviews first displays Halbach’s brother claiming that anyone watching Dassey’s confession tape will agree he is guilty, but when asked, admits he has not seen the tape. After this, Dassey’s ineffectual appointed lawyer Len Kachinsky begins to respond to a question before requesting that they “start over” because he is displeased with how he has presented himself (“Indefensible”). The inclusion of this footage exposes the inauthenticity of the interview extracts which will eventually be broadcast. By extension, it reveals the artificiality of the prosecution’s narrative which the media, by omitting such footage, are complicit in disseminating. The long-form structure is also used to stress authorities’ roles in shaping accepted narratives, most notably in the depiction of a press conference in which lead prosecutor Ken Kratz provides an unproven narrative implicating Dassey, retrieved from his confession. Kratz’s story is presented in near entirety, allowing viewers to thoroughly witness and contemplate the implications of Kratz’s problematic rhetorical strategies (“Plight of the Accused”). In turn, these consistent reflections on the manipulability of media narratives invite contemplation on Making a Murderer’s mediated status for viewers compelled to consider it, without alienating those who are not. Meanwhile, the program’s emphasis on character, while expanding appeal by likening it to TV fiction genres and individualizing the story, is mobilized to invite critical thought on broader injustices in the criminal justice system. Larke-Walsh notes that “overt characterization” in documentary has historically been viewed with suspicion “due to a long-held but overly generalized agreement that non-fiction must always be a serious form” (2022, 58). However, she argues that “if considered carefully”—as, she suggests, is done in Making a Murderer and several other injustice narratives—“it also raises the social purpose of injustice narratives beyond the presentation of isolated cases”, as finding “points of connection with the characters” encourages “critical reflection on some of the causes for

Chasing the Truth 37 false convictions” (ibid., 67). In Making a Murderer, moments of intimacy are carefully selected to simultaneously build character and incite reflection, as can be observed in Avery’s and Dassey’s frequently featured recorded telephone conversations. One sequence relays a discussion between Brendan and his mother, Barb, after he rescinds his confession: Barb: Brendan: Barb: Brendan:

I need to know the truth. … Well, you know I’m telling you the truth that it’s not true. Then why say it? … They said they knew already what happened. That they wanted me to—they just wanted it coming out of my mouth. … Barb: But what I can’t figure out is why you said all this shit if it’s not true? And how you came up with it? Brendan: Guessing. Barb: What do you mean, “guessing”? Brendan: I guessed. Barb: You don’t guess with something like that, Brendan. Brendan: Well, that’s what I do with my homework, too. (“Indefensible”) As in other similar sequences, ambient music and contemplative shots of the Avery salvage yard accompany this exchange, provoking viewers to reflect on the hegemonic dynamic it reveals. The police have clearly used a manipulative tactic, claiming they “knew already what happened”, and Brendan’s vulnerability and manipulability are highlighted by his belief that “guessing” in a murder confession to police is akin to guessing at homework. Focusing on character also enables Part 1 to explore the socio-political value of empathy. Demos claims they were inspired by a notion expressed by one of Avery’s defense lawyers, Dean Strang, that “the system is made up of human beings”, and human beings consistently fail “to have empathy for people who are different” (JCCSF 2017). As this connects public and private, foregrounding it facilitates social commentary through the lens of individual subjectivity. In one sequence, a judge admonishes Dassey and denies his request to replace Kachinsky. Shortly thereafter, while driving to visit Avery, Strang observes that Dassey has been the victim of “a series of systemic failings that are deeply troubling”, conceding that he ought not be “worrying about whether other people who are not in my charge are being ground up and spit out by the system” (“Indefensible”). Here, Strang’s empathy is juxtaposed with the lack thereof shown by those in whose “charge” Dassey has been placed, and the “systemic failings” are implied to result in part from that lack. Crucial is that Strang is seen in the everyday activity of driving his car: as well as of Avery, Dassey and their family, Part 1 offers intimate depictions of Strang and Avery’s other lawyer, Jerry Buting. Their development as characters is akin to fiction, notable in an introductory montage which establishes their roles: Strang as a contemplative, mild-mannered empath who claims to understand the “human emotions” that would compel

38 Caitlin Shaw police to frame Avery, and Buting as a perceptive detective who incisively outlines the defense’s narrative piece by piece (“Plight of the Accused”). They are often pictured in activities that foreground their humanity—conversing with the Averys, playfully reacting to comments on their differing demeanors from viewers of the trial broadcast—and their personal investment in the case is underscored, as when Buting speculates on the jury’s process, seemingly to ease his nerves (“The Great Burden”). LaChance and Kaplan read this as melodramatic, writing that Strang and Buting “emerge as the heroes who untie Avery from the railroad tracks as a train conducted by a corrupt prosecutor barrels toward him” (2020, 87). Certainly, this approach prioritizes subjective identification over intellectual distance, but they are figured less as Avery’s heroes—they do not save him from conviction—than as people who empathize with him. Thus, identification with them aids Making a Murderer’s argument regarding empathy, as it urges viewers to also empathize with Avery and Dassey. It also promotes engagement with the broader issues around criminal justice they discuss, in particular Strang. At one point he remarks, Human endeavors are muddy, they are imperfect by definition, and a chase for the truth in a criminal trial can be vain. Justice, it seems to me, is staying true to the set of principles we have about what we do when confronted with uncertainty about the truth. On which side to we err? Do we err on the side of depriving a human being of liberty or do we err on the side of a human being sustaining his claim to liberty when we’re uncertain as we almost always are? (“The Last Person to See Teresa Alive”) This abstract exploration of the importance of presuming innocence is presented as a character soliloquy. Avery’s trial is paused and an expressive montage accompanies it, drawing viewers out of the narrative and asking them to contemplate Making a Murderer’s socio-political implications. That Strang is not a distanced observer but rather a humanized character encourages receptiveness to these concepts, even among viewers not typically prone to such reflection, and it assists in the serial’s global dissemination of its ideas. Part 1’s layered textuality can additionally be noted in its temporal manipulation, which both invites absorption and inspires agency. The first episode and a half follow an expository history documentary form, establishing Avery’s 18-year wrongful imprisonment and exoneration and the subsequent investigation into law enforcement’s mismanagement by combining archival materials with past-tense interviews. However, with Halbach’s disappearance Part 1 shifts mostly to a present-tense observational mode, withholding newer footage until the final episode. As Avery’s trial ensues, even Strang’s and Buting’s immediate post-trial interviews, prominent in the third and fourth episodes, largely recede; they are mostly

Chasing the Truth 39 depicted working or commenting on events whilst experiencing them. Four episodes exhibit Avery’s trial and one Dassey’s, featuring extended courtroom sequences that seem to unfold in real time. The program is consequently slowly paced, but viewers frequently reported postponing Internet research until completing it, as Bruzzi describes her experience watching The Staircase: “I raced through …, never wanting to find out what the verdict was, despite knowing that the information would be easily accessible” (2016, 252). She describes this effect in The Staircase as a “temporal duality” characterized by a simultaneous “reenactment of events that have concluded and an enactment of those same events as if they have not yet happened” (ibid., 254). Bruzzi attributes this to the director’s belief in its subject’s innocence, but it is also because the narrative techniques which The Staircase and Making a Murderer borrow from serialized fiction television help to suspend disbelief. Making a Murderer perfects this: episodes lack clear conclusions and new developments are presented with urgency. Part 1 so fully invites suspension of disbelief that its effect is less a “temporal duality” than a temporal illusion, particularly given the distance between its events and its release. By shifting from an expository history documentary structure to a complex serial narrative structure, it differentiates pre-2005 events, demarcated as “the past”, from those that follow, implied to be “the present”, thus delaying revealing their historical nature. As it largely takes place in a small town which lacks an obvious sense of era and many wear professional attire, and because character identification effects the feeling of experiencing events alongside the participants, it is easy to forget that its events are taking place a decade prior. This promotes binge-watching, aligning Making a Murderer with Netflix’s dramatic programming and rendering it widely accessible. However, it also imbues the past with a sense of changeability, creating the illusion of agency. The long-form structure is exploited to allow viewers to viscerally experience injustices committed; for instance, substantial footage is offered of Dassey’s confession, and although it is intercut with interviews to assist interpretation, much of it runs unedited, inspiring a desire to intervene (“Plight of the Accused”). This immediacy is suddenly and devastatingly revoked in Part 1’s ninth episode, whose concluding sequence has the strongest sense of finality of any. Strang and Buting offer fatalistic final assessments—Strang comments that participants in the criminal justice system suffer from a “tragic lack of humility” and Buting observes that “we can never guarantee that someone will never accuse us of a crime, and if that happens, then good luck in this criminal justice system”—alongside footage of Avery and Dassey being marshaled into police vehicles and a mournful and conclusive electric guitar riff (“Lack of Humility”). This confronts viewers with the temporal distance between themselves and what they have witnessed and with the reality that their journey with these figures is irrevocably complete. This is further reinforced by the inevitably dissatisfying tenth episode, which highlights the

40 Caitlin Shaw cases’ stagnancy in the interim period and features a reunion with Avery’s lawyers, their age betraying the passage of time, provoking a desire to restore the lost sense of agency felt in earlier episodes.

Making a Murderer as Netflix Event: Participatory New Media and Historical Narrativity Of course, Part 1’s emphasis on individual subjectivity does encourage viewers to direct this desire for agency toward justice for Avery and Dassey. For LaChance and Kaplan, this is what problematically differentiates it from The Prison in Twelve Landscapes; they propose that audiences focused on this “rather than proposing a broader, federal action aimed at curbing unbridled prosecutorial discretion or abusive interrogation techniques” (2020, 91). Yet, this is not wholly accurate; Making a Murderer’s responses were as multifaceted as its textuality. It is unreasonable to compare these texts given their differing exhibition contexts; documentaries such as The Prison in Twelve Landscapes are aimed at narrower audiences and rarely inspire widespread extratextual engagement, so their impact is largely limited to what they communicate textually. However, Making a Murderer must be understood not just as a text but also as a new media event. Significant is its status as Netflix’s first single-subject docuseries: its distribution followed a method already perfected with complex serials such as House of Cards, whose second season in 2014 had been, as McCormick writes, “primed … to be a true binge event” by the “growing visibility of binge-viewing” (2016, 112) and Netflix’s other programs’ success. Part 1 was strategically released just before Christmas on December 18, 2015, when many would be off work and able to binge, and to promote it, Netflix released the first episode concurrently on YouTube. By that time, Netflix was available in much of North and South America and Europe, as well as in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, rendering Making a Murderer’s release truly transnational. Facilitated by its accessible narrative structure and “grammar of transnationalism”, it achieved enormous popularity on an international scale. Several celebrities fueled the hype by praising it on social media platforms such as Twitter; for instance, Ricky Gervais Tweeted, “Never mind an Emmy or an Oscar … @MakingAMurderer deserves a Nobel Prize. The greatest documentary I’ve ever seen” (@rickygervais, December 23, 2015). Making a Murderer differed from its Netflix event predecessors in one key respect: it was non-fiction. It is useful here to return to Hayden White’s assertion regarding the progressive potential of modern media events. This can obviously be hindered by manipulation; the initial event of Halbach’s murder and Avery’s and Dassey’s trials was afforded limited interpretative freedom, as its official narrative was steered by authorities. Discussing the O.J. Simpson case, Thomas Grochowski observes that although “crime is a popular subject in the media, the view of crime is largely skewed by those

Chasing the Truth 41 who have immediate access to crime information—law enforcement and journalists” (2006, 365). Making a Murderer foregrounds how law enforcement shaped public knowledge, leading to a widespread presumption of guilt which impeded Avery’s and Dassey’s trials. However, Grochowski argues that the O.J. Simpson case reveals the possibilities afforded by the Internet for subverting official crime narratives. He notes that “although some caution must be heeded before heralding a more democratic media system”, the “internet discourse surrounding the case” illustrates its “possible threats to traditional mechanisms of knowledge control” (ibid., 362). Simpson’s fame fueled widespread media coverage and public interest which fostered a wealth of alternative online interpretations. Making a Murderer’s illusion of immediacy, combined with the shared transnational experience of binge-watching it simultaneously, might be said to have enabled it to emulate the feeling of a news event unfolding in the present, despite its historical nature. If Simpson’s fame facilitated widespread attention, Netflix’s ubiquity fulfilled this for Avery and Dassey. Considering Making a Murderer in this way demands reassessing its bias; given that the case’s initial coverage had obstructed alternative interpretations, Part 1 functioned as an oppositional historical narrative which could reopen dialogue, balancing the scale by revealing contingencies in a previously solidified official narrative. This was facilitated by Part 1’s selfconscious emphasis on official narrative formation. Given the transmedia landscape into which it was introduced, it was released in the recognition that viewers would engage with case-related resources readily available on websites such as stevenavery.org—where, among other materials, the trial’s full transcripts are available—and to participate in discussion and debate. Social media could now also facilitate open dialogue with the people featured within it. As such, the event of Making a Murderer effected a similar response to what one might witness in a contemporary, immediately unfolding event as theorized by White, provoking what had been previously barred: an array of conflicting interpretations. Far from being passively manipulated by the serial’s perspective, it is clear that many were actively aware of it and keen to research and debate it, leading to intense discussion on social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit and in-depth analyses of both the program and the case by YouTubers, podcasters and so forth. Key figures in the program—most notably Strang, Buting and Kratz—were sought for interviews on news segments, chat shows, podcasts and the like. Questions to Strang and Buting tended toward attempting to confirm whether they truly considered Avery innocent, as well as testing the legitimacy of their perspectives on the case, indicating a broad awareness of the manipulability of media and consequent skepticism toward Making a Murderer’s point of view. Others who might offer alternative viewpoints on the case, its coverage and the reliability of Making a Murderer’s perspective were also sought out for interview. For instance, in February, 2016, the Minnesota

42 Caitlin Shaw Society of Professional Journalists hosted a conversation in Minneapolis with three journalists prominently featured in the program. That said, Making a Murderer’s emphasis on character did crystallize attention around Strang, Buting and Kratz. Kratz was frequently vilified, in part a repercussion of his having been depicted, as Larke-Walsh explains, as a “flat” character. She argues that while Steven, Brendan and the Avery family are presented as complex, “round” characters, Kratz, Kachinsky and detective James Lenk are reduced “to oppressive agents of an uncaring system” and are not “provided with significant screen time or character complexity that may contradict, or even complicate this assessment” (2022, 69). While Ricciardi and Demos insist this is because those seeking to convict Avery and Dassey refused, alongside the Halbach family, to participate significantly in their documentary, it is also a strategy to present Kratz as “an alternative culprit” (ibid.). Telling is Part 1’s extraneous inclusion of his post-trial lawsuit for sexual harassment and subsequent treatment for drug and sex addiction and narcissistic personality disorder. This undoubtedly fueled distaste for him, and as Part 2’s first episode details, he received multiple death threats and faced significant online abuse after the release of Part 1. Meanwhile, Strang and Buting, who participated substantially and whose depiction is far rounder, were widely lauded. LaChance and Kaplan cite one Reddit user’s post—“‘These men were batman. Trying to fight the good fight in the face of a corrupt Gotham city’” (2020, 90)—and read this as a distortion of traditional fictional heroic defense lawyers, held up for “an unadorned decency and commitment to upholding the values of due process”. They suggest that instead, Making a Murderer encouraged viewers to align Strang and Buting more closely with “the vigilante heroes of 1970s backlash films like Dirty Harry and Death Wish” (ibid., 91). Yet, this analysis focuses on a single Reddit thread and is consequently reductive; across the Internet, it is clear that many recognized and contemplated the broader systemic injustices Strang and Buting point to in the program. They were most widely described not as superheroes but as “heartthrobs”, and while this seems a similarly visceral response, its subtext suggests political awareness. Particularly notable was the intense social media focus on Strang, which many attempted to deconstruct in articles with headlines like Vogue’s “Love is Strang: The Undeniable Appeal of Making a Murderer Defense Attorney Dean Strang” (Felsenthal 2016) and The Guardian’s “Dean Strang is Making a Murderer’s unlikely sex symbol” (Marcus 2016). It was certainly unlikely: The Guardian describes him as “short, glasses-wearing, nebbish” (ibid.) and viewers ironized their attraction by playfully dubbing his tame attire “Strangcore”. Yet, testimonials elucidate it. Frequently cited are his empathy, passionate commitment to justice and cerebral eloquence, suggesting it was in fact his distance from anti-intellectual, macho vigilantism which was attractive. In Vogue, the author likens his empathy to “a faucet he can’t turn off” and explains that when she is “verklempt with ire at prosecutorial overreach or crime scene

Chasing the Truth 43 corruption, Strang uses his superior elocution and rock-solid legal vocabulary to verbalize the outrage I can’t articulate” (Felsenthal 2016). Both uniquely playful and telling is an article in which the author details her attempts to use his reflections on criminal justice as pick-up lines on the dating app Tinder, quipping that “I found out that people respond much better to deep, philosophical questions about the nature of potential systemic bias in the criminal justice system if you say ‘hello’ to them first” (Yurcaba 2016). What emerges repeatedly is a political subtext to viewers’ expression of their attraction to Strang, championing socio-political consciousness, intellectualism and empathy by rejecting cultural standards for masculine attractiveness. Many viewers thus responded readily to the ideas Strang and Buting explore, and the pair exploited the attention they received to encourage similar responses from those who did not. They held a tour, “A Conversation on Justice”, first across several cities in North America and subsequently across parts of Europe and in Australia, aiming to both continue and expand the parameters of the discussion on criminal justice opened up by the serial’s popularity. The tour was remarkably successful, selling out numerous venues, and thus must be understood as a significant facet of Making a Murderer’s extratextuality. Buting further sustained and widened the discussion by publishing a companion book to the program, Illusion of Justice: Inside Making a Murderer and America’s Broken System (2017). Significantly, in media interviews, Strang and Buting repeatedly compelled viewers to think beyond the question of Avery’s or Dassey’s innocence. For instance, when asked in one interview what viewers could do to help, Strang responded, Start with the power of the story you’ve been told … . And then start to look for probable commonalities between a story that moves you, and the unknown stories of millions of other people who are enmeshed in the criminal justice system. (Jacobsen 2016) This urges out the progressive potential contained in Part 1’s characterdriven emphasis on empathy, encouraging viewers to extend their emotional investment in Avery’s and Dassey’s plights to encompass investment in wider reforms. One fundamental benefit to Making a Murderer’s transnational popularity, and its consequently dense extratextuality in comparison to many documentaries, is highlighted here. Textual readings which may have been alienating for some viewers if required for comprehension could be subsequently accentuated, once a wide viewership had been compelled to pay attention. Of course, Making a Murderer’s extratextual dimensions were diverse. Although Ricciardi and Demos stressed that their aim was to express an opinion not on Avery’s or Dassey’s innocence but on their having been

44 Caitlin Shaw victims of miscarriages of justice, the narrative webbing does welcome viewers to contemplate the former. Examining Making a Murderer’s transmediality, Alan Hook, Danielle Barrios-O’Neill and Jolene Mairs Dyer note that Part 1 can be read as a “puzzle”, providing “clues, evidence, and plenty of missing fragments that, the format suggests, will add up to an answer” (2016, 10). In this way, it resembles an Alternative Reality Game, crafting “a gaping hole where a hero should be”: as Strang and Buting have failed, “ultimately, the hero is to be you, the viewer” (ibid., 12). Many did respond like this, polarizing into online groups who considered Avery and Dassey innocent and who considered them guilty and focusing, in online discussion, on piecing together information from additional resources to attempt to “solve” the crime. Yet, such activities simultaneously elucidated the difficulty in ascertaining the truth, something which was frequently acknowledged in online discussions and popular journalism. One of many comparable articles which appeared in the wake of Part 1, for instance, is titled “‘Making a Murderer’: 5 fascinating theories about what REALLY happened”, the capitalization of the word “really” seeming to promise truth. However, after offering possible alternatives to the prosecution’s narrative, it reminds readers that it is “all speculation—just opinions, imaginings and musings—but the fact that so many people have theories is testament to how complicated the case is” (Stewart 2015). Repeatedly articulated was that the history of Teresa Halbach’s murder could not be narrativized, as Making a Murderer had exposed potentialities previously hidden by a controlled media narrative. This substantiated Strang’s assertion in Part 1 that “human endeavors are muddy”, rendering futile “a chase for the truth”. Indeed, this new media event’s participatory dimensions, which White could not yet theorize in his assessment of modern events, meant that Making a Murderer’s viewers played an active part in confirming it. The success of Making a Murderer’s first installment led to a second, and Part 2 betrays how new media texts and events facilitate participatory and self-reflexive constructions of meaning. From the outset of Part 2’s first episode, Part 1 is figured as an event in the Avery and Dassey cases’ narratives: a grey title card appears resembling those from Part 1, but here it selfreflexively reads, “November 9, 2015—Five and a half weeks before the launch of Making a Murderer”. The episode then details Part 1’s unfolding event, drawing on media coverage and highlighting conflicted responses. News reports describe numerous calls for Avery’s and Dassey’s pardons, while the then Wisconsin governor Scott Walker comments that “documentaries tend to offer kind of a balanced approach; it’s really not a documentary” (“Number 18”). Attention is thus immediately drawn to Part 1’s mediated status and to its wider contexts’ participation in Part 2’s content, as viewers are themselves written into the historical narrative. Part 1’s impact on the unfolding Avery and Dassey story is also highlighted—most notably, Avery’s new high-profile lawyer, Kathleen Zellner, is revealed to have accepted the case after watching Part 1—and repeated references are made to

Chasing the Truth 45 Part 1’s passage through culture. Part 2 is thus significantly more selfreflexive than Part 1, about the Making a Murderer TV program as well as about Avery and Dassey, a clear repercussion of Part 1’s multifaceted reactions. Telling is a title card in the closing credits listing those who declined to participate, betraying, in the wake of accusations of bias, an openness about the perspectives it cannot include. In turn, Part 2 welcomes further reflection on historical narrativity by reevaluating Part 1’s narrative. It recycles Part 1 footage, confronting viewers with its historical nature: what in Part 1 felt immediate, encouraging immersion, is now figured as archival, its comparatively poor video quality revealing its age. Its narrative meaning is often refigured; for instance, footage of discovering a vial of Avery’s blood, presented in Part 1 as a momentous development that leaves an episode on a cliff-hanger (“Indefensible”), is reused in Part 2 to dismiss it as irrelevant (“What+ Why = Who”). Unseen footage from the Avery trial is also included, and these strategies cumulatively draw attention to Part 1’s narrativity; what was felt to be unfolding in real time is here revealed to have been an incomplete or even incorrect presentation of events, the result of both lack of knowledge and editorial decisions. Notable is Part 2’s reuse of footage from Part 1’s introductory montage for Strang and Buting. Here, Avery’s brother, Chuck, describes having seen headlights driving onto the Avery property. As argued earlier, Part 1’s montage establishes Strang and Buting as characters, encouraging identification, and is accompanied by upbeat, determined music. As they ask Chuck questions and investigate the property, viewers are welcomed to hope that, as skilled lawyers, they will prevail (“Plight of the Accused”). However, Part 2’s eighth episode reveals that the prosecution considerably manipulated them by withholding vital evidence implicating Dassey’s brother. The ninth episode subsequently opens with the same footage of Strang, Buting and Chuck Avery, now accompanied by ominous music (“Friday Nite”). In light of the previous episode’s revelations, this confronts viewers with the labyrinthine complications in what had once seemed manageable. Far from being invited to identify with them, viewers are reminded that they know crucial information that Strang and Buting do not, as footage which once presented them as potential saviors from this conspiracy now casts them as victims of it.

Conclusion Making a Murderer must thus be analyzed as a complex constellation of two participatory, new media texts and their diverse associated extratextual phenomena. The first of these texts, Part 1, bears hallmarks of Netflix’s transnationally and widely accessible serialized “quality” programming, inviting binge-watching through its complex narrative webbing and temporal manipulation, and borrowing from mainstream narrative fiction in its individualistic focus on character. However, it simultaneously uses these

46 Caitlin Shaw techniques toward socially valuable ends, inviting its viewers to speculate on narrative manipulability and on the socio-political value of empathy while instilling in them, by way of its temporal illusion, a sense of political agency. This enabled it to appeal to disparate transnational viewers, and its consequent popularity and distribution brought about a global new media event which fed into the meanings surrounding it. The varied responses to Part 1—some focused mainly on “solving” the crime, others more receptive to its broader ideas around narrative manipulation, the importance of presuming innocence and systemic injustices in the criminal justice system—reflected its layered textuality. However, its popularity also offered a platform for the lawyers at its center to provoke a multi-national discussion on criminal justice, inviting viewers to extend their concern beyond Avery’s and Dassey’s possible innocence. Part 1 and its participatory responses also revealed contingencies in an established historical narrative, one further complicated in its self-reflexive second text, Part 2. In doing so, Making a Murderer works alongside other recent texts, such as Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error (2012) as discussed by Michael Buozis in this volume, in encouraging true crime audiences to resist reductive narratives of historical truth. This said, Netflix’s model is not inherently progressive; as Sharma notes, it primarily aims to make profit, and while Making a Murderer’s textuality did open space for critical inquiry, some of its progressive outcomes were serendipitous. Most notably, Strang’s and Buting’s public engagement on wider issues around criminal justice was neither planned nor required, and Kathleen Zellner’s approach has differed. Textually, Zellner’s dedication to proving Avery’s innocence propels Part 2’s narrative, but she is less prone to abstraction in interviews, rarely connecting the case to wider issues. She comments in Part 2’s first episode that she does not wish to defend guilty people, shifting the objective away from maintaining a fair judicial process and protecting the principle of presuming innocence toward proving an individual is innocent. Extratextually, Zellner effectively exploits social media, particularly Twitter, but her posts focus largely on Avery and she does little to engage followers in broader discussion. Such discussions have consequently waned, revealing the extent to which Making a Murderer’s character-driven model depends for meaning on the aims of those involved. Still, the progressive social impact of Part 1’s event reveals that there is value in Netflix’s globalized model, irrespective of the limits it places on textual experimentation. As Making a Murderer borrows from dramatic genres, Alison Landsberg’s concept of “prosthetic memory”, argued in the context of historical drama, is applicable. She seeks to identify value in mainstream, character-focused historical dramas, arguing that their emphasis on individual subjectivity encourages viewers to develop mediated, or “prosthetic”, memories outside of their direct experiences, thus facilitating empathy (2003, 146). By working within a character-driven format, Making a Murderer achieves a similar effect, and Netflix’s outreach meant

Chasing the Truth 47 that this effect was brought into being on an international scale. Systems for supporting the production and distribution of experimental documentaries remain important, as there is a limit to how far Netflix’s model can push boundaries. However, different criteria are required to assess the value of texts which follow Making a Murderer’s model, as they are fundamentally participatory and cannot be separated from the transnational, transmedia events they inspire.

References Bruzzi, Stella. 2016. “Making a Genre: The Case of the Contemporary True Crime Documentary.” Law and Humanities 10, no. 2, 249–280. Buting, Jerome F. 2017. Illusion of Justice: Inside Making a Murderer and America’s Broken System. New York: HarperCollins. Evans, Elizabeth. 2011. Transmedia Television: Audiences, New Media and Daily Life. London and New York: Routledge. Felsenthal, Julia. 2016. “Love Is Strang: The Undeniable Appeal of Making a Murderer Defense Attorney Dean Strang.” Vogue, January 5, 2016. https://www. vogue.com/article/dean-strang-making-a-murderer-love-letter. Grochowski, Thomas. 2006. “Running in Cyberspace: O. J. Simpson Web Sites and the (De)Construction of Crime Knowledge.” Television & New Media 7, no. 4 (November), 361–382. Hook, Alan, Danielle Barrios-O’Neill, and Jolene Mairs Dyer. 2016. “A Transmedia Topology of Making a Murderer.” Journal of European Television, History & Culture 5, no. 10, 1–16. Jacobsen, Kevin. 2016. “‘Making a Murderer’ News: Dean Strang Reveals How You Can Impact the Justice System.” EnStarz, July 5, 2016. https://www.enstarz. com/articles/166333/20160705/making-a-murderer-news-dean-strang-revealshow-you-can-impact-the-justice-system-video.htm. JCCSF. 2017. “The Making of Making a Murderer with Filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi.” October 30, 2017. YouTube video. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Gei-w1jSGYs&t=2239s. Jenner, Mareike. 2016. “Is This TVIV? On Netflix, TVIII and Binge-Watching.” New Media & Society 18, no. 2, 257–273. Jenner, Mareike. 2018. Netflix and the Re-invention of Television. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, Catherine. 2019. Online TV. London and New York: Routledge. LaChance, Daniel and Paul Kaplan. 2020. “Criminal Justice in the Middlebrow Imagination: The Punitive Dimensions of Making a Murderer.” Crime Media Culture 16, no. 1, 81–96. Landsberg, Alison. 2003. “Prosthetic Memory: The Ethics and Politics of Memory in an Age of Mass Culture.” In Memory and Popular Film, edited by Paul Grainge, 144–161. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Larke-Walsh, George S. 2022. “‘Don’t Let Netflix Tell You What to Think!’: Debates on Getting to Know the Accused/Convicted in Making a Murderer and Other Injustice Narratives.” In Critiquing Violent Crime in the Media, edited by Maria Mellins and Sarah Moore, 53–76. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

48 Caitlin Shaw Marcus, Lilit. January 4, 2016. “Dean Strang is Making a Murderer’s Unlikely Sex Symbol.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jan/ 04/dean-strang-making-a-murderer-netflix-sex-symbol. McCormick, Casey J. 2016. “‘Forward Is the Battle Cry’: Binge-Watching Netflix’s House of Cards.” In The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century, edited by Kevin McDonald and Daniel Smith-Rowsey, 101–116. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Murphy, Mekado. 2015. “Behind ‘Making a Murderer,’ a New Documentary Series on Netflix.” New York Times, December 20, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/ 2015/12/21/arts/television/behind-making-a-murderer-a-new-documentaryseries-on-netflix.html. Sharma, Sundeep. 2016. “Netflix and the Documentary Boom.” In The Netflix Effect: Technology and Entertainment in the 21st Century, edited by Kevin McDonald and Daniel Smith-Rowsey, 143–154. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Stewart, Dodai. 2015. “‘Making a Murderer’: 5 Fascinating Theories about what Really Happened.” Fusion, December 28, 2015. https://fusion.tv/story/249427/ netflix-making-a-murderer-what-happened-theories/amp/. White, Hayden. 1996. “The Modernist Event.” In The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television and the Modern Event, edited by Vivian Sobchack, 17–38. London and New York: Routledge. Yurcaba, Jo. 2016. “I Used Dean Strang Quotes On Tinder & Here’s What Happened.” Romper, February 10, 2016. https://www.romper.com/p/i-useddean-strang-quotes-on-tinder-heres-what-happened-5314.

3

True Crime Adaptations and the Many Faces of the Atlanta Monster Kyle A. Hammonds Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma, USA

True crime is not new, but it has undoubtedly been reinvigorated by streaming services for television and radio formats. However, while the genre has many positive sociopolitical functions, including an ability to bring widespread attention to little-known events, it also houses deceptive tendencies in its oft-repeated assertions of narrative objectivity. This chapter interrogates the structures of communication in adaptations of a particular story by analyzing the ways each rendition requires selection and arrangement of information, thereby implying perspective. Assertions of objectivity will be challenged using the concept of narrative rationality developed by Walter Fisher (1980, 1987). The case of the Atlanta Child Murders (ACM) and multiple recent true crime adaptations of the events will serve as ongoing exemplars for the ways in which adaptations consistently communicate authorial perspectives to a much greater extent than objective resolutions to the topic. Decades of scholarship in hermeneutics, built on the work of Gebser (1949) and Gadamer (1975), including recent work in communication and cultural studies by Eric Kramer (Hsieh and Kramer 2021; Kramer 2013), have emphasized the inescapability of perspective. Theorists have even gone so far as to characterize the modern human age as “perspectival,” a term conveying hypertrophic individualism and a dissociation of communicative signs and signified. In other words, attention to personal perspective results in a loss of inherent meaning. Unlike epochs past, people, places, and other social phenomena are no longer definable in simple terms, such as notions of good or bad based on established tradition – they are subject to the relative interpretation of the individual perceiver. Technology has played a special role in splintering signs from meaning by acting as a catalyst for highly curated communication (i.e., people have a great degree of choice over what media they consume). An almost paradoxical aspect of these technologies is that the curators communicate in primarily mythic form (Gebser 1949; Kramer 2013) which attempts to cultivate shared meaning between interlocutors. This form also tends to feel innocuous, sharing DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-4

50 Kyle A. Hammonds meaning without drawing explicit attention to the underlying morals of the text (Barthes 1957). The result for true crime stories is the expression of a curated (perspectival) message that is presented in the mythic form, which provides a sense of inherent meaning while obscuring that the text has any particular standpoint.

Case Files: Introduction to the ACM The ACM have received renewed public interest largely due to Payne Lindsey’s (2019) podcast Atlanta Monster and the subsequent fictionalized adaptation of the podcast into television via the second season of David Fincher’s (2019) Mindhunter. As the subject of multiple popular media – including written work by Baldwin (1985) and Hobson (2017), a plethora of newspaper articles (prominently from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and several television series such as CBS’ The Atlanta Child Murders (Mann 1985) and HBO’s Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (Chermayeff and Pollard 2020), in addition to Lindsey and Fincher’s productions – ACM provides clear ground for studying true crime adaptations. The events also lend themselves to the discussion of narrative and values because the question of whether the killer[s] has been caught remains ambiguous. Therefore, feelings of closure in the ACM case vary significantly based on who is telling the story. Summarizing ACM cannot be done in a completely objective manner because each telling differs in terms of details included or excluded. Even so, background information on the events may be beneficial as social context. The overview of events I offer here will focus on basic coverage of narrative items deemed important by field experts and scholars. I am providing these details without significant author commentary in order to foreground the interpretations of true crime content creators. However, the summary will include commentary from Black authors reporting on the ACM events covered in popular podcasts and television this is because most major true crime adaptations of ACM have been developed by White content creators. This fact has prompted critique from scholars such as Renfro (2018), who have argued that adaptations such as the Atlanta Monster podcast say “shockingly little about the city [of Atlanta] and its people in that historical moment.” He goes on to contend that the context of Reaganism, revelation of the Tuskegee experiment, and the Civil Rights movement have been sparsely considered in popular analyses of ACM. My chapter recognizes this crucial element, but will not fully engage with it in its central argument. I recommend readers interested in a sustained social analysis of ACM consult Baldwin (1985), Hobson (2017), and Renfro (2018). According to Hobson (2017), ACM involved the “mass murder of black victims between the ages four and twenty-eight, all of whom were from the city’s black poor and working classes” (96). He went on to state that “most

True Crime Adaptations 51 of [the missing and murdered children] were believed to have disappeared between July 1979 and September 1980” (96). As children continued to disappear or turn up dead, Atlantians dubbed the killer[s] various names, including the “boogeyman” and the name that eventually stuck in the news, the “Atlanta Monster.” The exact number of victims is difficult to determine because accounts differ in what qualified as a Monster killing. For instance, while the psychological profile developed by authorities focused on young Black men as victims, Hobson, Baldwin (1985), and others have also noted that two young girls – Tonya Wilson and Angel Lenair – were kidnapped and killed during the same time period (5). Pinpointing an exact modus operandi for the Monster is challenging. One point of clarity is that the police of DeKalb County in Atlanta finally opened their investigation for ACM when several victims were found within a similar time frame, all murdered by similar means (asphyxiation). These early victims found in 1979 included 14-year-old Edward Hope Smith, 13-year-old Alfred Evans, 9-year-old Yuself Bell, and 14-year-old Milton Harvey. In July 1980, Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson assembled a task force to investigate the murders. The task force turned up few results and Black citizens grew restless. Hobson (2017) noted that “with growing economic development in Atlanta, it was clear that the city’s administrators were preoccupied with franchising the city for world consumption, while it demonized, disenfranchised, and criminalized its citizens” (108). The city could only endure so much bad publicity before the federal government intervened. The FBI’s newly formed Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) and other agents arrived in Atlanta and began work on the Monster case. The BSU developed a psychological profile suggesting that the murderer would likely follow the media closely, adapt homicidal methods, have a tumultuous employment record, be an only child, bear extreme guilt and/or sexual frustration, be familiar with the crime scenes, demonstrate obsession with authority, be approximately 25–29 years old, and belong to the same racial classification as the victims (Epstein 1987). The proposition that the killer was Black was controversial at best. Hobson (2017) elaborated that “throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, there had been no known instance of a black serial killer” and that the general feeling among Black Atlantans was that “no black person would commit such acts” (99). Indeed, several writers who have thoroughly studied the ACM story have posited that White sexual predators or the KKK may have very well been involved in the killings (Baldwin 1985; Hobson 2017). Renfro (2018) explained that “critics claimed that this elite concern with optics and stability [is what] led investigators to identify Wayne Williams … as the ‘Atlanta Monster.’” Williams came under police suspicion early one morning in May 1981 while crossing a bridge that had been staked out by the FBI. The Chattahoochee river below was presumed to be the site where the killer would dump bodies to avoid leaving DNA evidence. Williams was questioned by the police over the next several weeks, placed under surveillance,

52 Kyle A. Hammonds had his name leaked to the media, and eventually arrested in June 1981. He was tried and convicted for the murder of two adults, Nathaniel Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne. The trial relied largely on Williams’ supposed fit with the BSU profile and fiber evidence which allegedly linked materials discovered on Cater and Payne’s bodies to fibers found in Williams’ home and vehicle. Baldwin (1985) has argued that this fiber evidence was “unprecedented in the legal history of the United States at the time” and presented in such arcane scientific terms that the jury would almost “certainly not be able to understand it well enough to be able to challenge or refute it” (12). The trial’s conclusion was summarized by Blundell (1996): “Williams, they declared, was guilty. He was led to the cells, tear-stained and still protesting his innocence” (184). The families of Monster victims, such as Kerry Middlebrooks (brother of victim Eric Middlebrooks), have reported similar disbelief that Williams is responsible for the full string of murders (Lindsey 2019). Doubts are often reinforced by the notion that Williams was convicted for killing adults, but never formally charged for slaying any of Atlanta’s children.

The Role of Genre and Conventions Marshall McLuhan (1964) famously contended that “the medium is the message.” The media selected for communication will impact the possibilities of the content. Many factors shape content, including common social expectations of a medium (e.g., genre and tropes), and the physical and symbolic boundaries of the form (e.g., “rules” of messaging such as emphasis on auditory information in podcasting). For example, the genre conventions of true crime frame the world in a way that is consistent with postmodern cynicism (Kramer 2013) by making the normal feel strange and the strange, or violent, seem normal. The result is often, as Seltzer (2007) observed, that connection with other people has “mutated into something else: what might be called the sociality of the wound, a togetherness that takes the form of commiseration” (53). People seek out stories which facilitate in an immersion of “media spectacle of crime, violation, and shared (or referred) victimhood …” (53). The direction in which that cynicism is wielded depends largely on the emplotment of content creators. To illustrate this phenomenon, this chapter will focus on how various journalism, television, and podcasting forms utilize narrative rationality to engage with true crime genre conventions, and in so doing reveal their own specific social perspectives. True crime stories [re]present selected aspects of social phenomena. These simulacra are not the events themselves, but references to aspects of them. Edwards (2007) wrote that “in the strictest sense, to adapt is to make fit” (369). Adaptation means conformity to a preexisting structure. Edwards described those who shape adaptations as bricoleurs because “an adaptation typically draws upon a range of pretexts that interact

True Crime Adaptations 53 unpredictably in the long process of script development” (369). Reliance on pretexts is not limited to staged scripting. Although true crime programs are designed to appear coherent, they are immensely heteroglossic. These programs draw on the pretexts of oral and written accounts of the focus event[s], news coverage, and the structural conventions of the genre. Tellings of true crime are necessarily bound by time, which requires selection and arrangement of information about the focus event[s] (Allison 1994). These narratives appear to lay out all the facts and let audiences reach their own conclusions, but Edwards (2007) argued that such audience engagement is essentially tantamount to gaming in which “the controlled interactivity of gaming narratives creates merely the illusion of agency” (370). Consumers can make decisions about how to interpret the evidence, but they are constrained to the facts which are presented to them in media programs on that crime. Some adaptations are more overt than others. For instance, in Mindhunter the audience is constantly aware that there are actors pretending to be the people originally involved in the tragedy. It may be more difficult to break suspension of disbelief in a podcast, such as Atlanta Monster, which presents its story via interviews with people who lived through the ACM. Perhaps even moreso for original news reports. Mediating the suspension of disbelief is also a value-laden endeavor. Edwards (2007) conveyed that the audience “must be able to play a new version of a work against our memory of a prior version” to experience a text as adaptation. Mediation complicates the relationship between the scene-of-the-events (historical) and the scene-of-thetelling (present). Sometimes earlier events or adaptations will be forgotten and newer adaptations will become commonly remembered. The new can become the only in popular memory. Adaptations of ACM convey how contemporary texts can shape audience interpretation and/with supplant[ing] certain historical aspects of earlier tellings. Renfro (2018) has elaborated on ways that White program producers have largely situated the ACM story within whodunit tropes. This framing strongly risks trivializing the structural social and economic disparities historically facing Black Atlantans in lieu of emphasizing a contrived mysteriousness. In such cases, adaptations of ACM foreground entertainment values by portraying “the Atlanta cases as aberrant … peculiar puzzle[s] to be solved by do-gooding gumshoes” while only minimally addressing that “the intersecting causes of the Atlanta slayings, racialized policing and punishment, the lynching of Emmett Till, the caging of Latinx children at the US-Mexico border, and the murders that spawned #BlackLivesMatter are no mystery” (Renfro 2018). While the reported experiences of marginalized Atlantans reveal concrete, structural problems contributing to violence, the conventions of true crime naturally gravitate toward an intrigue with killers which eschews attention from the social context. The emplotment of content creators may alleviate or exacerbate this concern. In the case of Lindsey’s (2019)

54 Kyle A. Hammonds Atlanta Monster, Renfro argued that “in framing the murders as a ‘debate’ and hewing to the ‘whodunit’ conventions of the true crime genre, Lindsey belies the complexity of the subject matter and forecloses the possibility of a more nuanced, thoughtful, and analytical account.” Although he credits Lindsey for showing a sense of reflexivity about the social context of the slayings by the end of the podcast, Renfro lamented that the podcast “says shockingly little about the city and its people in that historical moment.” Even though Lindsey occasionally sought insight from Atlantan experts with experience in the subject, such as Calinda Lee of the Atlanta History Center, he also “fails to adequately build on Lee’s insights, and thus the anxieties shaping black responses to the murders receive short shrift.” This is not to say that Lindsey’s positionality, intrigue with Williams, or other personal qualities rendered him incapable of crafting content which would meet Renfro’s interests; rather, it is to say that Lindsey’s selection of information (emphasis on Williams and trial) and arrangement of content (detective-style action story) did not lend themselves to alignment with the values sought by Renfro and others. Sherrill’s chapter elsewhere in this volume further discusses podcasting professionalism in the context of organizational ecology. Her expanded writing on standards of journalistic professionalism in podcasting interestingly addresses the ways that media resources, motivations of content creators, and organizational values influence true crime podcasting. Readers are encouraged to reference Sherrill’s writing in further contextualizing the factors involved in podcast production for creators such as Lindsey.

Who Is the “Atlanta Monster?”: Narrative Rationality in Answering Hard-Boiled Questions In episode 5 of Mindhunter season 2, the BSU of the FBI debriefs their interviews with Charles Manson and one of his “children” called Tex. They discuss the fact that Manson and Tex’s accounts of the Family murders were different in several ways. Dr. Carr responds that, “The contradicting stories don’t concern me. Neither [of the storytellers] is a completely reliable source.” Carr’s comment meta-narratively suggests that stories feature perspective and are not necessarily objective accounts. Fisher (1987) addressed this notion explicitly in his concept of narrative rationality, which has been selected as a lens for this topic due to its focus on understanding values by means of story implicature. His concept of narrative rationality was developed alongside the more famous metatheory, the “narrative paradigm.” My writing in this chapter does not necessarily adopt Fisher’s broader framework, which has been the subject of controversy among rhetoricians who debate whether Fisher’s overarching work qualifies as a paradigm (universalist application) or a specific mode of discourse (Rowland 1987). Regardless of one’s position on the narrative paradigm, scholars have found significant utility in the more narrow concept of narrative rationality – including application in organizational and management

True Crime Adaptations 55 studies (Weick and Browning 1986), advertising (Stutts and Barker 1999), communication and phenomenology (Allison 1994), communication and climate skepticism (Lejano and Nero 2020), and intercultural/environmental communication (Primayanti and Puspita 2022) to name a few. Narrative rationality is essentially a means of searching stories for their persuasive qualities at both the level of logos (traditional, structuralist knowledge) and axiology (values reflected in the discourse). Fisher’s writing conveyed that “narration is the context for interpreting and assessing all communication – not as a mode of discourse laid on by a creator’s deliberate choice but the shape of knowledge as we first apprehend it” (193). This foundational human logic, or narrative rationality, is dependent on the criteria of coherence and fidelity. Coherence refers to probability – the consistency and integrity of a story. Fidelity pertains to “whether [story components] represent accurate assertions about social reality” (105). Narrative rationality “is not a mechanism for resolving disputes over values” but can “offer a scheme that can generate a sense of what is good as well as what is reasonable” (113). In terms of Dr. Carr’s comments to the BSU team, the character was gathering several relevant stories about the Manson Family murders and then assessing them in terms of coherence and fidelity. She could compare the stories of the interviees to test the relative integrity of each account, then reflect on the values of those stories and determine the consequences of accepting or rejecting them. To Dr. Carr, neither Manson nor Tex gave completely objective accounts, which was apparent via narrative contradictions. She worked with the BSU team to determine what was believable from the divergent stories. Sometimes those tests of believability came from evaluating the veracity and sometimes they came in the form of contending with implicit values. These narratively implied values are what Fisher called “felt-belief” (161). Persuasion by affective response to a plot begins aesthetically, or emotionally-intuitively, and then potentially “give rise to a reasoned belief and conviction” (162). Framing of plots induce an intuitive sense of whether the “right” side has won – whether justice has prevailed. The remainder of this chapter analyzes adaptations of ACM under the lens of narrative rationality by explicating how form, plot, and implied values communicate the belief systems of content creators.

Perspectives in Adaptations of the ACM Whereas formal legal proceedings require that all relevant evidence be presented and shared among counselors before the trial begins, the audiences of true crime programs operate in a similar manner to invited jury members who do not receive all of the relevant evidence beforehand and instead witness events as they are presented by the prosecution and defense. In this way, audiences are treated like a sort of pseudo jury as they receive piecemeal evidence and are persuaded to pass judgment based on narrative

56 Kyle A. Hammonds interpretations of that evidence. However, when evidence is presented in popular media adaptations of crimes, the presentation of content creators is not necessarily regulated in the strict manner demanded by a courtroom. Following this analogy, this section applies Fisher’s narrative rationality as a mechanism for revealing the emplotted values in popular adaptations of ACM. Journalism: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution The earliest adaptations of the ACM were in news reportage. One of Atlanta’s prominent local news outlets, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), has been a common touchstone for later adaptations of the crimes. Early reportage of the killings is not publicly available through AJC’s online archives. However, AJC’s coverage of Wayne Williams’ trial is accessible. The fact that Williams is the central figure in the most available articles is telling. AJC was able to capture dramatic tension by identifying a “Monster” and deconstructing him for their audience. Serial killers, a type of literary monster in both fiction and nonfiction works, are generally portrayed as emotionally devoid loners with violent pasts leading to a lack of conscience in adulthood (Murley 2008, 45). AJC’s adaptation of the crimes often selected and arranged information about Williams to fit the “lone wolf killer” trope. Hilder and Post (1982) described Williams as calm amid stressful circumstances. This description appeared directly alongside reportage on details of the grisly murders. The clear implication is that Williams showed either lack of sympathy in the face of alarming events or lack of remorse for killings. Hilder and Post supported this framing in the plot of their AJC articles by taking a statement from Williams’ mother about her disappointment in the trial outcome, but only interviewing family members of victims who believed in Williams’ guilt. This coverage follows a sort of rhetoric of objectivity (Condit and Ann Selzer 1985) – to be further delineated in later sections – by mentioning multiple perspectives on the trial, even while obviously prioritizing a certain kind or set of quotes. The information was arranged such that the audience concluded on notes implying Williams’ guilt (including explication of trial-irrelevant details, such as calling Williams “pudgy”). Identifying the journalistic value of objectivity enables readers to understand the basis of what may constitute narrative fidelity (Fisher, 1987) in particular adaptations. These threads of objectivity rhetoric within narrative rationality will be elaborated with examples in later sections. Similarly, Willis and Cooper’s (1981) AJC article focused on how prosecutors sought to use fiber evidence to convict Williams. This also conveyed the rhetoric of objectivity by emphasizing material evidence over the social context. In this case, this meant honing on Williams and his possible links to fiber evidence over the systemic oppression which enabled the crimes. Willis and Cooper followed up their writing on forensics with several descriptions

True Crime Adaptations 57 of Williams from police officers, each of whom talked about Williams’ calmness in the face of distressing circumstances. The coverage seems to reinforce the lone wolf killer trope and further suggest Williams’ guilt. Epstein’s (1987) AJC work included excerpts from interviews with FBI psychologist John Douglas, whose work inspired aspects of the Mindhunter television show. Douglas discussed the ways in which Williams fit the FBI profile of a serial murderer, including many of the qualities associated with lone wolf killer. He drew attention to what he perceived as attentionseeking behavior (implying that Williams may have been otherwise socially stunted), the fact that Williams was an only child, and questions regarding Williams’ sexuality. In this case, AJC more overtly took a side against Williams, but presented the arguments within the rhetoric of objectivity by heavily utilizing quotes from Douglas and emphasizing his expertise. The evidence presented from Douglas was methodical and appeared scientific. The implicit logic conveys that objective evidence links Williams to the lone wolf killer profile, which necessitates his guilt. Douglas’ story has both coherence and fidelity with probable audience expectations about killers. Accordingly, for AJC readers, Williams is indeed the Atlanta Monster. It is also noteworthy that the lone wolf killer trope is not inherently objective, given that it typically draws on the experiences of White killers, rather than victims or law enforcement or brutalized communities, and frequently operates as a form of apologia (Dickson 2021.) In other words, the very invocation of the trope draws on certain points of view while eliding others. Podcasting: Atlanta Monster Payne Lindsey’s (2019) popular podcast, Atlanta Monster, also purported to function as investigative journalism and drew heavily on the rhetoric of objectivity. The introductory episode of Atlanta Monster pulled interview quotes from Atlantans to create a sense of atmosphere for the city in the 1970s and 80s. Lindsey wove sound clips to inform the audience that racial tension existed in Atlanta at the time, although the social context manifesting these tensions was generally backgrounded. After the first episode, the story closely followed a noir-style centered on solving the mysteries of ACM. Williams had been arrested by episode 3 and the bulk of the podcast is dedicated to weighing evidence for and against Williams’ guilt. Episodes 4 – 8 explored reasons to doubt that Williams was the Monster, while episode 9 (in addition to the early episodes) and the bonus episodes expanded on the evidence against him. Episode 10 is largely dedicated to Lindsey’s musings in summary of both sides of the argument. In the end, Lindsey did not take a particular stand except to punctuate that all children should be considered equally important. The show ends with a quote from former Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed in which he emphasizes the need for a common desire, across socioeconomic and racial lines, to protect children. Podcasts like Atlanta Monster might be considered a form of

58 Kyle A. Hammonds contemporary oral story-telling. Podcasts are particularly phonocentric insofar as there is a prioritization of auditory content. The podcasting form implies a trust that linguistic representations of the world are as good as any other form of experience. Bauman (1986) has noted some limitations of narrowly defining oral story-telling in terms of auditory information, specifically that the “essence [of oral literature] resides in the assumption of responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative skill, highlighting the way in which communication is carried out, above and beyond its referential content” (3). Although Bauman went on to describe aspects of nonverbal communication beyond vocalics which could enhance oral storytelling, he would also include qualities such as paralinguistics in analysis of oral performance. Podcasting is able to highlight nonverbal vocal performance, which is of vital importance for conveying genre, providing necessary information (which may otherwise be available from various forms of context), and authenticating the performance. Lindsey’s vocal performance is deep, calm, and even. He utilizes these paralinguistics to reinforce the notion of objectivity. The vocal performance acts in tandem with his content claims about conducting an investigative podcast. These elements come together to insinuate a style of journalism and cues the audience to understand the content as if it were reported news. Communication research on journalistic coverage of true crime has identified a rhetoric of objectivity. Condit and Ann Selzer (1985) delineated three principles of such rhetoric in their examination of news coverage. Although their principles were designed to be transportable, their original study assessed newspaper coverage of the David Koerner murder trial (another true crime adaptation). They first noted that reporters are trained to “focus on the ‘material elements’ of a case” (211). This approach is markedly different than other forms of evaluation, such as court cases. Condit and Selzer argued that “social interpretation of reality, not the discovery of truth, is the operative force in the courtroom” and conveyed that “storytelling [is] the dominant influencing factor in jury decisions” (199). More recently, Kristen Fuhs (2014) noted a similar phenomenon in other media, such as documentary films, and a consistent hyperfocus in true crime regarding “authenticy” with “claims that their evidence is more truthful, more compelling, than the evidence that had been relied upon in court” (p. 24). Her work conveys an ongoing genre obsession with extreme realism and objective values within true crime adaptations. Due to this emphasis on the “realism” of evaluating just-the-facts, the rhetoric of objectivity necessarily excludes subjective, emotional valences. As per objectivist rhetoric, Lindsey claimed to try and “close the door” on the ACM with investigative evidence in his podcast, using many of the episodes to focus on how law enforcement collected evidence. The second tenet in the rhetoric of objectivity is that “reporters are taught to provide quotations from both sides of a case” and “claim to avoid interpreting” (Condit and Ann Selzer 1985, 212). Regarding Atlanta

True Crime Adaptations 59 Monster, Renfro (2018) mentions that Lindsey indeed “presents evidence which seems to implicate [Wayne] Williams while also sowing reasonable doubt about his guilt.” The complication with this approach is that an attempt to equitably represent all sides of a debate makes it seem as if all the narrative contenders have equally veracious and valuable information. To scholars such as Renfro or Baldwin, the arrest of Williams was on the basis of an “elite concern with optics and [Atlanta’s corporate] stability” (Renfro 2018). Atlanta Monster has little information about the socio-historical context motivating city tensions and driving law enforcement. In this way, the rhetoric of objectivity in adapting ACM makes Williams’ guilt seem plausible and the work of investigators appear entirely motivated by a desire to help citizens. Condit and Ann Selzer (1985) also identified a journalistic admonishment “to use quotation marks and distancers like ‘alleged’ to avoid expressing an opinion and incurring the risk of libel” (212). Hedging of this kind was found to generally favor the arguments of the prosecution in their study on press coverage of murder trials. This journalistic objectivity “may actually result in systematic distortion” because “these practices are often reinforced by the entertainment function of the media … and by the tendency of journalists to identify themselves with the community rather than with the defendant” (213). In the case of true crime stories, the focus on material evidence and desire for closure will often implicitly side with investigators. Therefore, the rhetoric of objectivity often aligns with an important feature of oral performance in the podcasting medium. According to Bauman (1986), “the aesthetic considerations of [oral] artistic performance may demand the embellishment or manipulation – if not the sacrifice – of the literal truth in the interests of greater dynamic tension …” (21). Several overarching themes are clear from the form and content of Atlanta Monster. The importance of objectivity – telling both sides of the story – was transparently valued in the content of the podcast, as evidenced by Lindsey’s interviews with both those who believed in Williams’ innocence and his guilt. Atlanta Monster also curated quotes from an array of experts with an overarching focus on examining material evidence. The presentation of evidence variously concords or conflicts such that the audience may have a difficult time understanding whether they should root for Williams or despise him. The podcast also valued dramatic tension insofar as details regarding the Monster case were slowly doled out. This approach may keep audiences in suspense but might also be considered less transparent than certain off-screen counterpart process, such as evidence discovery in court, in which all relevant facts are laid out from the start. In this way, the production communicatively constructs audiences as a jury, interpreting presentations of narration, rather than prosecution or defense counsel making meaning from all the facts at once. A further theme of Atlanta Monster was racism in the criminal justice system, which was addressed by providing a platform for a handful of marginalized people to

60 Kyle A. Hammonds share their experiences with discrimination. However, as mentioned by Renfro (2018), the story does not explicitly link these instances to systemic failures of justice. Finally, the podcast communicates a fear of strangers as a value through its plot. The Monster was often discussed in terms of a mysterious ‘other’ until the program reached the point of Williams’ arrest. After the arrest, the theme was continued by using applying tropes of the lone wolf killer. Williams was generally characterized as calm, solitary, calculated, and intelligent while lacking social skills. The selection and arrangement of information in the podcast framed Williams as a villain at the beginning, cast doubt for dramatic tension in the middle, and concluded with stories implying Williams’ guilt throughout the final episode. In terms of narrative rationality, Atlanta Monster’s plot aims for catharsis by suggesting the audience has “solved the crime” following Lindsey’s conclusion about Williams. Fisher’s concept of felt-belief explains that narratives can form arguments by bringing the audience through a story arc and implying how they should feel about the story at the end. Again, the power of such argument is grounded in the narrative’s coherence and fidelity. In this case, Lindsey set up the podcast’s value framework within the themes of the Atlanta Monster. The expectations set for the implied/constructed audience were to evaluate the case objectively, acknowledge racism in the criminal justice system, and be leery of strangers. Lindsey maintained his own narrative logic throughout the podcast by providing examples supporting each of these values within the plot (e.g., appealing to his journalistic integrity, interviewing minority groups, and offering hyponarratives of children being abducted by outsiders). The coherence of these examples may not support the overall persuasive effort if one shifts the value framework used to interpret the podcast, but Lindsey’s emphasis on the three major themes of the plot effectively functions to induce a felt-belief that Williams was guilty. Television: Mindhunter, Season 2 The second season of David Fincher’s (2019) Mindhunter television production has also recently adapted the events of ACM. Mindhunter is largely built on nonfiction works from former FBI profilers, especially that of John Douglas. Payne Lindsey also interviewed Douglas for a bonus episode of Atlanta Monster. Douglas has consistently maintained that Williams is the Atlanta Monster, even though he has stipulated that Williams may not be exclusively responsible for the ACM (Lindsey 2019, “The Mindhunter Himself”). Comparatively, Fincher’s show is less focused on deconstructing Williams – who only first appears at the end of the second to last episode of the season – and more on the social challenges associated with the FBI’s intrusion into the case. As a visual medium, television is ideally suited for the viseocentrality of modern perspectivist culture (Kramer 2013). Whereas humans of previous eras have centered orality in communication, contemporary technological

True Crime Adaptations 61 societies generally prefer to trust their eyes over their other senses. Kramer (1993) explained that “vision is integrally related to the modern sense of evidence and reasons” in terms of both scientific-empirical and folk/narrative data (30). Vision constrains what is within the audience’s purview in literal (content on the television screen) and figurative (point-of-view) senses. The strength of television is immersion in the content and its implied atmosphere. There is also the risk that “as the sense of reality is sectorially narrowed [by visual perspective], the claim to immutable truth and intolerance is proportionally enhanced” (30). What the audience sees is likely to be perceived as true (even if it is a dramatic recreation) and the audience’s point-of-view takes priority over alternatives. Although audiences may, when prompted by markers of fiction, distinguish television reality from other social ontologies, true crime often semiotically obfuscates these markers. As a result, Kramer has further claimed that, especially in realistic genre presentations, “television, because of its visual emphasis, propagates images that present themselves fundamentally as being objective, being truthful, being real …” (35). In short, the viseocentrality of television enhances its credibility. For Mindhunter, this means that even though audiences are aware that the show is a dramatic recreation, the power of the medium and the genre likely impose a sense that the case facts represented in the show correspond with the important facts of reality. Mindhunter is more explicit in regard to the racialized politics in 1980 Atlanta than other adaptations simply because of the visual aspect of television. White city officials, police, and other decision-makers are portrayed quite differently to Black Atlantans. The White characters, aside from the BSU team which are fraught with dramatic tension for entertainment purposes, are generally portrayed as comfortable – often times as affluent and opulent. Black characters are sparsely shown as happy. Rather, they are frequently stressed, tormented, and impoverished (as conveyed through costuming). The concern on the faces of White and Black characters in response to the ACM in the show are obviously different. This is simply one example of how the visualization in television influences meaning. Whereas Lindsey (2019) moved quickly to Wayne Williams’ arrest, Fincher (2019) and team concentrated on the ACM victims and the city of Atlanta. Due to this key difference in plot, Mindhunter surfaces several values and themes aside from those addressed in other media. The show is about the FBI BSU and their ongoing endeavors to interview and study serial murderers. There are three main characters in the BSU: Jonathan Groff’s Holden Ford, Holt McCallany’s Bill Tench, and Anna Torv’s Dr. Wendy Carr. Each protagonist collaborates with the others at certain points, but season 2 also takes the characters into individual story strands. Ford travels to Atlanta and incidentally finds himself caught up in solving the Monster case. He is especially interested in trying to help people who he perceives to be vulnerable, but encounters limitations in perspective (a White man trying to understand how the Black community is responding to the murders) and red

62 Kyle A. Hammonds tape (such as White police burying him in forms to stimy investigative progress). Tench occasionally assists Ford in Atlanta, but primarily attempts to help his family after the revelation that his young son has been complicit in the murder of another child. Carr focuses on managing the BSU while Ford and Tench spend time away from the unit’s headquarters. She also navigates a new relationship with a woman she meets early in the season and wrestles with stigma associated with that relationship. These three story strands frame various issues which bear on interpreting the Atlanta Monster case. Ford’s story conveys how White investigators, prosecutors, and reporters have dominated public opinion of ACM and conveys some limitations of that perspective. Tench’s subplot confronts the horror of victimizing children while also ruminating on how anyone could grow up to be a killer. Dr. Carr’s hyponarrative probes the harmful impacts of social stigma. The discrimination that Carr fears and (sometimes) evades is later weaponized against Williams when the BSU calls his sexuality into question. Fincher’s series inverted the emplotment from Atlanta Monster, investigating the impact[s] of the slayings on Atlantans as the driving action of the story rather than deconstructing Williams. Mindhunter accordingly addresses the notion of stigma by comparing and contrasting characters’ perceptions of norms and deviance. The topics of mental health (Ford’s secrecy about his clinical anxiety), sex (orientation and preferred partners), parenting, and poverty are each considered in terms of the harmful stigma often socially attached to them. Fincher and team seem to examine these stigma with an empathetic eyeby conveying how characters wrongfully suffer due to perceptions about their social identities and/or positions, thereby implying an aesthetic argument or felt-belief that these stigma are hurtful and wrong. For instance, the audience is able to get to know, appreciate, and develop a connection with Dr. Carr early on in the season. Amid this expository orientation to the character, it is clear that her partner is another woman. Later on in the show, the audience is introduced to moments in which Dr. Carr nonverbally communicates discomfort, framed to invoke audience sympathies, when Tench expresses the belief that queerness is a precursor to violence, suggesting that he would treat Dr. Carr differently if he knew about her relationship. Mindhunter also dissects the subject of vulnerability by conveying its link to justice. Throughout the season, Ford is consistently convinced that justice can only be served when the most vulnerable people are provided with equitable services. He is upset when it seems that officials are slow to help the parents of missing and murdered Black children in Atlanta. Although Tench is a bit more fickle in this area by merely accepting the limits of bureaucracy in investigation, he increasingly comes around to Ford’s pointof-view as he goes through the ordeal with his own son. Finally, Fincher’s series showcased narrative tensions between order/ structure and chaos/randomness. The show acknowledges virtues and vices of each. For instance, organization enabled law enforcement to mobilize

True Crime Adaptations 63 resources toward capturing child predators. At the same time, tools of those structures could undermine the overall moral goals of investigators. For example, Ford builds a profile of the Atlanta Monster based on interview data collected from other serial kills. This profile arguably, due to limitations from available data, propagated anti-Blackness in the Atlanta police force, discriminated against poor Atlantans, and targeted queerness. Regardless of whether that particular tool of organization activated movement to catch the Atlanta Monster, the profile served to limit perspective for the possible identity of the Monster. This is a double-edged sword. A profile is designed to narrow the parameters of a search, but in so doing also generates a stereotype which is, by necessity, a generality that cannot be universally accurate. Ford’s profile is simply one instance of Fincher’s series-long rumination on the role of moral responsibility in navigating order and randomness. Overall, Fincher’s narrative logic framed the story in terms of tragedy by establishing values of sympathy for the stigmatized, protection for the vulnerable, and the boundaries of official social order – all of which were undermined by plot points throughout the series. For instance, the show took time to show the audience around their construction of Atlanta, all the while conveying hardships for many of the young people of color in the city; meanwhile, Ford developed a psychological profiles which targeted these already vulnerable people. By intentionally having the audience witness the violation of the show’s aesthetic values, Fincher and team suggest a feltbelief that the people of Atlanta were wronged during the ACM investigation. Given this nuanced emplotment, I argue that Mindhunter – although fictionalized – presents audiences with a more nuanced and thorough assessment of the ACM case than its nonfiction counterpoint, Atlanta Monster.

Detective’s Notes: Lessons in Adaptation from Coverage of the Atlanta Monster This chapter has demonstrated that true crime stories that give the appearance of journalistic objectivity are curated by content creators. The relevance of information for a program is dependent on how well that information “fits” (i.e., is adapted) to the value structures imposed by the storytellers. The many adaptations of ACM, three of which were examined for this chapter, provide clear examples of how narrative emplottment communicates values. Each narrative includes and foregrounds certain information which conforms to the bricoluer’s social purpose while simultaneously excluding other information. This process of emplottment implies that true crime stories, like other genres, operate as a form of strategic communication in which choices of content imply persuasion. In the first case of adaptation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the

64 Kyle A. Hammonds content creators focused on deconstructing Wayne Williams and explaining the prosecution’s strategy for convicting him during trial. As has been noted from Renfro (2018) and others, the capture of Williams was incredibly convenient and narratives of his guilt are fraught with contradictions. Even so, the AJC chose to foreground the information implying Williams’ guilt. Although one can only guess at the various reasons for this choice of coverage, it would seem that one major communicative goal was assuaging political constitutents – assuring Atlantans that the city officials had protected them by catching the Monster. The second case of adaptation, Lindsey’s Atlanta Monster podcast, took a similar approach to AJC by employing the rhetoric of objectivity and emphasizing a deconstruction of Williams. Lindsey’s communicative goals seem to adjust over the course of the podcast, but his overarching commitments appear to be with entertainment/drama as well as the injustices done to families of the missing and murdered children. As with AJC, Atlanta Monster appeals to a gritty, perspectival sense that individuals who work hard enough can uncover the truth of a case for themselves. Mindhunter season 2, the third case of adaptation, employed a unique plot as compared to the first two cases. The show did not deal with the arrest of Williams until the second-to-last episode and did not cover his trial at all. Alternatively, Mindhunter attends to the strengths and weaknesses of the investigation. Fincher’s work conveys the grief facing underserved Atlantans and inculcates a postmodern cynicism toward traditional institutions, such as child services or the criminal justice system. The show implicitly agreed with Baldwin (1985) that when the Monster profile is scrutinized, it becomes clear that “whoever was murdering the children … could, literally, have been anyone, of any color” (7). Baldwin recorded that Camille, mother of victim Yuself Bell, “along with almost all of the other mothers, repudiates the [Williams] verdict” (13). This aspect of the ACM events, which was largely absent from other adaptations, is in sharp focus in Mindhunter. The show even has Camille deliver a line claiming that Williams was “Atlanta’s thirteenth victim.” These three cases of adaptation convey that true crime stories always communicate a unique perspective which reflects the values and goals of the content creators. In general, true crime stories often fulfill postmodern fantasies in which individuals can discover gritty personal truths. Sometimes these truths are discovered with the aid of traditional organizations and sometimes they are found despite them. In either instance, the emplotment and framing of content always imply values, a fact which contradicts the rhetoric of objectivity so frequently employed in the genre.

True Crime Adaptations 65

References Allison, John M. 1994. “Narrative and Time: A Phenomenological Reconsideration.” Text and Performance Quarterly 14: 108–125. doi: 10.1080/ 10462939409366076. Baldwin, James. 1985. The Evidence of Things Not Seen. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Barthes, Roland. 1957. “Myth Today.” In Mythologies, 109–160. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Bauman, Richard. 1986. Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. New York, NY: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. Blundell, Nigel. 1996. Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. North Dighton, MA: The JG Press. Chermayeff, Maro, and Pollard, Sam. 2020. “Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children.” Television. HBO. Condit, Celeste Michaelle, and Ann Selzer, J. 1985. “The Rhetoric of Objectivity in the Newspaper Coverage of a Murder Trial.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 2(3): 197–216. Dickson, E.J. 2021. “The Excuses We Make for White Male Murderers.” Rolling Stone, March 17, 2021. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/ atlanta-shooting-robert-long-1143318/. Edwards, Paul. 2007. “Adaptation: Two Theories.” Text and Performance Quarterly 27(4): 369–377. doi: 10.1080/10462930701587592. Epstein, Gail. 1987. “From 1987: Atlanta Child Murders: Williams ‘very like’ FBI Profile.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2007 1987, sec. News. https://www. ajc.com/news/crime–law/atlanta-child-murders-williams-very-like-fbi-profile/ IKyewPxrv06NXcUWz98F9J/. Fincher, David. 2019. “Mindhunter.” Television. Netflix. Fisher, Walter R.. 1980. “Genre: Concepts and Applications in Rhetorical Criticism.” The Western Journal of Speech Communication 44: 288–299. Fisher, Walter R. 1987. Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Fuhs, Kristen. 2014. “The Legal Trial and/in Documentary Film.” Cultural Studies 28(5-6). doi: 10.1080/09502386.2014.886484 Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1975. Truth and Method. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Continuum. Gebser, Jean. 1949. The Ever-Present Origin. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Hilder, David B., and Post, Hyde. 1982. “From 1982: Atlanta Child Murders: Williams Guilty.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hobson, Maurice J. 2017. “The Sorrow of a City: Collisions in Class and Counternarratives - The Atlanta Child Murders.” In The Legend of the Black Mecca: Politics and Class in the Making of Modern Atlanta, 94–130. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. Hsieh, Elaine and Kramer, Eric M. 2021. Rethinking Culture in Health Communication: Social Interactions as Intercultural Encounters. Wiley Blackwell. Kramer, Eric Mark. 1993. “The Origin of Television as Civilizational Expression.” In Semiotics 1990, 28–37. Norman, OK: The Semiotic Society of America.

66 Kyle A. Hammonds Kramer, Eric Mark. 2013. “Dimensional Accrual and Dissociation: An Introduction.” In Communication, Comparative Cultures, and Civilizations: A Collection on Culture and Consciousness 3, 123–184. New York, NY: Hampton Press, Inc. Lejano, Raul P. and Nero, Shondel J. 2020. The Power of Narrative: Climate Skepticism and the Deconstruction of Science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lindsey, Payne. 2018. “Atlanta Monster.” Mann, Abby. 1985. “The Atlanta Child Murders.” Television. CBS. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Murley, Jean. 2008. The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Primayanti, Ni Wayan, and Puspita, Virienia. 2022. Local Wisdom Narrative in Environmental Campaign. Culture, Media, and Film. doi: 10.1080/23311983. 2022.2090062 Renfro, Paul M. 2018. “Tough on Crime: Atlanta Monster and the Politics of ‘True Crime’ Podcasting.” Atlanta Studies, October. doi: 10.18737/atls20181016. Rowland, Robert C. 1987. “Narrative: Mode of Discourse or Paradigm?” Communication Monographs 54: 264–275. Seltzer, Mark. 2007. “The Conventions of True Crime.” In True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity, 39–56. New York, NY: Routledge. Stutts, Nancy B., and Barker, Randolf T. 1999. “The Use of Narrative Paradigm Theory in Assessing Audience Value Conflict in Image Advertising.” Management Communication Quarterly 13(2): 209–244. Weick, Karl E., and Browning, Larry E. 1986. “Argument and Narration in Organizational Communication.” Journal of Management 12(2): 243–259. Willis, Ken, and Cooper, Tony. 1981. “From 1981: Wayne Williams Is Charged in Nathaniel Cater’s Slaying.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 10, 1981.

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True Crime, True Representation? Race and Injustice Narratives in Wrongful Conviction Podcasts Robin Blom1, Gabriel B. Tait2, Gwyn Hultquist3, Ida S. Cage, and Melodie K. Griffin 1

Associate Professor of Journalism at Ball State University, USA Associate Professor of Journalism at Ball State University, USA 3 Masters Student at Ball State University, USA 2

Introduction The genre of true crime as it appears on network television and discount book shelves habitually focuses on the gore of crime scenes, victim suffering, and heroic carriage of justice by arresting the perpetrators of heinous transgressions. However, in the recent era of proliferating digital technologies a rising subgenre, wrongful conviction podcasts, offers something new over earlier types of true crime narratives by centering their stories on victims of the criminal justice system: innocent people who ended up behind bars as a cruel miscarriage of justice (Hernandez 2019). As Lindsey Sherrill has detailed in the opening chapter to this book, wrongful conviction podcasts are not only a popular product they also have the potential to affect real-world changes in the area of justice reform. If these wrongful conviction additions to the genre would be a true reflection of injustice, their episodes should frequently focus on black and brown exonerees who form the majority of cases listed on the National Registry of Exonerations. People of color are both overrepresented in mass incarceration and subsequent exonerations in the United States (Gross et al. 2017). However, to represent this reality, wrongful conviction podcasts would need to deviate from traditional true crime storytelling, which primarily focuses on white law enforcers and victims (Hernandez 2019), similar to crime coverage in news media (Dixon 2008). Though some have argued that true crime’s popularity is an area of concern when it comes to wrongful convictions (Boorsma 2017), such storytelling allows audiences to experience the impact of social dynamics that come about with crime. Their narratives could provide an opportunity for listeners to understand complexities of social structures (Boling 2019)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-5

68 Robin Blom et al. that could explain why wrongful convictions take place recurrently in the United States and elsewhere. With its purpose to expose inequities in the criminal justice system in mind, it would be expected these wrongful conviction podcasts would feature those victims of systemic injustices in a representative manner to tease out important causes of failures within the system, including racist motives and policies upheld by authorities. This chapter explores the historical context for racial bias in the perception and characterization of crime characters. It conducts a quantitative analysis of recent true crime podcasts to assess the extent to which diverse storylines have been presented in popular wrongful conviction podcasts and whether this deviates from the data presented in the National Registry of Exonerations. As true crime is often centered on whiteness (Horeck 2019), Valdez (2017) observed that many true crime podcasts have generally ignored racial issues and that very little has been written about racial discourse in the true crime genre. Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to examine to what extent contemporary wrongful conviction podcasts reflect these perceived patterns of behavior. An examination of 271 episodes from nine wrongful conviction podcasts (Actual Innocence (Gittings and Taylor 2016), In the Dark (Baran and Freemark 2016), Mass Exoneration (Baker et al. 2018), Not Guilty (Richardson 2020), Proving Innocence (Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic 2018), Serial (Koenig 2014), Sins of Detroit (Hunter 2019), Undisclosed (Chaudry et al. 2015), and Wrongful Conviction (Flom 2016) provides the data for our analysis. These podcasts were chosen because they were among the most popular true crime podcasts on Apple Podcast and Spotify, and because they appear to offer a diverse representation of race, ethnicity, and gender of the main suspects in both exoneration or potential wrongful conviction cases. Notably, these wrongful conviction podcasts have the ability to encourage understandings of the intersections of race, crime, and politics in the justice system for a diverse audience. Therefore, our analysis shows such intersections are emphasized or ignored and provides a small example of current practice that will hopefully encourage further interest.

Wrongful convictions Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan stated in a case more than fifty years ago, “it is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free”.1 Yet, Turow (2017) has revealed the current criminal justice system still often fails innocent victims of the system in that regard: “Our vaunted truth-finding system is quite capable of delivering false results. The consequence is a Kafkaesque nightmare for the defendant, and moral confusion for those who rely on the criminal justice system to accurately discriminate between good and evil” (xi).

True Crime, True Representation? 69 Harlan’s observations were important to emphasize the need to protect innocent people caught up in the criminal justice system, but they were not unprecedented. Wrongful convictions have been studied by academics for more than a century in the United States since Borchard (1912) stated, “In an age when social justice is the watchword of legislative reform, it is strange that society, at least in this country, utterly disregards the plight of the innocent victim of unjust conviction or detention in criminal cases” (684). Borchard (1932) later rang the alarm bells with his book containing sixty-five case studies of wrongful convictions, which mobilized researchers in the following decades to better understand the reasons why these mistakes took place during criminal investigations and in the courtroom, and to find solutions to decrease wrongful convictions. Nonetheless, scholars have made only little progress in estimating the number of innocent individuals behind bars. Some of them place the percentage between 2–4 percent of the prison population, but those are often considered conservative estimates (Gross et al. 2014). For example, a study in Virginia by the U.S. Department of Justice found that wrongful convictions in hundreds of cases with sexual offenses were as high as 12 percent (Walsh et al. 2017). Yet, the exact percentage of wrongful convictions within the U.S. prison population is unknown, because it is impossible to determine how many cases go undiscovered (Poveda 2001). Bedau and Radelet have noted “how accidental and unsystematic the discovery of relevant [innocence] cases actually is” (1987, 29). Their observation came two years before Gary Dotson became the first person to be exonerated with the help of DNA, which started a flurry of wrongful conviction appeals, but still only gets a fraction of innocent people out of prison. Simply put, “most miscarriages of justice … never come to light” (Gross 1998, 150). The National Registry of Exonerations publishes information about all known exoneration of innocent criminal defendants in the United States since 1989 and has collected limited data about cases before that year. The registry has strict definitions of whose cases are eligible to appear on the list, but generally exonerees are persons convicted of a crime, yet later officially declared innocent or relieved of legal penalties on the conviction when evidence was not part of any court procedures that would have involved reconsideration of the case. That does not necessarily mean that people not on the list are not innocent by default. For instance, there have been many cases in which people took an Alford plea, in which they can maintain their innocence, yet acknowledge that a jury could be convinced beyond reasonable doubt by the case as it would be presented by the prosecutors because evidence of innocence is not directly available. It is also possible that innocent people finished their prison sentence or were executed as part of that sentence while they did not do the crime for which they were convicted. As of September 1, 2022, there were 3,215 people on the registry—a huge undercount in consideration of even the most conservative estimates. Notably, there was a large disparity among racial groups on this registry.

70 Robin Blom et al. According to Gross et al. (2017), convictions of black exonerees were affected “by a wide range of types of racial discrimination, from unconscious bias and institutional discrimination to explicit racism” (ii). Although African Americans formed about 13 percent of the population, they formed half the exonerees on the list. A bit over one-third of them was white. The registry categorized 12 percent of the cases as Hispanic. Other races or ethnicities were mentioned 1 percent or less. As Turow (2017) concludes irately: “When you add the realities of racial bias and a segregated society where people are often seen first by color, we find, all too frequently, that the gold standard is not even tin” (xiii). Based on the registry, innocent African Americans were seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people, twelve times more likely to be convicted of drug use, and three-and-a-half times more likely to be convicted of sexual assault. Black people convicted for murder were 12 percent more likely to be innocent than convicts from other races. They were more likely to be innocent in cases in which the murder victim was white. Whereas about 15 percent of murders by African Americans involved white victims, double that percentage of African Americans on the exoneration list was initially convicted for murdering white people. Their cases were more likely to involve police misconduct attributing to their convictions and, on average, black exonerees were behind bars three additional years in comparison to innocent white convicts. Those on death row spent four more years in prison. In conjunction, half the sexual assault cases with eyewitness misidentification at the heart of the court trials involved African American exonerees, even though sexual assault of white women by African American men happened in about one-out-of-ten sexual assault cases. Similar to murder, black people spent a few years longer behind bars until their release for sexual assault and received much longer prison sentences than their white counterparts. That led Gross et al. (2017) to the conclusion that “what we see—as so often in considering the role of race in America—is complex and disturbing, familiar but frequently ignored” (1).

Racializing crime news The inequities seen in the exoneration registry are rarely emphasized in news coverage (Dixon and Azocar 2007) or popular culture (Horeck 2019). With its roots deep in the recounting of the most gripping atrocities—from reports of grisly murders to drama-filled stories of drug trafficking—true crime has been a genre that has intrigued humans for centuries (Burger 2016). This has resulted in a constant cycle of crime shows and segments that dominate network television schedules. This presupposes on one level the viewer or listeners can vicariously experience the cops and robbers chase without actually being there. On another level, readers, viewers, or listeners are often encouraged to play act as an armchair detective or crime sleuth to figure out a “whodunnit!” mystery as part of their favorite crime programs.

True Crime, True Representation? 71 Either way, it has been noted that most portrayals of crime in mass media are slanted positively toward the position of “law and order” (Alexander 2020) with “implicit or explicit endorsement of governmental authority in its role as crime fighter” and texts often praise the legal system “for their zeal in bringing the guilty to justice” (Wiltenburg 2004, 1392). In those cases, obvious to the average viewer of crime dramas, the police arrest the criminals, and the system works in an orderly and unbiased way. Yet, Alexander (2020) has noted the reality of the criminal justice system is very different from what is fictionalized on television shows and films, and what some may observe on new media platforms like podcasts or streaming services. Portrayal of crime issues have historically been inaccurate, which “may well result in public perceptions that reflect significant misunderstandings of complex crime and justice issues” (Durham III 1995, 145). As a potential source of misperceptions, Wiltenburg argues, “Irrespective of the intent of the originators … the crime reports exert substantial political and cultural power” (2004, 1377). News media prime audiences with criminal stereotypes by overrepresenting crime news involving people of color as suspects. As a result, news audiences repeatedly activate the stereotype over time, even when race is not mentioned in relation to a particular crime incident (Dixon and Azocar 2007). Even a brief visual image of a black male crime suspect can activate racial stereotypes. This is especially the case for white audiences who may already adhere to negative stereotypes about people of color. As a result of the visual depiction, those already biased and prejudiced, often consider a black suspect more guilty, more deserving of punishment, and more likely to commit more violent crime in the future than white suspects within similar crime contexts (Peffley et al. 1996). Alexander suggests race is embedded in the cultural constructs of American history, and in the 1980s the so-called “The War on Drugs” became the façade of race-neutral language that allowed white America to stand in opposition to crime without considering the race of the alleged perpetrator (2020). This became evident during the 1988 presidential campaign between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. An advertisement featuring Willie Horton, an African American man released on a weekend pass program, was presented as a comparison between both political candidates. While released, Horton raped and murdered a white woman in her home. His face was featured prominently, and the ad was largely deemed a “dog whistle” for non-African American persons (Mendelberg 1997; Hurwitz and Peffley 2005). The misleading advertisement blamed Bush’s opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis, for the death of the white woman, after he approved the furlough program. The Willie Horton advertisement popularized the intersection of fear and crime and heightened the effects of media on shaping public opinion. The high incarceration rate in the United States and an epidemic of drug abuse in some regions of the country exposed more American families to the criminal justice system and the impact of mandatory minimum

72 Robin Blom et al. sentences, building a broader grass-roots base of support for the initiative (Hulse 2016). Hurwitz and Peffley (1997) have discussed the impact of Horton and the perception of crime noting, “public opinion on crime is salient and it matters” (376). Bill Clinton, a Democratic president, took a “tough on crime” approach in 1994, seizing the negative aspects of criminality with his popularity in white communities to develop a crime bill. Alexander noted how the 1994 federal crime bill created numerous new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some recidivists, and provided more than $16 billion for state prison grants and expansion of police forces, which allowed them to purchase extensive military-grade equipment (2020). Political discourse focused on being “Tough on crime,” finger-pointing to cases like Willie Horton’s, and in turn this became a driving force to racialize crime and frame institutionalized crime responses: “the prison was called on to help contain a dishonored population widely viewed as deviant, destitute, and dangerous” (Wacquant 2010, para. 22). Other crime bills made it harder for incarcerated persons to appeal their convictions, which provided tall barriers for defense attorneys to exonerate their clients (Alexander 2020). In other words, not only did authorities have more resources to send people to prison and keep them there longer, but they also made it more difficult to free people who were wrongfully convicted. These people were not deviant, destitute, and dangerous, as they were not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. However, these crime bills effectively silenced their rights to appeal. Persons of color have long been disadvantaged in the U.S. criminal justice system; they are not only more frequently targeted by law enforcement, but have also been more likely to suffer false convictions (Gross et al. 2017). With this in mind, it is evident that any medium that draws attention to these inequities can help forge more informed cultural perceptions of crime and the legal system.

True crime podcasts True crime has found its newest home in the popular form of podcasts: episodic series of audio stories in a digital format available online. The genre has reached mass audiences with audio storytelling since radio broadcasting became commercially widespread in the 20th century (Cheatwood 2010), but podcasts have re-invigorated true crime’s popularity by providing a wide array of topics that have reached previously overlooked niche audiences (Biressi 2001). Initially, podcasting was seen more as a hobby than a professional endeavor. However, in recent years it has evolved into a medium for groundbreaking news stories emphasizing a personal connection between creators and listeners (McHugh 2016). In the Dark podcast host Madeleine Baran observes; “there’s an intimacy that is unique to audio because you’re getting

True Crime, True Representation? 73 to hear these people talk and you feel connected to them. You feel like they’re talking to you, perhaps differently from video” (Sanyal 2019, para. 9). Podcasts emerged in 2005, but their potential to reach large audiences was not established until 2014 with the release of a true crime series Serial, an off-shoot of National Public Radio’s regular show, This American Life. It told the story of Adnan Syed, a man convicted of murdering his exgirlfriend Hae Min Lee when he was 17 years old. Sarah Koenig, the podcast’s host and producer, investigated the ambiguity of the case and possible evidence against him—or rather, the lack thereof—that could have led to a wrongful conviction, as Syed has maintained his innocence throughout. Prosecutors recently dropped the charges against Syed after he spent 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit (Witte 2022). There were true crime podcasts before 2014, such as True Murder premiering in 2010 and Generation Why in 2012, but Serial marked the beginning of the true crime renaissance when it gained a record following of one million listeners in just four weeks after its release (Abel 2015). While Serial has been considered a flagship podcast, its successor, S-Town, far exceeded Serial’s listenership in a fraction of the time with ten million listeners within four days of its release (Spangler 2017). True crime is one of the fastest-growing genres for both audience streaming and content creation, in fact among all documentary subgenres, true crime is currently the largest (Sayles 2021). Researchers have noted certain thematic patterns within the contemporary true crime genre. Instead of voyeuristic sensationalism, Larke-Walsh (2021) has noted certain true crime platforms have the potential to serve a critical social purpose. Huddleston (2016) suggests “the focus is less on the gory details and more on what happens once the wheels of justice begin to spin” (para. 5), while Tiven (2016) notes these new true crime stories “transmit a vague distrust of the legal system in their views” (para 12). Biressi has previously noted how true crime has the ability to make “difficult and disturbing” issues accessible “through its narrative representations of the criminal justice system and of the society which it serves” by showing its “atrocity and abuse” (2001, 17). In the development of podcast narratives Susan Simpson, producer of Undisclosed, argues: “Listeners want to hear these stories—and then they want to take it a step further and act for justice” (Kalfus 2018, para. 40). As such, the genre has displayed an ideological shift to the left. Rather than demonstrating consistent support for legal authorities in stories meant mainly for entertainment, more advocacy reporting has exposed flaws in criminal justice and amplified accounts of otherwise voiceless victims, with emphasis on the treatment of entire groups rather than just individuals (Sherrill 2020). Although Hernandez focuses her essay on true crime books with social justice orientation, her comments about the growing advocacy in true crime certainly applies to wrongful conviction podcasts: “the specific crime … under investigation is mapped against a complex web of oppressive social,

74 Robin Blom et al. cultural, legal, and economic discourse and practices—in sum, a culture of violence—that, in effect, rationalizes acts of domestic terror against particular groups of people” (2019, 82). Valdez (2017) argues this is especially important when victims of the justice system are from marginalized communities because these narratives are usually not shared as often or as widely. Yet, they could affect cultural changes on issues about race, especially when narratives refute stereotypical messages about marginalized groups and counter-stories could potentially advance cultural change. In essence: “Once named, discrimination can be combated” (Valdez 2017, 107). In a similar vein, Delgado and Stefancic (2017) hope “the well-told stories describing the reality of black and brown lives can help readers to bridge the gap between their worlds and those of others […] Engaging stories can help us understand what life is like for others and invite the reader into a new and unfamiliar world” (49). Podcasts about wrongful conviction cases have the ability to bridge experiences of marginalized minorities squashed by the justice system with those enjoying many more societal privileges—in particular white audiences. True crime is often thought of as the “white woman’s genre” (Moskowitz 2020). Boling and Hull (2018) examined the motivations of true crime podcasts listeners in a self-selected sample that was 73% female and 89% white. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery attributed this whiteness to the fact that most podcasts featured crimes involving white characters and that this has translated into what is considered a sympathetic victim (Green 2020), especially when they are also young and deemed pretty, and from middle- or upper-class backgrounds (Liebler 2010). It was suggested that such demographics garnered a larger audience than stories focused on marginalized groups. In turn, this perception has led to a severe lack of coverage of other demographics, especially women of color in victim roles (Slakoff and Fradella 2019). Valdez (2017) suggests the racial privilege of true crime podcasts, such as Serial, is evident in the fact that it was created by “an all-white team, produced in a predominantly white medium and subgenre, characterizing persons of color” (103) and that the storytellers’ “white privilege is disappointingly apparent” (108). Many other narratives in the true crime genre have focused on white subjects as told by white people. For instance, producers, subject, and subject’s friends and family of the series S-Town were all white. Traylor’s (2019) study examining usability and used experiences in the true crime genre notes the need for more diverse perspectives to “fully explore the true crime genre’s most appealing storytelling elements” (36).

Representation in wrongful conviction podcasts Changing representation from traditionally white audiences and white production staff to more culturally and racially diversity is an important step for

True Crime, True Representation? 75 wrongful conviction podcasts, including the stories that are presented to podcast audiences. With its storytelling power in mind, true crime podcast producers possess valuable opportunities to tell stories about a range of injustices, such as attempts to address the systematic travesties of the American penal court system that have alienated and marginalized persons of color, excluding them from their rights to vote, and to be productive citizens. Such stories can turn attention to the harsh unfairness of people trying to navigate the penal court system, especially when it comes to race, which has always played a factor in the “blind justice” of the criminal justice system in the United States (Hernandez 2019; Sherrill 2020). For the purpose of this chapter, we have analyzed 271 episodes from nine wrongful conviction podcasts to examine the representation in those programs based on race/ethnicity and gender of the main suspects in exoneration or potential wrongful conviction cases: Wrongful Conviction (181 cases), Actual Innocence (42 cases), Not Guilty (30 cases), Sins of Detroit (8 cases), Proving Innocence (4 cases), Mass Exoneration (4 cases), and In the Dark, Undisclosed, and Serial, each with one case. These podcasts were chosen from current availability on Apple Podcast and Spotify. They focus primarily on wrongful convictions and feature a variety of hosts from justice reform advocates, social workers, legal experts/students to journalists. A case represented the story of one individual, but events could be described over multiple episodes and some episodes could discuss multiple cases when they were convicted for a crime as a group. Our primary analysis has focused on the first three podcasts because they have a robust number of cases to examine. Some of the other shows, such as Serial and In The Dark, play slightly different roles in the podcast ecology because they focus on a single case per season, yet do that in such detail that the story is told through numerous episodes. Considering the entire extent of episodes examined for this chapter, using the same categories as the National Registry of Exonerations, about 45 percent of the featured (potential) wrongfully convicted individuals were black, 42 percent were white, and 10 percent were Hispanic. Asian, Native American, or others were only represented 1 percent or less in this dataset, although it needs to be pointed out that both Serial and Undisclosed featured an Asian individual in a long range of episodes. When examining Actual Innocence, Wrongful Conviction, and Not Guilty, it became clear that the demographics of the cases for the first two podcasts were relatively close to the demographics of the registry, whereas Not Guilty was not. Actual Innocence featured African Americans as the main character in 55 percent of their cases and for Wrongful Conviction, this was the case 45 percent of the time. Thus, the former was a few percentage points above the percentage in the registry, whereas the former was a bit below. Yet, Wrongful Conviction featured Hispanic individuals 12 percent of the time, similar to the registry, whereas for Actual Innocence this was 7 percent. These percentages did not differ much when only cases represented in the

76 Robin Blom et al. national registry were analyzed. Both series differed vastly from Not Guilty, which told the stories about white individuals in 72 percent of their episodes and only 21 percent were black. Most of their cases were from people claiming innocence but who were not on the national registry. When only analyzing cases of individuals on the registry, white and black individuals were featured equally in 44 percent of the episodes. As expected, the overwhelming majority of the discussed cases involved men (86 percent), which is actually still a few points lower than the 91 percent for the entire registry. There were also some more prominent differences for the demographics of the individuals featured in the podcasts compared to the list. The average age for the main characters was less (22.2 years) than the average age in the registry (28.6 years). This was mainly caused by podcasts examining cases involving minors. More than a quarter of the individuals in the podcasts were under the age of 18 years when they were arrested for a crime they did not commit, which is two-and-a-half times more than in the registry. This can be partly explained by the shows revisiting some cases involving minors that received widespread national attention, such as the five teenagers falsely arrested for a rape in Central Park, who collectively became known as the Central Park 5. Miscarriages against adolescents seem to appeal to producers because they will most probably elicit compassion from audiences, because they are robbed from parts of their childhood and opportunities to develop in young adults in safer environments than maximum-security prisons. They are also hindered in their formal education and acquiring other social skills that are important to thrive as human beings in their communities, as well as bonding with loved ones. The chosen podcasts focus on murder cases to a much higher extent than other crimes. Almost two-out-of-three stories featured murders or other cases of manslaughter, whereas about 40 percent of cases on the exoneration registry contained murder charges. Although drug offenses are second on the registry as the most common crime in exoneration cases, the podcasts featured them only 2 percent of the time. There was more attention for sexual assault (15 percent) and child sex abuse (4 percent). Another important element is the average duration between conviction and exoneration. Whereas more than half of the individuals on the list were exonerated within a decade, this was only the case in 14 percent of cases on the podcasts in which innocence was established. The average exoneration duration was six years longer than the average of the registry. There was one case featuring George Stinney Jr, a 14-year-old boy who is the youngest person in the United States sentenced to death and executed, that increased the average significantly. It took 70 years for the court system to overturn his conviction for unfair trial procedures. Stinney’s case is not on the official registry, as innocence was not proven in a posthumous court procedure. Even without his case, the average exoneration duration would still be higher than the registry’s, which shows again that wrongful conviction

True Crime, True Representation? 77 podcasts aim for stories that are not representative of the average exoneration period. In summary, our analysis of these nine podcasts provides a snapshot of current practice and we can see that while they largely reflect the racial demographic found in the national registry, the emphasis to date appears to lean toward more extreme cases. This is possibly due to a desire to capture and retain audience interest in the topics and therefore does not unduly undermine their social purpose. However, more research is needed to assess how such trends continue to develop. Our intention has been to show the potential for podcasts to offer a true reflection of contemporary justice and to encourage scholarly interest in this valuable topic.

Conclusions Mass incarceration in the United States has resulted in too many wrongful convictions. This not only affects those behind bars, but also inflicts trauma on family and friends who are psychologically and financially hurt by erroneous incarceration. Victims of the original crimes for which a wrongful conviction takes place are also affected, because such miscarriages undermine justice and result in extended trauma for survivors and their loved ones. Furthermore, the actual perpetrators are still able to roam free and many of them will commit additional crimes. Norris et al. (2020) investigated wrongful conviction cases for which the actual perpetrator was identified and studied their prolonged criminal history. They found more than 300 additional cases, including 43 homicide-related and 94 sex offenses. Extrapolating these numbers, they estimated wrongful convictions might lead to ten thousands of additional crimes each year in the United States. True crime journalism plays a prominent and critical role in the way crime is both reported and recognized throughout American culture. Yet, there has been criticism about the representation in comparison to actual crime statistics. Many glorify the response by police and prosecutors to put “monsters” and “super-predators” away to keep communities safe. Mainstream media stories have been dominated by white characters, especially emergency responders and victims. If people of color are represented, they are mainly featured as perpetrators, similar to local or national crime news, in which people of color are overrepresented as criminal offenders regardless of their actual innocence (Dixon 2008). Wrongful conviction podcasts feature important stories about innocent people. Hundreds of those cases have been the subject of one or more episodes of podcasts dedicated to (potential) erroneous incarcerations. Series such as Not Guilty (2019–2020), Actual Innocence (Gittings 2016–2018), and Sins of Detroit (Hunter 2019) have created extensions of an already long list of true crime outlets that present classic “whodunit” storylines based on real crime cases to entertain and inform audiences about all kinds of injustices (see Golob 2017). For instance, Curtis Flowers, whose

78 Robin Blom et al. case was told over more than 20 episodes of In the Dark, survived despite decades-long attempts to convict him for murders he did not commit. The district attorney in the case unconstitutionally struck numerous potential black jurors to stack the odds of a conviction. For three of the six trials, appeals judges found that jury selection was racially motivated, including the last of them by the Supreme Court. Reporters of In the Dark also gathered more than 115,000 pages with jury selection information from hundreds of cases that the prosecutor in the Flowers case had handled in more than two decades. They demonstrated that the district attorney had struck half of the black potential jurors in his cases and only 11 percent of all white potential jurors. The investigators also uncovered previously undisclosed evidence and recorded testimony from eyewitnesses that contradicted claims by the prosecution. The tenacious reporting by the In the Dark team has demonstrated the importance of journalistic work underlying true crime podcasts on wrongful conviction cases (Baran 2018). Although such journalistic work could be featured in any medium, podcasters have been able to create a bond with their listeners that keeps those audiences clamoring for more stories. Yet, it is important for both makers and consumers of wrongful conviction podcasts to consider the inequities in the criminal justice system. The analysis of the podcasts in this chapter found that several of them showcased the diversity you would expect based on the prevalence of black individuals on the National Registry of Exonerations, which by itself reflects overrepresentation of people of color in U.S. prisons based on injustices within the criminal justice system. Portrayal of diversity in wrongful conviction podcasts, as the analysis determined, is a good sign. That means that audiences are exposed to representative narratives of wrongful conviction. Yet, the analysis also indicated that there are other areas in which the stories are not reflecting the majority of cases on the registry by focusing more on younger suspects and specific violent crimes. This could lead to misperceptions about wrongful convictions over time by the public. When people listen to new media, one should take inventory of the Thompson and Bornat’s (2017) assertion that “All history depends ultimately upon its social purpose” (1). As true crime podcasts continue building market share as a way to examine, investigate, and better understand crime, researchers and practitioners stand to benefit when they examine the intersections of diversity and appropriate narrative traditions of orality. There are implications of diversity on what Ong (1982) referred to as second orality, which implied that through the spoken word, those who are sharing, are given agency and the ability to express themselves verbally in a world context once dominated by the written word. This creates an important tension in media engagement and emphasizes the importance of podcasts in media ecologies. For instance, Bryan Stevenson, by embracing transmedia multimodality, was able to raise awareness of his Equal Justice Initiative. He produced a written book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, but also developed a podcast, and produced a film, thus

True Crime, True Representation? 79 maximizing his audience through the use of multiple communication channels. He was able to positively affect change by using his podcast to further his initiatives, and to overturn several wrongful convictions. Therefore, it is important that wrongful conviction podcasts continue to tell the stories of innocent people from marginalized communities already disadvantaged in the criminal justice system. That way, wrongful conviction podcasts can not only help innocent people in need but also do their genre—true crime—real justice by providing a truthful representation of systemic flaws in society. The Curtis Flowers case, as well as the hundreds of other cases explored in the episodes examined for this chapter, demonstrated the key role that these podcasts can play. Without those efforts, many more innocent people will stay behind bars. Only by shining lights on the darkest part of the criminal justice system, these problems may be addressed systematically in the future. This may avoid more wrongful convictions from taking place, but more prudent, may allow more wrongfully convicted people start a long process of true exoneration in the eyes of the public. It is vital to tell these stories because even after release from prison, the trauma of incarceration still lingers on for a long time. As Innocence Institute co-founder Berry Scheck wrote, “It is a fear that drills into the marrow of our humanity, a nightmare from which each of the exonerated is trying to awake” (2017, xviii).

Note 1 In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970).

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80 Robin Blom et al. Boling, Kelli S., and Kevin Hull. “Undisclosed information—Serial is My Favorite Murder: Examining motivations in the true crime podcast audience.” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 25, no. 1 (2018): 92–108. Boorsma, Megan. “The whole truth: The implications of America’s true crime obsession.” Elon Law Review 9 (2017): 209. Borchard, Edwin M. “European systems of state indemnity for errors of criminal justice.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 3 (1912): 684. Borchard, Edwin M. “Convicting the innocent: Sixty-five actual errors of criminal justice.”Garden City Publishing1932). Burger, Pamela. “The bloody history of the true crime genre.” JSTOR Daily. JSTOR, August 24, 2016. https://daily.jstor.org/bloody-history-of-true-crime-genre/. Chaudry, Rabia, Colin Miller, and Susan Simpson. Undisclosed. Produced by Undisclosed, LLC. 2015 – 2022. Podcast, MP3 audio. Cheatwood, Derral. “Images of crime and justice in early commercial radio—1932 to 1958.” Criminal Justice Review 35, no. 1 (2010): 32–51. Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory. New York University Press, 2017. Dixon, Travis. L., and Cristina L. Azocar (2008). “Priming crime and activating blackness: Understanding the psychological impact of the overrepresentation of blacks as lawbreakers on television news.” Journal of Communication 57, no. 2 (2007): 229–253. Dixon, Travis. L. “Who is the victim here? The psychological effects of overrepresenting white victims and black perpetrators on television news.” Journalism 9, no. 5 (2008): 582–605. Durham III, Alexis M., H. Preston Elrod, and Patrick T. Kinkade. “Images of crime and justice: Murder and the “true crime” genre.” Journal of Criminal Justice 23, no. 2 (1995): 143–152. Flom, Jason. Wrongful Conviction. Produced by Lava For Good. 2016 – Present. Podcast, MP3 audio. Gittings, Brooke. Actual Innocence. Produced by Borrowed Equipment Podcasts. 2016 –2018. Podcast, MP3 audio. https://www.borrowedequipmentpods.com/ actual-innocence. Golob, Brandon. “Un-making a murderer: New media’s impact on (potential) wrongful conviction cases.” California Western Law Review 54 (2017): 137. Green, Elon. “The enduring, pernicious whiteness of true crime.” The Appeal. The Appeal, August 21, 2020. https://theappeal.org/whiteness-of-true-crime/. Gross, Samuel R. “Lost lives: Miscarriages of justice in capital cases.” Law and Contemporary Problems. 61 (1998): 125–152. Gross, Samuel R., Barbara O’Brien, Chen Hu, and Edward H. Kennedy. “Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 20 (2014): 7230–7235. Gross, Samuel R., Maurice Possley, and Klara Stephens. “Race and wrongful convictions in the United States.”The National Registry of Exonerations, Newkirk Center for Science and Society (2017). Hernandez, Marcos A. “True injustice: Cultures of violence and stories of resistance in the new true crime.” IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Humboldt State University 3, no. 1 (2019): 13.

True Crime, True Representation? 81 Horeck, Tanya. Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era. Wayne State University Press, 2019. Huddleston, Tom. “How true crime series are exposing america’s criminal justice system.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, February 11, 2016. https://www.yahoo.com/ news/weather/true-crime-series-exposing-america-162102151.html. Hulse, Carl. “‘Willie Horton’ haunts efforts on crime laws.” The New York Times (2016). Hunter, George. Sins of Detroit. Produced by Detroit News. 2019. Podcast, MP3 audio. https://www.detroitnews.com/podcasts/sins-of-detroit/. Hurwitz, Jon, and Mark Peffley. “Playing the race card in the post–Willie Horton era: The impact of racialized code words on support for punitive crime policy.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2005): 99–112. Kalfus, Elly. “Want to understand mass incarceration? Listen to these podcasts.” The Crime Report. Center on Crime and Justice at John Jay College, March 28, 2018. https://thecrimereport.org/2018/03/28/want-to-understand-mass-incarcerationlisten-to-these-podcasts/. Koenig, Sarah. Serial. Produced by WBWZ Chicago. 2014 – Present. Podcast, MP3 audio. Larke-Walsh, George S. “Injustice narratives in a post-truth society: emotional discourses and social purpose in Southwest of Salem: the story of the San Antonio four.” Studies in Documentary Film 15, no. 1 (2021): 89–104. Liebler, Carol M. “Me (di) a culpa?: the “missing white woman syndrome” and media self-critique.” Communication, Culture & Critique 3, no. 4 (2010): 549–565. McHugh, Siobhan. “How podcasting is changing the audio storytelling genre.” Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 14, no. 1 (2016): 65–82. Mendelberg, Tali. “Executing Hortons: Racial crime in the 1988 presidential campaign.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 61, no. 1 (1997): 134–157. Moskowitz, P.E. “True crime is cathartic for women. It’s also cop propaganda.” Mother Jones., (2020). https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/06/true-crimepodcasts-white-women/. Norris, Robert J., Jennifer N. Weintraub, James R. Acker, Allison D. Redlich, and Catherine L. Bonventre. “The criminal costs of wrongful convictions: Can we reduce crime by protecting the innocent?.” Criminology & Public Policy 19, no. 2 (2020): 367–388. Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic. Proving Innocence. Produced by Notre Dame Stories. 2018 – Present. Podcast, MP3 audio. Ong, Walter J. Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word. New York: Methuen, 1982. “Our Mission.” The National Registry of Exoneration. Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. Accessed September 28, 2021. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/mission.aspx. Peffley, Mark, Todd Shields, and Bruce Williams. “The intersection of race and crime in television news stories: An experimental study.” Political Communication 13, no. 3 (1996): 309–327. Poveda, Tony G. “Estimating wrongful convictions.” Justice Quarterly 18, no. 3 (2001): 689–708.

82 Robin Blom et al. Richardson, Vannesa. Not Guilty. Produced by Parcast. 2020. Podcast, MP3 audio. Sanyal, Pathikrit. “‘Truth Be Told’: America’s obsession with true crime is enhanced by podcasts cause They’re ‘Intimate’ and leave a lot to imagination.” Meaww. November 28, 2019. https://meaww.com/truth-be-told-octavia-spencer-apple-tvplus-america-obsession-true-crime-podcasts-reason-popular. Sayles, Justin. “The bloody bubble.” The Ringer. The Ringer, July 9, 2021. https:// www.theringer.com/tv/2021/7/9/22567381/true-crime-documentaries-boombubble-netflix-hbo?mc_cid=4c42ae1c77&mc_eid=2b229a0ce2. Scheck, Barry. “The unreal dream.” In Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted, ix-xiv, edited by Laura Caldwell and Leslie Klinger. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2017. Sherrill, Lindsey A. “The “Serial Effect” and the true crime podcast ecosystem.” Journalism Practice (2020): 1–22. Slakoff, Danielle C., and Henry F. Fradella. “Media messages surrounding missing women and girls: The missing white woman syndrome and other factors that influence newsworthiness.” Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society 20 (2019): 80. Spangler, Todd. “The ‘Serial’ Team’s New Podcast, ‘S-Town,’ Tops 10 Million Downloads in Four Days.” Variety. March 31, 2017. https://variety.com/2017/ digital/news/s-town-podcast-10-million-downloads-serial-productions1202020302/. Thompson, Paul, and Joanna Bornat. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. Oxford University Press, 2017. Tiven, Lucy. The bizarre way true crime TV is shaping jury selection. Attn:. January 20, 2016. https://archive.attn.com/stories/5274/serial-making-a-murderer-juryselection Traylor, Catherine M. “Serialized killing: Usability and user experience in the true crime genre.” Master’s Thesis. Ball State University, 2019. Turow, Scott. “Introduction.” In Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted, edited by Laura Caldwell and Leslie Klinger, pp. ix–xiv. Liveright Publishing, 2017. Valdez, Charli. “Serial’s aspirational aesthetics and racial erasure.” In The Serial Podcast and Storytelling in the Digital Age, edited by Ellen McCracken, pp. 101–113. Routledge, 2017. Wacquant, Loïc. “Class, race & hyperincarceration in revanchist America.” Daedalus 139, no. 3 (2010): 74–90. Walsh, Kelly, Jeanette Hussemann, Abigail Flynn, Jennifer Yahner, and Laura Golian. “Estimating the prevalence of wrongful convictions.” US Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service, document 25115 (2017). Wiltenburg, Joy. “True crime: The origins of modern sensationalism.” The American Historical Review 109, no. 5 (2004): 1377–1404. Witte, Brian. “Prosecutors drop charges against Adnan Syed in ‘Serial’ case.” Associated Press, October 11, 2022. https://apnews.com/article/adnan-syedcrime-baltimore-8380beee8b6ab15102a5a45f2c59b839

5

Unresolved – Narrative Strategies in an Unsolved True Crime: Depictions of the JonBenét Ramsey killing Elayne Chaplin1 and Melissa Chaplin2 1

Staff Tutor and Film Studies scholar, Open University, UK Independent scholar, London, UK

2

In her study of reality television, Anita Biressi observes that in true crime, there’s a ‘representational charge […] in the extra-textual knowledge that these events really did happen and that the criminals were caught’ (2005: 118, authors’ emphasis). Hence, the often-disturbing details depicted in true crime accounts are balanced by the reassurance of knowing that the guilty were apprehended, justice was served, and the forces of law and order prevailed (however circuitous their investigations). Such reassurance is absent from unsolved true crimes, though these form a recurrent strand within the genre, including, for example, an enduring fascination with unidentified serial killers, such as ‘Jack the Ripper’ (active in East London, in 1888). More recently, the murders committed by the ‘Zodiac killer’ (Atlanta, 1968–1971) inspired Dirty Harry (1971, d. Don Siegal) and were dramatized in Zodiac (2006, d. David Fincher), a film based on Robert Graysmith’s non-fiction book of the same title (1986). Similarly, Bob Kolker’s book, Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (2013) about the unidentified ‘Long Island serial killer’ (active 2000–2011) was adapted for the screen – Lost Girls (2020, d. Liz Garbus). Individual unsolved cases have also drawn widespread media interest, including the 1947 murder/mutilation of actress, Elizabeth Short in California, who achieved posthumous fame as the ‘Black Dahlia’ – a name adopted as the title of James Ellroy’s novelization of the case (1987), as well as Brian DePalma’s film adaptation of Ellroy’s book (2006). More broadly, open criminal cases continue to be the mainstay of several long-running television franchises, including Unsolved Mysteries (from 1987) and Cold Case Files (from 1999), as well as numerous podcasts and websites, such as The Case Breakers (from 2011). For Ian Punnett (2018), true crime ‘eschews […] the slavish chronological mono-dimensional discourse of news events in favor of the narrative forms more commonly associated with fiction (92–93). Moreover, crime fiction is a genre that is ‘generally recognized as being a paradigm case of strong closure’ (Segal 2010: 154), where narrative resolution typically DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-6

84 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin intersects with the solving of the crime. In depictions of unsolved true crimes, then, we can discern a tension between the historic failure to solve the actual case, and a generic convention of strong narrative closure. With this tension in mind, this chapter will consider two texts depicting one of the most famous unsolved crimes of the late twentieth century, the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. First, we shall examine a two-part reinvestigation of the crime, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (CBS, d. Eddie Schmidt, first aired September 2016), with reference to its narrative strategies and characterization of the Ramsey family. The metanarrative documentary, Casting JonBenét (2017, d. Kitty Green) will provide a point of contrast, particularly its lack of case-closure, and exploration of a wider engagement with unsolved true crimes. As each text exists within – and explicitly acknowledges – a wider public discourse around this crime – we shall first consider the key theories and assumptions about the death of JonBenét Ramsey.

‘She’s blonde, six years old’: JonBenét Ramsey and the media The murder of JonBenét Ramsey has been described as, ‘the most widely reported child-murder case since the 1932 kidnapping and killing of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s infant son’ (Richards and Calvert 2002: 227). Such extensive media coverage means that the details of the case are now widely known. JonBenét was killed in the Ramseys’ upper middle-class home in Boulder Colorado, sometime during the night of 25–26 December 1996. The only people known to be present in the house during that period were JonBenét’s parents, Patsy and John, and her elder brother Burke, then aged nine. Patsy’s 911 call was made shortly after 6am, reporting that her daughter – ‘blonde, six years old’ – was missing and that a ransom note had been found. When police officers and an FBI agent arrived at the scene, the family had been joined by neighbors, and Burke was still sleeping. At almost three pages long, the ransom note claiming to be from a ‘small foreign faction’ is atypically lengthy, and the amount demanded is oddly specific ($118,000, which was later revealed to approximate John Ramsey’s recent company bonus). Subsequent analysis of the ink and paper matched items found on the property, suggesting that it was written inside the Ramseys’ home. Later that afternoon, while the Boulder police and an FBI agent were in attendance, John Ramsey (accompanied by a friend) undertook another search of the premises, finding JonBenét’s body in the basement. He then carried his daughter to the living room (before any initial forensic analysis of the crime scene was conducted) at which point, the police investigation changed from a kidnapping to a murder. Published details from the autopsy revealed that JonBenét was the victim of a violent attack. Strangulation by ligature (with a handle from one of Patsy’s paintbrushes used as a torque) was listed as the cause of death, but severe

Depictions of the JonBenét Ramsey killing

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blunt-object trauma to the head was also recorded, as well as bruising on the back and genitalia. The report also notes that JonBenét’s hands were tied, and duct-tape had been used to cover her mouth. There are two main theories about the crime. Firstly, that an intruder/ pedophile broke into the house via the basement, then assaulted and murdered the child before, or after composing the lengthy ransom demand. Secondly, that one or more family members were responsible for JonBenét’s death and subsequent cover-up (including writing the ransom note and staging (post-mortem) an attack on their child. In the absence of any conviction, these two theories have continued to play out across a range of news and media outlets, many featuring images of JonBenét competing in beauty pageants. John and Patsy Ramsey appeared on CNN television on January 1, 1997 (the day after JonBenét’s funeral) to refute the (already circulating) suggestions of their guilt (Fogarty, 2008 USA Today, July 17). Two weeks later, as James Brooke (1997) reported, as many as three hundred journalists were still in Boulder, searching (and offering payment) for information on the Ramseys (The New York Times, January 16). For TV journalist, Diane Diamond, JonBenét’s image was key to this ongoing fascination: ‘Hundreds of children are killed in America every year – but this one captivated us because we saw the beauty pageant pictures’ (The List: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? ABC, 2021). Perhaps unsurprisingly, John Ramsey’s perception of the media interest was more cynical, suggesting that attention was primarily driven by news organizations’ need to fill news columns and TV news reports: ‘the period between the 25th of December and the 1st of January is kind of a journalistic dead space. We had just come off the O. J. Simpson fiasco, so all of these news organizations already had talking heads lined up’ (quoted by Richards and Calvert 2002: 231). In addition to news reports, the case has been the subject of several books and television specials. Steve Thomas, a detective in the original investigation, who resigned from the police on August 6, 1998 (a date that would have been JonBenet’s birthday) co-authored a book (with Daniel A. Davis), JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation (2000), in which he accuses Patsy Ramsey of killing her daughter during an angry outburst over JonBenét’s bedwetting. John and Patsy Ramsey’s book (published in the same year) The Death of Innocence: The Untold Story of JonBenét’s Murder and How its Exploitation Compromised the Pursuit of Truth, maintains the intruder theory and criticizes the police investigation for not finding an intruder. Unusually, the authors of both books appeared together on an episode of Larry King Live (CNN, first aired on May 31, 2000) where, in a tense confrontation, Thomas accuses Pasty of killing JonBenét, and from the other side of the table, the Ramseys maintain their innocence. Laurence Schiller adapted his own non-fiction book, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder (1999) into a two-part television miniseries (CBS, first aired, February 2000, also directed by Schiller). In both, Schiller offers a sympathetic portrayal of the Ramsey

86 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin family and the intruder theory. In contrast, Joyce Carol Oates’s literary novel based on the case – My Sister, My Love (2008) depicts a mother who is guilty of filicide. Oates’s characterization of the Ramseys, here renamed as the ‘Rampikes’ is described in a New York Times review as being, ‘so thinly veiled as to risk its own kind of indecency [… invoking … ] every tabloid cliché of the rich American dysfunctional family: the materialistic, social-climbing wife who either ignores her children or channels her narcissistic ambitions through them and her crass, competitive husband, a neglectful philanderer’ (Churchwell, New York Times, August 10, 2008). Successive TV news specials have explored the two main theories about the crime. While avoiding potentially libelous accusations, the hosts of a 20/20 news special, The Perfect Murder? (ABC, first aired September 27, 1998) highlight evidence that incriminates the Ramsey family. Examples include the fibers from Patsy Ramsey’s clothing found on the underside of the duct-tape that covered JonBenét’s mouth; similarities between Patsy’s writing style and the ransom demand; and the possibility that Burke’s voice can be heard at the end of the recorded 911 call, which would contradict the parents’ statements that he had remained asleep. During the program, Elizabeth Vargas interviews Detective Lou Smit, who joined the police taskforce investigating JonBenét’s death in 1997. Smit consistently defended the Ramseys in a series of television appearances and press interviews, and a 20/20 news special – The List: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? (ABC, first aired in January 2021) reveals that Smit’s efforts to locate the intruder continued until his death in 2010. (Latterly, Smit’s daughter had joined his quest, while his granddaughters’ true crime podcast – The Victim’s Shoes – is based on Smit’s extensive files about the case.) While no intruder has been identified (despite one false confession), Boulder’s District Attorney, Mary T. Lacy issued a letter of exoneration to Ramsey family in 2008 (after Patsy Ramsey’s death in 2006) based on the presence of unidentified trace DNA on JonBenét’s nightwear. Both the exoneration and Lacy’s interpretation of the DNA evidence have since been criticized (Brennan, Boulder Daily Camera, October 28, 2016). The former Boulder Chief of Police, Mark Beckner, has observed that Lacy, ‘made up her mind years before that a mother could not do that to a child, thus the family was innocent’ (quoted in Mckinley, ABC Online News, 10/29/2016). Amid the extensive (and ongoing) media interest in the case, the competing theories and inconsistencies in the evidence, The List is unable to offer a definitive answer to the question it poses: who killed JonBenét Ramsey? However, in the absence of judicial closure, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (2016) does claim to resolve the case, and it is to this documentary that we now turn.

‘We’re not talking to you’: The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey Over two episodes (each lasting approximately 160 minutes, excluding advertising breaks), The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey presents a multifaceted

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reinvestigation of the Ramsey case led by Jim Clemente – a retired FBI profiler (formerly part of the Bureau team that reviewed this case in 1998), and Laura Richards – a criminal behavioral analyst, who was ‘trained by New Scotland Yard’. Both recount their professional credentials in separate direct-to-camera statements during the opening scenes of Part One – statements that are intercut with shots of their car journey into Boulder, images of JonBenét, and of the local landscape (including a childless playground that adds a note of poignancy). Clemente asserts that their ‘goal is to finally get to the truth and tell the world what actually happened to JonBenét Ramsey’. Similarly, Richards declares that she is ‘a victim advocate’ who wants to ‘get to the truth on behalf of JonBenét’. From the outset, then, the documentary creates an expectation that a resolution to the case will be provided, while emphasizing that the reinvestigation is solely for the victim, rather than, for example, the surviving family members. In this, Richards’s comment foreshadows the documentary’s conclusion that Burke Ramsey killed his sister, and his parents covered up the crime. The expertise of the documentary’s investigators is emphasized repeatedly, not only in relation to the two leads, but also the ‘elite and renowned’ team, who support them. In a ‘war room’ in Colorado University’s Law School, the team is introduced in a montage resembling the opening titles of a prime-time television show, with split-screens and mid-frame subtitles establishing each individual’s professional history. Henry Lee, a forensic pathologist, previously worked on the O.J. Simpson case. Jim Fitzgerald, a forensic linguist, was part of the investigation into the ‘Unibomber’. James Kolar, a former investigator for the Boulder District Attorney’s office, previously worked on the case. Stan Burke is an FBI statement analyst and former FBI instructor. Lastly, Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologist, consulted on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. This emphasis on expertise is used to challenge the original investigation, including forensic data. For example, in a lab, Henry Lee demonstrates to Clemente and Richards how easily DNA crosscontamination can occur, highlighting that potential transfers can occur during the manufacture and packaging. Hence, while the team are unable to explain the unidentified DNA, they minimize its significance within this case. The re-examination of the original investigation (perhaps unwittingly) draws attention to the ways in which evidence can be inconclusive and open to contradictory interpretations. Early in Part One, the team listens to a recording of Patsy Ramsey’s 911 call. Because the telephone handset wasn’t firmly returned to its cradle, the recording extends for several seconds, capturing muffled voices, which, with the help of an audio-engineer, Clemente and Richards are able to identify. John: We’re not talking to you. Patsy: What did you do? Help me Jesus. Burke: What did you find?

88 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin The degree of audio-manipulation necessary to retrieve these voices from the jumble of white noise demonstrates the potential malleability of evidence, while the investigators’ debates about the content and significance of the utterances, highlight the subjective interpretation that one piece of evidence can stimulate. The ABC 20/20 (1998) news special (discussed above) also identifies Burke’s comment at the end of the 911 call, though notes that in isolation, the question is inconclusive. In The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, however, these voices are highly incriminating, proving that John and Patsy’s statements that Burke had remained asleep during the night were untrue. While Clemente and Richards discuss these findings, we cut to one of several impressionistic reenactments during the documentary that imagine the family’s private moments. Here, we see an agitated Patsy, failing to hang up the telephone, with Burke standing behind his father, implicitly confirming Clemente’s assertion. While these inserts are stylistically distinct from the rest of the documentary (with unfocused imagery and without synchronous sound), the visual correlation adds weight to Richards’ statement that John and Patsy lied about Burke being asleep. When Clemente tells the team that Burke’s voice ‘changes the entire focus of the investigation’ – he is signposting the documentary’s conclusion that Burke killed his sister, and his parents staged the kidnapping to subvert the police investigation. As well as reviewing the original investigation, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey utilizes a series of reenactments and experiments to reevaluate evidence – more specifically, to challenge the evidence cited in support of the intruder theory. Because the team are unable to access the actual crime scene in the Ramseys’ former home, a large movie-set is constructed, based on crime scene photographs and video. Here, the team challenge the assertion (promoted by Lou Smit) that an intruder gained entry to the premises via a broken window in the basement. Climbing through the movie-set basement window, Richards acknowledges that this would have been a viable point of access for an intruder. But police video taken on the day of the murder (12/26/96, as the in-screen timecode confirms) reveals undisturbed spiderwebs in the window frame that would have been displaced by anyone climbing through. Also, Smit’s theory that the intruder used a stun-gun to incapacitate JonBenét is refuted when a stun-gun is used on (an adult male) volunteer. Comparing the volunteer’s bruising to that shown in the autopsy photographs reveals significant differences, and later, James Kolar (one of the team’s experts) matches the bruises on JonBenét’s back, to the pins protruding from a piece of track from Burke’s trainset (also located in the basement). Finally, the supposition that Burke would not have had the strength to cause the head-injuries sustained by the victim is tested in a staged reenactment in which a boy (who resembles Burke at the time of his sister’s death) strikes a skull covered in pig skin and a blonde wig resembling JonBenét’s hair. A heavy flashlight is used, as this has been identified by the team as the most likely implement, and the boy is able to cause extensive damage, which matches the type of head injuries reported in

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the autopsy. Stella Bruzzi (2016) notes that reenactments, ‘are not evidence, although it is possible for them to build a convincing narrative about the events they depict’ (2016: 270). This is apparent in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, where reenactments both refute the intruder theory, and suggest that Patsy and John Ramsey perpetuated a cover-up to conceal their son’s guilt.

‘What did you do?’: representing the Ramseys ‘We really do need to understand [the Ramsey family] as people and speak to as many people who can give us an understanding of who they were and the dynamics between them’. (Laura Richards, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey) The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey uses fictional tropes and archetypes to provide a convincing characterization of the Ramseys and establish plausibility to their ascribed roles and motives. Patsy is stereotyped as an overbearing mother, who has made a ‘huge investment’ (Stan Burke) in JonBenét. Jim Fitzgerald asserts that Patsy has been ‘living vicariously through her daughter, with the whole beauty pageant thing going on’. Fitzgerald’s comments are supported by another impressionistic insert, depicting Patsy holding up what appears to be one of JonBenét’s party or pageant dresses against her torso while looking into a mirror. The characterization begins with the home movie extract at the beginning of the documentary, where we cut from a ‘Christmas card’ exterior of the Ramseys’ upmarket home in the snow, to an interior shot in which Patsy and the children are wearing matching Christmas sweaters. Here, we see a plethora of Christmas decorations, and both children are playing with toys. But despite the setting, the Ramseys are not presented as an entirely happy family, as Patsy’s opening reveals: ‘Hello, I’m Patsy Ramsey. Daddy’s not here, but this is JonBenét, she’s four. Burke is seven, and we’d like to welcome you to our home and wish you a Merry Christmas! Wave JonBenét.’ Within the context of the documentary, and the audience’s knowledge about JonBenét’s murder, the Christmas home-movie hints at tensions within the family, in particular, John’s absence and Patsy’s preoccupation with appearances. The latter is seen in her visible coaching of the children, and the manicured setting. Implicit unease becomes explicit in the sudden cut to a recording of the 911 call, in which Patsy reports the kidnapping. Moreover, the home movie encourages the audience to question the family dynamics from the outset of the documentary, fueling the audience’s suspicion that (as the filmmakers conclude) JonBenét’s death was caused – and covered up – by her immediate family. As it is her voice that opens the documentary, our attention is first drawn to Patsy, who as the narrator of the Christmas home-movie is revealed to be unreliable. Brian Scott, the Rameys’ gardener, highlights Patsy’s focus on outward appearances, when being interviewed by Clemente and Richards.

90 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin ‘One of the things I remember was she wanted pristine gardens.’ Similarly, Judith Phillips, a former family friend, comments that Patsy was ‘a girl that never compromised’. In this context, these comments are robbed of their innocuousness, underscoring that such upscale ‘perfection’ can conceal dysfunction. Notably, Judith Phillips also refers to Patsy as ‘a showgirl’ – a term that connotes sexualized performance – obliquely referencing Patsy’s appearances on stage as a beauty queen (prior to her marriage), but also implying a sense of performance and inauthenticity in her everyday life. In a somewhat barbed comment, Clemente mentions that Patsy (who had been ‘Miss West Virginia’) married a man ‘fourteen years her senior’ and that for John, she was ‘a trophy wife’. Richards counters this, by adding that Patsy Ramsey also had a degree in journalism – an allusion to Patsy’s intelligence that later adds weight to the linguistic analysis of the ransom note, where Jim Fitzgerald identifies the author as being both ‘intelligent and maternal’. Later, Judith Phillips notes that Patsy strictly enforced her daughter’s pageant routine and recounts JonBenét saying that the pageant trophies ‘are more my mom’s’. This cements the image of Patsy as a woman preoccupied with her image, to the detriment of her daughter’s happiness. In its opening, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey sets up the image of a quintessential perfect American family, then, gradually, reduces this to a facade: ‘The media perception, or the community perception can be that [the Ramseys] are the perfect family, but once you start to scratch the surface, you see that’s not the case.’ Laura Richards, The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (Part 2). In the final thirty minutes of The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, the documentary approach undertakes a prosecutorial analysis of the evidence against Burke – though one that is unhindered by the necessity of courtroom cross-examination. The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey does not suggest that her pageant appearances made her a potential target for a predatory pedophile, but rather as symbolic of the poor judgment of Patsy. An anecdote from Judith Phillips highlights that, in her view, Patsy was behaving inappropriately by altering her daughter’s appearance. She describes an occasion when ‘JonBenét came down with a beautiful dress and bleached blonde hair. I was shocked.’ Thus, JonBenét’s beauty queen image adds to our understanding of Patsy’s ambitions, rather than providing any insight into the child. In the 911 call, Patsy describes herself in an oddly impersonal way: ‘I’m the mother’. The use of ‘the mother’ rather than ‘her mother’ or ‘JonBenét’s mother’ is interpreted as a sign of distance by the investigators, and this typifies the representation of Patsy in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey. She is the mother, but one focused on presenting herself as an idealized maternal

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figure. In the repeated association of Patsy with image-projection, the documentary-makers strengthen the persuasiveness of her hypothesized role in the crime. Significantly, however, they refute the view (expressed by Steve Thomas) that Patsy murdered her child in a bad-tempered outburst, but instead, argue that she helped cover-up the crime, to maintain her perfect image, and to protect her son, as well as the reputation of her family. In contrast, John is depicted as an absent father. (‘Daddy’s not here’.) When asked, ‘So how frequently did you see John?’ the gardener, Brian Scott replies, ‘Not frequently at all – once a season maybe,’ later adding that JonBenét ‘miss[ed] her father’. In Part 1 of the documentary, John’s career is highlighted as newspaper headlines fade in and out of focus on screen (‘John Ramsey named Entrepreneur of the Year’), while Richards observes that his company, Access Graphic, ‘had a billion-dollar turnover that very year that JonBenét was killed. Don’t forget the lifestyle. They had two planes at one point, and I think a thirty-foot yacht. To everyone else they sort of had the perfect family exterior.’ That final word ‘exterior’ is significant, while their privilege and social standing is visible, the documentary implies that truths are hidden. In the case summary (at the end of Part 2), we see John in a close-up overlaid with the ransom letter and subtitles, flatly reciting the events of the night: ‘I heard Patsy scream. I ran downstairs. She told me that JonBenét was missing. There was a ransom note. I said call the police.’ John’s persona here, as well as in the extract from his television interview with Patsy (just days after JonBenét’s death) adds to this characterization of reserve and emotional distance – and provides a notable contrast to the overt emotions of interviewees featured in the documentary, as they are repeatedly asked by Clemente and Richards ‘how do you feel?’ Early in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey the investigators refer to Burke as ‘29 now, a grown man’, distancing him from the young boy shown in footage from the time. During her interview with Clemente and Richards, Judith Phillips recounts that, ‘when Burke was four, he was the apple of his parents’ eyes, he could do no wrong. Then when JonBenét came along, that attention that Burke had, switched from him to JonBenét’. Building on this, the theme of violence is introduced, with Phillips disclosing, ‘Burke had a bad temper, it’s like he had a chip on his shoulder … He had hit JonBenét’ […] with a golf club, right here’ (Phillips points to her face). These anecdotes establish that Burke had both the motive and disposition to hurt his sister. Further, when Clemente and Richards analyze Burke’s body language and attitude in successive videoed interviews with social workers in the weeks following the murder, they comment on Burke’s atypical lack of concern, pausing the video when (after being asked what he thought happened to his sister) Burke suggests that she might have been stabbed, or hit in the head with a hammer, while miming the action of striking down. Clemente stops the recording. ‘You see that? That’s a physical demonstration.’ The portrait of Burke that emerges from the

92 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin documentary is of a disturbed and violent individual. James Kolar (who worked for law enforcement in Boulder at the time) notes that when Burke was interviewed by a detective, shortly after the murder, he ‘never asked […] what had happened to her.’ Finally, to confirm the depiction of a disturbed young boy, the investigative team reveal that Burke had a history of smearing feces in JonBenét’s bedroom and on her possessions (including a box of candies that she was given as a Christmas present the year that she was killed). The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey fulfills its stated aim of providing closure. In the closing scene in the ‘war room,’ they conclude that on the night of the murder, the siblings argued (probably over a piece of pineapple that JonBenét took from Burke’s bowl), which was the trigger for Burke to hit his sister in the head with a flashlight, resulting in her death. This precipitated a cover-up staged by John and Patsy – an assertion that is supported by another out-of-focus insert featuring Patsy writing the ransom demand, and a gloved figure (presumably John) applying a ligature to the body. In the team’s opinion, this would not be a premeditated crime, nor (because of his age at the time) would Burke Ramsey have been charged with murder, as Lisa Polansky (criminal lawyer) reveals in the documentary. After the documentary was broadcast, CBS was sued by Burke Ramsey for compensatory and punitive damages totaling $750 million. Later that year, Burke gave his only television interview to Phil McGraw, in which he denied killing his sister (Dr. Phil Exclusive, CBS, first aired, September 2016). In 2017, a settlement was reached between CBS and Burke Ramsey’s legal team, the details of which, have not been made public (Coffman 2019).

‘To the world? Perfect family’: Casting JonBenét The pursuit of closure is not the raison d’etre of all true crime documentaries. Where The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey advances an extrajudicial case against Burke, by gathering and reinterpreting evidence, Casting JonBenét is a meditative film, foregrounding performative strategies, reenactment, and creating onscreen space for personal observations and contradictory opinions. Eschewing found footage and contemporaneous evidence, filmmaker Kitty Green examines the case at a degree of remove, through the lens of local people from Boulder, Colorado auditioning to play the parts of various individuals connected to the case. That the actors featured are from the area in which the murder took place increases the sense of connection between them and the Ramsey family, and it serves to make the town of Boulder itself a character in the documentary. Casting JonBenét opens with a shot of a row of eight empty chairs, which are quickly filled by young, blonde girls, each dressed in one of JonBenét’s pageant costumes – a sparkly dress decorated with stars and stripes. We cut to one of the girls, who steps into a mid-shot with a

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clapperboard bearing her name (Hannah). She asks, ‘Do you know who killed JonBenét?’ The question receives no answer here, and no definitive answer during the film, as Casting JonBenét does not attempt to solve the case, nor does it add weight to a particular theory. Instead, multiple Patsys, Johns, and Burkes undertake table readings, and reflect on their lives and/or their characters. It is notable that (other than Hannah) the JonBenéts are mostly silent, and don’t offer any comments about the case or their own performances. Further, the non-linearity and multiple characterizations of the Ramseys in Casting JonBenét highlights the range of theories about the crime inspired by the extensive media coverage and enduring public interest in this case. During the course of the film, auditionees reenact events related to the murder, offer their impressions of the Ramsey family and their (differing) theories on the crime. Additionally, and they speak candidly about the ways in which the case resonates with their own lives. The format of repeated auditions ensures that acting is a central theme in Casting JonBenét, and its foregrounding raises implicit questions about the extent to which the real Ramseys were ‘performing’ being a perfect family, not only in media appearances following their daughter’s death, but also in the years prior. During the film, actors express differing views about the Ramseys, and their perspectives highlight the broader cultural phenomenon of group speculation on true crime. Indeed, with the exception of the children, many auditionees reveal a detailed knowledge of – and fascination with – the crime and investigation. One actor comments on the incompetence of Boulder’s police force during the original investigation: ‘we use the investigation techniques from the Boulder police department as a how not to for our cadets’. Another points to failings in the District Attorney’s office: ‘there was some abuse to her [JonBenét’s] genitalia […] that the District Attorney dismissed […] Which blew my mind when I read that. But anyway, this is Boulder and so, you know, that’s what you have to deal with’. Auditionees also offer their views about the identity of the killer. One ‘Patsy’ expresses sympathy for Patsy Ramsey, noting that ‘if [the killer] was the brother, if it was her son, I think that she would choose her son over the truth’. Other actors explore the possibility of a ‘child-porn’ ring, or a pedophile ‘club,’ or JonBenét being assaulted by a pageant judge or one of the local Father Christmases. One of the Santa Claus actors dismisses the assumption that someone in a red Santa suit could sneak around the Ramsey house, and opines that Patsy, ‘probably a royal bitch of a mother,’ killed her daughter. Such opinions reveal the extent to which the absence of closure for this crime – and arguably unsolved crimes more broadly – invites speculation and evaluation. In Casting JonBenét, the child actors auditioning to play Burke are shown by turns to be naïve, vulnerable, thoughtful, and playful. Several boys are shown talking about their relationships with their siblings. One refers to the fact that his sister calls him names, saying that it can bring him

94 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin to tears. Another notes that he has his conflicts with his sister, before adding, ‘it’s nothing, just brotherly love’. In the context of the theory that Burke killed his sister (the conclusion of the reinvestigation in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, but also one of the theories acknowledged here), Green’s film draws parallels between the auditionees and the actual Ramsey children. Childhood, the film implies, can be a time of confusion and familial conflict. Three of the young ‘Burkes’ are asked to attack a watermelon with the type of flashlight identified as the likely weapon that caused JonBenét’s head wounds. While the first child is unable to cause any damage, the others easily succeed, demonstrating (like the similar experiment in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey) that a child would have the physical capability of inflicting such severe injuries. The fact that the boys who succeed smile toward the camera (with one eating a piece of melon) is simultaneously playful and chilling. In Casting JonBenét, the auditionees also reveal some deeply personal experiences in a series of direct-to-camera segments, including brushes with the law, experiences of losing loved ones, and childhood traumas. One of the ‘Patsys’ reveals that when she was six years old (the same age as JonBenét at the time of her death) she was abused by an elderly neighbor. A ‘John’ recalls being a suspect in a crime, and then later, talks about finding his recently deceased partner, and the horror of looking into her unseeing eye. The resulting effect of these revelations and confessions is kaleidoscopic – by turns, distorting, and then sharpening the details of the case. One particularly startling comment occurs toward the end of the film, when an actress in ‘Patsy’ costume speaks about an incident during her childhood, in which her own father buried a hatchet in her skull. Looking into the camera, she explains: ‘To the world? Perfect family. To the world my father was the most charming, charismatic, handsome man that you could – you would ever know. You would never know that he had the temper he did when he drank.’ Such anecdotes are a stark reminder that what we might consider unthinkable – like a parent murdering a child – or a child murdering their sibling – is possible. Casting JonBenét interweaves the auditionees’ attitudes toward the Ramseys and the crime, with their performances and personal memories. In their essay on the film, Francis and Hussein (2017) identify the ‘performative triptych’ at work in Casting JonBenét, wherein the shift between ‘Character/Actor/Person allows audiences to observe three phenomena at once: the indexical residue of the original narrative (Patsy Ramsey), the interpretative possibilities (Patsy Auditionee), and the recollection of what happened twenty years ago via its felt impact on a particular civilian (Herself)’ (35). In this multilayering of the onscreen actors, the Ramsey family, no longer seem unique, or separate, and the murder of JonBenét Ramsey ceases to be a larger-than-life occurrence. Instead, we see a sharper reality, one in which violence and dysfunction within families can be wretchedly mundane.

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In the final act of the film, the camera tracks one of the Patsys toward a movie set, while members of the crew and other actors are preparing to shoot a scene. With the click of an in-frame clapperboard, and the addition of non-diegetic music, the closing tableau commences. Unlike the meticulously reconstructed rooms in The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, where the team of investigators pursue their search for a single truth about the crime, here, we see multiple overlapping scenarios, as the actors perform different versions of JonBenét’s final evening. There are recurring motifs here, including Patsy’s vanity (she is repeatedly shown looking in mirrors), familial disagreements (when John and Patsy argue, and when Patsy shakes her daughter). One guilt-ridden ‘John’ enters JonBenét’s bedroom, and we see different ‘Burkes’ pick up items linked to the crime (the flashlight, a piece of train track). We see JonBenét sitting on her bed with Santa Claus. We hear her voice, when she screams, and when she appears at her parents’ bedroom door, ‘mom’. Eventually, the actors cross into each other’s onset spaces and the multiplicity of theories about the killing coexist. It is a collaged sequence that visually articulates the unresolved complexities and contradictions of this case.

What did you find? Comparing JonBenéts While accounts of unsolved true crimes cannot provide the reassurance of knowing, ‘that the criminals were caught’ (Biressi 2005: p.118), many follow the conventions of fictional crime genres, by providing closure within the parameters of the text. The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey is one such documentary. It establishes a clear, linear narrative, and at the documentary’s conclusion, the onscreen investigators persuasively assert that they have solved the crime. In contrast, Casting JonBenét refuses to provide closure, creating in its finale, a palimpsest of differing hypotheses about the crime. In the closing scenes of The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, Clemente and Richards visit the house where JonBenét died. A haunting non-diegetic piano motif accompanies their observations, as they stand outside, and the music continues as we cut to a crime scene video of the interior, including a shot of the blanket in the basement where JonBenét’s body lay. Then, during a repeat of an impressionistic insert, in which a young actress dances in nightwear and a pageant crown (featured at the beginning of the documentary), Richards comments that JonBenét is a ‘little girl who’s become a footnote in her own murder’. In both documentaries considered here, JonBenét is the least explored personality. Recollections in The Case of: JonBenét focus on her relationships with other family members, so that her mother’s coaching, her father’s absence, and her brother’s jealousy replace any intrinsic characteristics, and indeed, her name is not mentioned in the 911 call that began the investigation. Similarly, in Casting JonBenét, the victim is offscreen for most of the film, and it is the personalities of the

96 Elayne Chaplin and Melissa Chaplin other family members (Patsy, John and Burke) that are the main focus of the auditionees, as they prepare for their performances. In the final moments of The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, there is an effort to refocus attention back onto the victim, when Clemente and Richards visit the graveyard where JonBenét is buried, near to her mother’s final resting place. Richards lays some white flowers on JonBenét’s grave, and the camera reveals an etched angel on her headstone. Angelic imagery also features in the closing moments of Casting JonBenét. Here, one of the JonBenéts appears at the end of a shadowed hallway, as we hear Bert Parks’s rendition of ‘Miss America’ (first released in 1955, and thereafter, the theme to the ‘Miss America’ beauty pageant). As the lights brighten, we see ‘JonBenét’ in a silvery costume, with feather-wings, at each shoulder. As she dances out onto the soundstage, the lyrics of the song are sadly ironic (‘There she is, Miss America, there she is, your ideal’) as the widely circulated images of JonBenét in her pageant costumes are now forever associated with her violent death.

References Biressi, A. Reality TV: Realism and Revelation, Wallflower Press, London & New York, 2005. Brooke, J. ‘Media Circus Eclipses Story of Colorado Girl’s Slaying’ New York Times, January 16, 1997. Gale OneFile: News, link.gale.com/apps/doc/ A150408440/STND?u=tou&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=13b37749. Accessed 15 May 2022. Bruzzi, S., ‘Making a Genre: The Case of the Contemporary True Crime Documentary’ Law and Humanities 10:2, 2016, 249–280. Churchwell, S. ‘The Death of Innocence’ New York Times, August 10, 2008 https:// www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Churchwell-t.html (Accessed October 31, 2021). Coffman, K., ‘JonBenet Ramsey’s Brother Settles Lawsuit with CBS: Attorney’ Reuters, January 4, 2019 (Accessed May 5, 2022). Fogarty, L.C. ‘A Timeline of the Ramsey Case.’ USA Today, 17 July 2008 gale.com/ apps/doc/A181511552/STND?u=tou&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=d660b997 Accessed 24 Sept. 2021. Francis, M. & Hussein, L. ‘Off the Record: Reenactment and Intimacy in Casting Jonbenet’ Film Quarterly, Fall 2017, 71:1, Fall 2017, 32–41. Online. Accessed May 2022 https://about.jstor.org/terms International Business Times. ‘Burke Ramsey Sues CBS for $750M’ International Business Times [U.S. ed.], 29 Dec. 2016. gale.com/apps/doc/A518223143/STND? u=tou&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=6d0fd888. Accessed September 2021. Mckinley, C. ‘Ex-DA Opens Up About Why She Cleared the Ramsey Family of JonBenet’s Murder’ ABC News Online, accessed (March 2022) https://abcnews.go. com/US/da-opens-cleared-ramsey-family-jonbenets-murder/story?id=43106426 Oates, J.C. My Sister, My Love, Ecco/Harper Collins, 2008. Punnett, I.C. Toward a Theory of True Crime Narratives: A Textual Analysis, Routledge, New York, NY, 2018.

Depictions of the JonBenét Ramsey killing

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Richards, R.D. and Calvert, C. ‘Press Coverage of the JonBenét Ramsey Murder and Its Legal Implications: A Dialogue with John and Patsy Ramsey and their Attorney, L. Lin Wood’ CommLaw Conspectus 10, 2002, 227–250. Segal, E. ‘Closure in Detective Fiction’ Poetics Today 31:2, 2010, 153–215.

Filmography and video extracts 20/20 Sunday: The Perfect Murder? (ABC, first broadcast September 27, 1998) Accessed August 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SXc8UbU5uI Casting JonBenét (2017, d. Kitty Green) The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey (2-part CBS Documentary, 2016, d. Eddie Smidt) Accessed July 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBUQO2u-eD4 (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpIB49V2izU (Part 2) Dr Phil Exclusive: Burke Ramsey (CBS, first aired September 2016), Accessed December 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPbBwJgKScA Larry King Live: Steve Thomas, John and Patsy Ramsey (CNN, first broadcast May 31, 2000). Accessed October 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgykimRJ7Y The List: Who Killed JonBenét (20/20 ABC, first broadcast January 15, 2021) Accessed October 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4HLmCiMl0 Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder (2000, d. Lawrence Schiller)

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Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths: Images of Mafia Violence in True Crime Documentary George S. Larke-Walsh1 and Blake Wahlert2 1

Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the University of Sunderland, UK 2 Independent film scholar and reference Librarian in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

This chapter examines the contextual impact of photographic images of mafia, specifically those that show people who died in mob killings, as they appear in three true crime documentaries, and explores how they influence accompanying narratives of resistance, victimhood and/or classical tragedy. Mafia activity is a very specific subset of true crime narratives wherein audiences can be encouraged to indulge in varying degrees of voyeuristic fascination and/or sympathetic lamentation. The images of death discussed here can be seen in several ways, including as dreadful, intriguing or even artistic and appealing in nature and this chapter examines how responses are encouraged via two discourses sourced from documentaries available in the American media market, the sensational and the sober. The former discourse is dominant in “The Godfathers” episode of Inside the Mafia (National Geographic, 2005), whilst the latter dominates Excellent Cadavers (Marco Turco, 2005) and Shooting the Mafia (Kim Longinotto, 2019) which both address the effects of mafia violence.1 While the different production values of these examples may suggest they inevitably contrast, they focus on the same events, something which reveals intriguing similarities, especially in the use of photographs featuring death. We argue that the films’ surrounding narratives focus on moments in the twentieth century involving battles between the forces of good and evil, and that the intensity of the images of death helps in certain circumstances to elevate events to the level of classical tragedy. Further, these images may be presented as violent spectacles and/or as causing distress, but they also memorialize the criminal powers that were the cause of it. Thus, although some documentaries on the mafia wars may aim to memorialize victims and resistance, this chapter argues that the narrative contexts of violent images may also serve to reinforce mafia mythologies. These films cannot provide a definitive solution to mafia violence, nor do they completely confine mafia activity to the past. Therefore, they also contribute to the mafia’s mythological status outside the confines of history DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-7

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 99 and as beyond capture/control; in this context, the images suggest the mafia as a compelling, but malevolent force that remains more powerful than any forces of law and order.

Image Archives The images used in these documentaries are from news archives of the 1970s and 80s. Both Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia specifically identify the Sicilian photojournalism of Letizia Battalglia as their specific focus. She is interviewed in both films but is the primary subject of Shooting the Mafia, and so her testimony provides important context for the images. Battalgia and her partner Franco Zecchin not only provided images for local media, but also created public displays of their photographs on the streets of Corleone in efforts to break the code of silence that allowed such violence to persist. Such actions reveal Battalgia and Zecchin’s original intentions, both as photojournalists and anti-mafia activists, to show the suffering caused by violence and to empower Sicilian people to resist. Paula Salvio (2017) notes how Battaglia’s work in particular “shifts awareness, in part, by framing not only the direct victims of mafia crimes, but also their families” (107). This shift redirects our gaze to those who live in the vicinity and thus, her photographs can be described as acts of compassion, which fits with the documentarian Kim Longinotto’s recognized filmmaking style and tone. The images also provide an archive of citizen rebellion against the code of silence that surrounds mafia activity and government complacency. Such archives of images stand as irrefutable evidence of violence, suffering and the brutal realities of mafia behaviours. Zecchin (2015), looking back at this career, suggests photography “produces a fragment of the real, that makes it more immediate, and easy to preserve in memory” (88). Salvio notes Battaglia’s “archive continues to expand the arc of remembering by challenging the state repression of memory and its practice of trading in denial” (114). The much-reproduced photograph of Rosario Schifani, the widow of a murdered police officer, “works as a powerful provocation for women who know intimately of mafia violence to tell a story of their own” (Salvio: 110). Thus, it is evident that photojournalism, through its indexical link to the real event, has immense power to keep a memory alive. However, in terms of temporality, the reproduction of these images in 21st century true crime documentaries, means that whilst these images of death are still shocking, they are now significantly distanced from viewers in both time and space. Therefore, as well as keeping memories alive, viewing them encourages a wider variety of responses that may or may not match those original intentions as the indexical link is increasingly challenged by time and context. Such responses range from curiosity and pity to disgust or disdain, and image reproductions may be labeled sensationalism, lamentation or just plain voyeurism. In short, it is increasingly difficult for

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even sober documentary narratives to employ them in ways that retain the original impact, or social intentions. Further, the reproduction of these and many other images of mafia activity in countless books, films and websites acts not only as evidence of mafia cruelties, but also as ‘messages’, or visual testimony from both victims and perpetrators which further obfuscates their meanings. Images of mafia violence are significant iconography in histories of the mafia; they add as much to mythologies of power and tragedy as they do to testimonies of resistance and resilience. So, although some may have been produced as testimonies of a society victimized by crime and political apathy, they merge with a more general association of images as the voice of the mafia, in that the mafia ‘speaks’ through its violent actions. Without the need for interviews with the perpetrators, these images of murder are public declarations of criminal intent, either to intimidate or eradicate rivals, members of the local community, and even politicians and lawmakers.

Narrative Context The three documentaries were chosen because they all focus on mafia violence and associated criminal trials in Sicily and New York in the 1980s and 90s and they use images of the dead to punctuate their stories. Each text employs different tones and aesthetics, but they all use images of dead bodies as powerful visual evidence of mafia activity. Most of the images were originally produced for immediate consumption in news reports. When re-used, decades later within a documentary narrative that attempts to convey the impact of these events, the surrounding aesthetics and tone overrides the original intentions and risks reducing the image to the role of emotive punctuation. John Taylor (1998) in his study of image ethics notes the “increased distance from [..] the reports of events (which are themselves reviews of what is past) may implicate the viewer in voyeurism” (5). The indulgences of voyeurism are caused not only by the distance between viewers and events, through time and space, but also in respect of how that privilege of re-viewing events is packaged. This is easy to see in some documentary narratives, such as Inside Mafia, that indulges in sensationalist discourses and focuses on the thrilling audacity of criminal behaviors, but it is also present in even more moderate discourses such as Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia. Fascination with images of murder is understood in various ways. Taylor suggests “published photographs offer viewers the opportunity to stare at and become enthralled by forbidden or taboo subjects” (14), while Seltzer (1998, 2007) suggests the focus on violence in true crime feeds into wider discourses of ‘wound culture’ and that within that “the spectacle of violent crime provides a point of attraction and identification, an intense individualization of these social conditions, albeit a socialization via the media spectacle of wounding and victimization” (2007: 11). Seltzer’s argument

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 101 reinforces the idea that the original intentions of such as images of death are irrelevant in true crime narratives that look back and lament such events, because in our ‘mass-mediated’ world there is no clear distinction between crime fact and crime fiction. Seltzer uses terms such as ‘referred pain’ (2) and ‘synthetic witnessing’ (3) to describe true crime as a channeled form of shared experience; a form that is all about our mediated responses to crime, nothing more. Another equally negative view of such fascinations is that they merge with other popular culture narratives to offer voyeuristic images of criminal domination and victim grief. Giroux (2012) argues American culture has succumbed to a ‘depravity of aesthetics’ wherein “representations of human suffering, humiliation and death [are offered up] as part of a wider economy of pleasure that is collectively indulged” (264). In this context, mass-produced images of mafia violence appearing in other media can be viewed as oft-repeated glorifications of criminality and suffering that encourage audiences to participate in impulses that include gruesome fascination as much as any processes of sympathy or education. In response to Seltzer and Giroux, a closer examination of aesthetic styles shows that Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia are both more concerned with bearing witness to the victims of violence whereas Inside the Mafia encourages the process of embodying the gangsters. While the images in Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia are horrific, the viewer is encouraged to consider the emotional trauma of the onlookers as much as, if not more than, the fate of the deceased. This is in keeping with the editorial focus of the films that suggest the mafia as inhuman. The audience is encouraged to assess the grief of the onlookers for guidance in their affective response to the image which emphasizes the role of witnesses. Thus, inserted images of death are designed to shock so that various levels of sympathy or outrage are encouraged. Both documentaries encourage dread, disgust and prioritize testimonies of resistance and victimhood, in keeping perhaps with Seltzer’s assertion of wound culture as both a private fantasy and a “collective gathering around shock, trauma and the wound” (1998: 1).2 In contrast, Inside the Mafia positions the viewer in the role of the gangsters through its placement of archive images and the use of stylish reenactments. It uses the photographs of death predominantly as spectacle by focusing on rapid close-ups of corpses, so asserting the mafia’s criminal power. Inside the Mafia encourages viewer excitement and, arguably, reflects Giroux’s depravity of aesthetics. The surrounding aesthetics are distinct, but the images are used in all cases as punctuation designed to encourage affective responses of shock or excitement. Thus, the images have a distinct presence. While Shooting the Mafia and Excellent Cadavers may have avoided giving a literal voice to the mafia through interviews or embodiment the message that the mafia is an extremely powerful force is clear in the affective impact the images produce. This raises the question whether documentaries, especially ones made for

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transnational consumption, can escape memorializing the power of the mafia especially in the re-presentation of these images.

Audience Responses Susan Sontag (2003) reminds us that “the photographer’s intentions do not determine the meaning of the photograph, which will have its own career blown by the whims and loyalties of the diverse communities who have use for it” (32). This is exemplified by Zecchin in a reflection on his career, where he acknowledges that his photographs have been re-used in “romanticized and sensationalist” (103) manners and that these have largely been influenced by the popularity of mafia fiction. If we link this to Giroux’s assertion that modern audiences are consistently encouraged to find pleasure in the aesthetics of human suffering, then it is very hard to assess consistent ‘moral’ responses to images of mafia violence used in documentaries. This is not only because audiences respond in complex and contradictory ways, but because general perceptions on the morality of responses change depending on the immediacy of the events displayed. As Seltzer has argued, the impact of fictionalized versions of similar events, as well as the use of the conventions of fiction in factual accounts, further confuses an audience response. In essence, we must accept how hard it is for a general audience to consistently distinguish fact from the fictionalized expressions of mafia behavior in twentieth century history. Our chosen documentaries are English language and produced primarily for the US/UK market and so the primary audience is not one that has typically had firsthand experience of mafia violence. Indeed, the primary source of information on the mafia for most audiences of these documentaries is likely to be mainstream fiction television and film. In fiction, audiences are encouraged to admire the audacity of the mafia – from bribing senators to intimidating band leaders.3 Fictions that focus on heroic moral resistance to the mafia are rare outside of Italian cinema. This means the realities of mafia violence are little known to US and UK citizens and the subject is understood mainly through mythologies that circulate within popular culture texts. Hence, audience understanding of mafia activity is influenced by a media patchwork of fact and fiction that likely infects responses to documentary discourse and the images therein. The fact that interpretation of images is heavily influenced by audiences’ previous exposure to the topic and the context of their display may suggest that these images lose their power to shock over time. However, regardless of socio-cultural specificities they affect viewers on a purely visceral level as spectacles of death. Nichols (1991) asserts death as an example of “monumental excess” (144) in that an image of death eludes any attempts to naturalize or explain it within language; no matter how it is contextualized or described, an excess remains. In addition, as Sontag reminds us “there is a shame as well as shock in looking at the close-up of a real horror” (42).

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 103 Only those who can do something to alleviate the suffering have a purpose in viewing atrocities “the rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be” (ibid). Photographs of mafia violence bear witness to events and show that they did indeed happen, but alongside their role as evidence they also exist as voyeuristic spectacle that encourage strong responses. Strong responses to images of trauma or death often include contradictory impulses and results. Stella Bruzzi (2006) notes, images from horrific events, such as the 9/11 bombings “function as the point where diverse and often conflicting mythologizing tendencies, emotions and fantasies collide” (21), and these therefore include voyeuristic impulses as well as grief or compassion. Similarly, she argues that the Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy’s assassination has become a text “onto which is poured all the subsidiary grief, anger, belief in conspiracy and corruption surrounding the unresolved events it depicts” (ibid). Citing Roland Barthes’ (1957)(1953) idea of myth as everevolving, she notes how a culture’s obsession with iconic images, such as Zapruder’s, is evidence of “our ambivalent desire to have it reveal and keep hidden the truth” (22). While dead mafiosi have much less of a global impact than Bruzzi’s examples, such images can still encourage complex and contradictory audience responses ranging from voyeurism to grief and compassion. They may also contribute to individual beliefs in conspiracy and corruption. They are visceral images of death, but they are also iconic moments, or assertions of larger more complex socio-political and mythological narratives about organized crime. For instance, when images of the assassination of Paul Castellano are reproduced in popular documentary, they are often contextualized within a narrative of John Gotti’s audacious rise to power as head of New York’s Gambino mafia family. This is shown in the aesthetic context of the image of Castellano’s corpse in Inside the Mafia. Here the image is accompanied by the sound of gunshots followed by a zoom-in and silent pause on Castellano’s dead face. This is followed by an image of a shadowy figure smoking a cigar and some dramatic language: “such a daring public murder shocked New Yorkers. It made the new Gambino boss a celebrity overnight”. Thus, the image of Castellano’s corpse is presented as a visual testimony to explain Gotti’s dominance. As such, the image houses not only the shocking indexical reality of events (Castellano’s death), but also the connotations of mafia ‘speech’ and the cultural mythologies associated with such an act. Furthermore, it could be argued that the combination of images and narration in Inside the Mafia encourages an affective response that invites us to participate in the violence in a similar way to Warshow’s (1948) suggestion that audiences ‘live vicariously’ through the actions of criminals. Hence, as shown in this example, multi-level responses to the images may well include distress at the violence, but also excitement at the experiential point of view shots. To explain further, if audiences find the image of Castellano’s corpse fascinating, it is not necessarily because they are impervious to the sorrow

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of death, but rather it is because they are caught in a contradictory affective response to the image brought on by the distress at its content immediately followed by intrigue at its possible meaning. Drawing on Massumi’s (2002) explanation of affective responses, audiences experience the gap between ‘content’ and ‘intensity’ (24) wherein the “response to an image is multilevel, or at least bi-level” (ibid). Massumi argues that an audience’s viewing of images can elicit responses that are paradoxical. He argues this is because an emotional response to an image is not isolated within the logic of cause and effect. Instead, he states “the level of intensity is characterized by a crossing of semantic wires: on it, sadness is pleasant” (ibid). Such distinctions cannot be fixed and so when audiences of mafia documentaries are invited to look at images of death they are likely to experience a contradictory array of emotions that is more complex than simply acknowledging them as being sorrowful evidence of crime. Such images are quintessential examples of violence as both deplorable and exciting and this slippage of meanings along with the iconic nature of the images as part of a larger narrative and this is why documentaries that include them struggle to fully override their complex voyeuristic function.

Narrative Contexts Excellent Cadavers also uses sound effects to punctuate the presentation of images of death, but instead of the sound of a gun firing the sound of a camera shutter is employed. This style choice affects the viewers’ responses to the photographs for instead of giving the illusion of participating in the crimes, this positions viewers as witnesses. Therefore, the encouraged response is more passive, but the images retain some of the fascinations associated with the unaffected onlooker as well as the powerful impact of mafia messages. In essence, viewers are invited to sympathize with the victims and consider the reasons for and processes by which such images are captured, but they remain voyeurs; they are protected by temporal distance and the mediated structure of the surrounding narratives. Even in these cases, images of death and trauma struggle to retain their original intention as resistance in face of their strength as simply fascinating images of victimhood. Shooting the Mafia is structured by interviews and observational footage and is focused entirely on Battalgia’s career as a photojournalist and her desire to give voice to the local community terrorized by the violence. Of her intentions she states, “photographing trauma is embarrassing. You love these people, but you have to take photos. I couldn’t tell them I was doing it with love”. The desire to show these images as testimony creates an entirely different contextual aesthetic for them. The affective response is more subdued and becomes a form of lamentation at the suffering of innocent people. Battalgia’s famous portrait of Rosario Schifani, the wife of a bodyguard killed in the attack on Judge Giovanni Falcone, is contextualized by

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 105 narration about Schifani’s refusal to stay silent. While Schifani’s status in Italy has indeed focused on courage and resistance, in the documentary narrative the image is used mainly as a marker of the shift from photographing mafia deaths to broader topics of survival and renewal. It also marks a narrative pivot from a broader focus on mafia violence to a more detailed exploration of the events in Sicily leading up to the assassination of Judge Falcone. In fact, all three documentaries feature these events in very specific ways and the resulting tone reflects the themes of fate, omnipotence and victimhood associated with classical tragedy, a point we will return to. Various brutal images of death are portrayed in montages in order to convey an overview of the Sicilian mafia wars. Leading up to the montage in Inside the Mafia are various reenactments and interviews which illustrate the power of the mafia. One reenactment shows a man being beaten up by mafia members while the narrator describes Toto Riina as “an allusive, psychopathic killer from the time of Corleone”. The first instance of color archival footage of a corpse is shown soon after, alongside an interview with Corleone town councilor Dino Paternostro who is describing the “toughness” of the Corleone mafia. It is evident that the documentary wishes to emphasize the mafia as ruthless killers and encourage audiences to imagine their own participation in such events. The episode then cuts to a very quick montage of still black and white photographs depicting various unidentified corpses with ominous music playing in the background. The whole montage lasts about 16 seconds and shows 14 photographs with most only staying on screen for less than a second. The first photograph shows a close-up of someone’s hand pointing a gun and then cuts to the next photograph showing a long shot of a body covered in blood lying in the back of a car with the camera quickly zooming in on the face. The next two photographs operate in the same way, first showing a picture of a masked man shooting a gun and next another corpse sitting in a car. After showing several more photographs of unidentified corpses the montage ends and gives way to a color sequence showing a medium close-up of a person sweeping the wet ground. The reddish lighting of the sequence gives the impression that the person is mopping up blood which is further implied by the narrator saying, “The streets were awash with the blood of Riina’s victims.” This montage presents mafia wars as an era of horror in Sicilian twentieth century history; a period where the rule of law was usurped by the audacity of the criminals. As this documentary has already established a vicarious participation for viewers, then this rapid visual testimony speaks to the intensity and enormity of the events. In contrast, the montage sequence in Excellent Cadavers features just nine black and white photographs. However, it lasts twice as long as each image stays on screen for around two to three seconds. While Inside the Mafia only includes one image of a woman kneeling next to a corpse, nearly half of the photographs in the Excellent Cadavers montage depict a crying woman or child within the frame next to a corpse. The placement of the

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montage is relevant here too. It appears as part of a sequence that begins with archival footage of the aftermath of a mafia hit depicting a corpse lying on the ground next to a crashed scooter. This is followed by the sound of a camera shutter and a cut to a black and white photograph of the same corpse covered with a blanket and several crying people crouched nearby, hugging each other. The montage then begins with a black and white photograph of a corpse lying awkwardly over a crate and a digital pan that reveals children looking at the body. With the sound of a camera shutter used again to signal change, the film cuts to a different black and white photograph of a corpse lying face-down with a crying woman crouched near the body. Next is a photograph of crying children, shown in close-up, followed by a medium long shot of a corpse sitting in a chair with a bullet wound through his head and a seated crying woman next to him. The last photograph in the montage depicts a close-up of a crying woman with no corpse in the frame. Instead of close-ups of the victim’s faces, as in Inside the Mafia, Excellent Cadavers emphasizes those of the witnesses who are in their own way “victims” since it can be inferred that they are the wives, mothers, and siblings of the murdered victims. Though the audience is encouraged to feel remorse when presented with these images of death, they are more graphic in nature and are greater examples of ‘monumental excess’ than the photos in Inside the Mafia. Inside the Mafia’s montage is more sensationalist than the one featured in Excellent Cadavers, but it is not more shocking, and, indeed, is actually less so. Qualitatively speaking, Excellent Cadaver’s images of death are more graphic and stay on the screen longer. This contradiction may have to do with the constraints upon Inside the Mafia as a television series aimed at mainstream consumption. However, this does not alter their different affective qualities. The rapid-fire presentation of the images of death in Inside the Mafia never allows for the viewer to truly absorb the “reality” of the killings. Though the momentum and energy of the montage sequence with its intense music strives for effect, its actual impact on the viewer is less affective than those in Excellent Cadavers despite the latter film’s efforts in redirecting the viewer’s attention away from the corpses and onto the witnesses instead. Though it strives for a more compassionate attitude toward these images, Excellent Cadavers actually ends up giving a ‘louder’ voice to the mafia through their stronger affective impact. Such a distinction also helps to identify narrative intention within specific documentary styles. Turning to Shooting the Mafia, this documentary portrays images from this period as part of Battalgia’s attempts to ‘break the silence’ that surrounded mafia activity. She discusses the photographs as attempts to bear witness – to record events before corpses are covered up or removed from the site. The images are intended to shock, but in ways that challenge viewers to face up to what has happened. The placement of images within excerpts of interviews keeps a closer connection between image and original intention. For instance, when the documentary discuses Falcone’s death the

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 107 focus is on Battalgia’s professional relationship with Falcone, and personal memories and excerpts of interviews with the judge are interspersed with the images. A wistful musical soundtrack is employed, as is news footage, all contextualized by Battalgia’s memories of that day. The documentary also includes a contemporary interview with Judge Borsellini who describes how he held his colleague, Falcone, in his arms as he died. Thus, the focus is firmly rooted in victimhood, memory and grief, and thus encourages audiences to lament the tragedy and injustice of the killings. In addition, Battalgia states she could not bring herself to photograph any aspect of his death, and this led her to stop photographing anymore mafia activity. She states this was because Falcone was a ‘good man’ whom she loved. This perhaps unwittingly declares her previous processing of death scenes as more distanced. Regardless, it reveals the difference between viewing images of strangers versus people you personally know. Battalgia describes her job as “confronting cruel power” and thus, emphasizes the ability of her images to convey hatred, grief and victimhood as well as resistance. Classical Tragedy Whilst Shooting the Mafia and Excellent Cadavers are certainly sober discourses in intention, the latter’s decision to keep its perspective firmly rooted in judicial and journalist practices has a significant impact on the presentation of events. While, as some reviewers have noted, the film “serves as a necessary counterpoint to Hollywood gangster films [..] by refusing to allow audiences to identify with the film’s mafiosi” (Cavallero 2007: 86), this does not mean the mafia is eradicated from the film as a character, or a subjectivity. In Excellent Cadavers, the photographic images are used to market the film and they provide the narrative connection for the inclusion of Battalgia as a key witness to events. The power of the images to convey the horror of events is a key component in creating sympathy for the men and women who fought the mafia. Their inclusion is validated by the narration, and, unlike Inside the Mafia, they operate as far more than simply visual spectacle. However, they also create a visual narrative strand that shadows the sober discourse to establish a secondary discourse. In a review excerpt that appears on the DVD cover the San Francisco Chronicle declares the documentary as “worthy of Greek tragedy”. This correlates with an article by Maddelena Spazzini (2011) who suggests that the film declares the Italian state as ‘fate’ and the ‘excellent cadavers’ as heroes sacrificed by the gods (376). In both of these responses the film is recognized as an exposé of mafia violence, but this does not diminish the mythology of the Sicilian mafia, nor does it undermine their role in influencing Italian politics. Instead, both reviews suggest how the narrative and visual structure of the documentary, by treating Falcone and Borsellino as heroes of classical tragedy, actually elevates brutal mafia identity to the level of malevolent gods.

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The opening scenes of Excellent Cadavers present archive news footage of Judge Antonino Caponetto’s horrified reaction to the murder of Paolo Borsellino in 1992; “it’s all over”, he says enfolding the reporter’s microphone between his two shaking hands, “please don’t let me say anymore”. In direct response to those opening images, the final scenes of the film are of a present-day interview with Battaglia; “Nothing has changed”, she states, “I’m seventy years old. How long do I have to wait?” Similarly, Shooting the Mafia opens with a description of the mafia as “that awful man in the shadows” and ends with Battalgia’s hope “I dream of seeing a Sicily free of the mafia”. It is evident from these bookend interviews that the films believe the immense horror of Falcone and Borsellino’s deaths have done little to influence real political change in Italy. Inside the Mafia ends on a similar note with an interview with senior police officer, Antonio Manganelli, who says, “I think we all were a bit deluded. Maybe we were just kidding ourselves that we could destroy the mafia with just four moves on a chessboard”. The collection of evidence in each film creates a political chessboard of dangerous and honorable men. The mafia is still, as Magistrate Giueseppe Ayala describes it in Excellent Cadavers, “an organic part of the Italian political system”. The films are thus a lamentation on the sacrifice of honorable men in what is so obviously a dishonorable game, again connecting with notions of classical tragedy. The knowledge that mafia violence and power has not been eradicated encourages a connection between the images and mafia mythology. They still inspire anger and pity, but those emotions are less constructive because they struggle to find an outlet in concrete actions. As Sontag asserts: “It is because a war, any war, doesn’t seem as if it can be stopped that people become less responsive to the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers” (101). Sontag’s statement highlights how the use of images of death in documentaries about the mafia are distanced from the audiences, not only by history, but also by the unresolved nature of the topic. All three films, to different degrees, encourage viewers to view the mafia as social problems and lament their existence, but none suggests that they can ever be eradicated. Therefore, the images can only encourage what Sontag suggests, as noted earlier, a bemused sadness (13) that bad things happen. This keeps the topic localized and most likely separate from the viewer’s world. Therefore, it is understandable that the images may be interpreted in more abstract or voyeuristic terms as evidence from an ‘other worldly’ epic battle between good and evil. The narrative context that surrounds images of mafia violence creates a perception of epic battles between heroes and malevolent gods and is easily recognizable in all three presentations of the story of Falcone and Borsellino. The cause-effect structures, voice-overs and violent images serve to suggest the judges’ deaths were inevitable. Battalgia’s memories of that time in Shooting the Mafia include her description of Falcone as a ‘sweet’ man whose attempts to save Sicily were undermined by political corruption

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 109 as much as the mafia. In Excellent Cadavers, Tomasso Buscetta’s private testimony to Falcone in 1983 also provides the conspiratorial evidence that the political gods can be as malevolent as any mafia. Buscetta’s warning came early in Falcone’s career, according to his colleague Leonardo Guarnotta; “He said if he talked about politics either he, or Falcone would die first”. As various political connections became apparent during the maxi trails and their aftermath, Falcone and Borsellino’s vulnerabilities as isolated upholders of justice becomes apparent. Inside the Mafia presents a similar message in an interview with Liliana Ferraro, one of Falcone’s former colleagues at the Italian Justice Department. She recounts an interaction she had with Falcone, saying, “When we were talking afterwards he told me: “my life’s mapped out. It’s my destiny to be killed by the mafia someday. The only thing I don’t know is when”. Interestingly, the film then cuts to a black and white image of an unidentified corpse covered in a white blanket reminding us of the use of images as emotional punctuation. Both films present the Falcone and Borsellino murders as inevitable and ‘destined’,further painting them as tragic heroes caught in a classical tragedy. Like all real-life stories where the ending is already known, Falcone’s words have an exaggerated poignancy and strength. The fact that both he and Borsellino anticipated their own ends, but still continued their work, reinforces such interviews as expressions of stoicism in the face of inevitable fates; as say the fates of classical mythology, ‘every action has its consequences’. In this context, Falcone and Borsellino’s heroism is validated in the violence of their deaths and their decision to fight is the action that sealed their fate and made them martyrs. The Sicilian/Italian populace, like the documentary audience, functions as the chorus who witness and mourn the events but are powerless to influence them in any way. Latin literature interprets the fates as “goddesses who personified the inescapable destiny of man” (Atsma) and that “No one may linger when they commend, no one may postpone the allotted day (ibid). As such, the fates dictate the time and place of death, and all the chorus can do is mourn. All three documentaries create a sense of personal tragedy within historical events but without the power to change the conditions that created them (and most probably still exist). Alexander Stille’s voice-over and the recollections of Falcone and Borsellino’s colleagues in Excellent Cadavers present the magistrates as national martyrs in an endless criminal game. The unanswered question of why politicians failed to intervene and save the judges is connected to the epic drama of national corruption with both politicians and mafia as malevolent gods. Thus, Battalgia’s question at the end of the film, “how long do I have to wait?” is representative of the Sicilian/Italian chorus, who remain powerless witnesses to the whims of those gods. The photograph that shows Battalgia with her camera, crouched by a dead mafiosi on the streets of Palermo is also illustrative of her role as silent witness. In Shooting the Mafia she describes herself as “never truly happy” for having “lived through that horror” and describes her life

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as a constant struggle. While Battaglia’s images bear witness, she is still presented as a victim of the violence whose images and memories are lamentations on the tragedies of Sicilian life. We have outlined a number of similarities and differences between the three documentaries, but their main commonality is their presentation of images of the dead in the context of the assassinations of Falcone and Borsellino. Not only do they treat the judges as tragic heroes, but they also present their murders as different to other mafia killings. Unlike the corpses of mafia members, there are no clearly identified images of corpses from the scenes of Falcone or Borsellino’s murders in any of the documentaries. For Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia there are insertions of the explosions as they appeared in Ricky Tognazzi’s 1999 television movie (also called Excellent Cadavers), as well as archive news footage. The horror of the politicians’ deaths is described in vivid detail by persons who were present, so the absence of images is at once irrelevant because the horror is illustrated in words, while still offered as a comfort for the viewer who is spared the ‘reality’ of viewing them. The inference here is that viewing images of the politicians’ corpses would be too distressing. However, the absence of these images can be argued as having a direct impact on the rhetorical interpretation of other images for it suggests the deaths that have been shown are somehow less tragic and, indeed, open to broader interpretation. Narrative framing of the images in Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia encourage viewers to consider the moral context of the violence from various points of view. The affective nature of the images is evident in their unflinching presentation of images of death. However, the actual acts of violence between mafiosi are contextualized as regrettable but perhaps inevitable, while the violence against politicians is more lamentable and remains hidden, perhaps as a sign of respect. The context of the images in all three films also provides the framework for the presentation of Falcone and Borsellino as national heroes. On the one hand the gruesome images provide strong visual motivation for the prosecutor’s actions, on the other, they provide the context for the prosecutors’ immense bravery and “sadly inevitable” deaths.

Conclusion While the editorial and the emotional impulses of Inside the Mafia, Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia remain unresolved, this can be argued as a reflection of the power of visual testimony to resist any conclusive rhetorical strategies in a documentary. As Nichols (2008) states documentary is an “expressive mix of passion and knowledge” (36) and “despite the certainty rhetorical utterances wish to confer, images retain a fundamental ambiguity” (37). Audiences are drawn into the drama of the events through the visual archive and reconstructions of events, while the surrounding sober, or sensational, discourse offers an editorial on them.

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 111 The emotions encouraged by this mix vary between fascination, outrage and bemused sadness. While sympathy may occur, the narrativization of events resemble forms of classical tragedy because the films make it clear that the mafia is an enemy beyond ‘mortal’ responses. Falcone and Borsellino were the heroes sacrificed by the gods of political power and mafia brutality. Excellent Cadavers and Shooting the Mafia are intellectual discussions of the events, but they are also lamentations on the inevitability of those events. Unlike Inside the Mafia, they are not intended as sensational discourses, nor are the photographic images meant for simple voyeurism. Nevertheless, the emotional impact of the memories in both word and image are combined with conclusions that show the political stasis as still in place. In this context, all three present a story of an epic battle between mortal heroes and criminal unmerciful gods. This leads to questions as to whether we are doomed to always see images of mafia violence as voyeuristic spectacle or classical tragedy as much as the compelling evidence of organized criminality or political apathy/corruption the original images were meant to expose. The prioritization of narrative that results in attempts to convey the human cost, through images, witness testimony or re-enacted embodiment results in true crime documentary struggling to avoid mythologizing or portraying events through the easiest-to-comprehend structures of classical tragedy. Images of mafia violence, then, although originally produced to break the silence, over time fall victim to the much louder popularity of mafia mythologies. Perhaps the best expression of this contradictory double-bind appears in Shooting the Mafia when Battalgia expresses her desire to “take away the beauty that others see” in her photographs and “destroy them”. However, she later laments her decision not to photograph the scenes of Falcone and Borsellino’s deaths and says, “the photographs I never took hurt me the most”. These interview segments show she is aware of the intensity of her images and how they encourage a variety of responses and meanings beyond their original intentions, but also that she still believes in the need for their existence as visual evidence. Her two responses to her work are contradictory, yet equally valid. Evidence is valuable, but the ways in which we view it is subject to an array of contradictory feelings and beliefs. It is not simply a failing of a documentary narrative, or their audience’s morality when they are caught in similar predicaments. If true crime documentaries run the risk of mythologizing the mafia when using these images, is there a solution? In a recent BritBox offering on the lives of the Kray twins from London, UK, David Bailey (photographer) warns ‘you have to be careful making heroes of people who don’t deserve it’ (Secrets of the Krays, 2021). True crime runs the risk, especially in narratives such as Inside Mafia that encourage audiences to embody the action, of aligning audacity and heroism in mafia violence. However, similarly, a focus on victims and the lamentation of mafia behavior simply presents their criminal strength as epic, unfathomable and thus perhaps unstoppable. Images of

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mafia violence are valuable evidence of life as lived in crime-hit areas such as Palermo, Sicily and they should be preserved, shared and discussed. True crime documentaries that wish to undermine their infamy must confront the popular culture texts, as well as the associated language and narrative contexts that promote mythologies, in order to tackle the conflicts between fact and fiction in the same space. Perhaps an avoidance of narratives that suggest heroes and victims replaced with a focus on the wider socio-political structures that allow such crime to proliferate will allow these images to truly break the silences on the role of mafia violence in recent history.

Notes 1 Significantly, the two sober discourses are transnational productions. Excellent Cadavers was originally produced in Italy but is adapted from the book of the same name by New York journalist Alexander Stille (1995). Shooting the Mafia was produced by Lunar Pictures based in Ireland and was directed by British documentarian Kim Longinotto. Both films had widespread release in the US market – Shooting the Mafia through Sundance and Excellent Cadavers through Abramorama. 2 Larke-Walsh (2022) offers a reading of personal testimony and trauma that avoids Seltzer’s negativity in “The Ethics of Bearing Witness: Subject Empowerment versus True Crime Intrigue in Kim Longinotto’s Shooting the Mafia (2019” in Ethical Space: Journal of International Communications v.19 (3/4): 21–27. 3 See The Godfather (1972, dir. Francis Ford Coppola) Paramount Pictures.

References Atsma, Aaron. The Theoi Project: Exploring Mythology in Classical Literature and Art. Accessed on Aug 25th, 2015. https://www.theoi.com Barthes, Roland. 1953 [1973]. Mythologies. London: Paladin. Bruzzi, Stella. 2006. New Documentary. Oxon: Routledge. Cavallero, Jonathan. 2007. “Excellent Cadavers: Review”. Film and History. 37, n.2: 86–87. Giroux, Henry. 2012. “Disturbing Pleasures”. Third Text. 26, n.2: 259–273. 10.1080/ 09520822.2012.679036 Longinotto, Kim (2019). director. Shooting the Mafia. Lunar Pictures. 100 min Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University Press. Nichols, Bill. 1991. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nichols, Bill. 2008. “The Question of Evidence, the Power of Rhetoric and Documentary Film”. In Rethinking Documentary, New Perspectives, New Practices, 29–38. Eds. Thomas Austin and Wilma de Jong. Maidenhead, Berks: Open University Press. Salvio, Paula M. 2017. The Story-Takers: Public Pedagogy, Transitional Justice and Italy’s Non-Violent Protest against the Mafia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Breaking Silences, or Perpetuating Myths 113 Seltzer, Mark. 1998. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York: Routledge Seltzer, Mark. 2007. True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity. New York: Routledge Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador Spazzini, Maddelena. 2011. “Marco Turco’s Excellent Cadavers: An Italian Tragedy”. In Mafia Movies: A Reader, 371–376. Ed. Diane Renga. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Stille, Alexander. 1995. Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic. New York: Pantheon Books Smith, Theo (June, 2005). Inside the Mafia, episode ’The Godfathers’aired 13 June, 2005. National Geographic. 60 min Turco, Marco (2005). director. Excellent Cadavers: Fighting the Mafia in Sicily. First Run/IcarusFilms. 92 mins Taylor, John. 1998. Body Horror: Photojournalism, Catastrophe and War. Manchester: Manchester University Press Warshow, Robert. 1948. “Film Chronicle: The Gangster as Tragic Hero”. The Partisan Review. 15, n.2: 240–244 Zecchin, Franco. 2015. Aesthetics as Critique: A Photographic Inquiry into the Mafia. New York: Routledge

7

‘Exquisitely Criminal Production Music’: Television, Ethics and the Sound of True Crime Toby Huelin Doctoral Candidate in the School of Music at the University of Leeds, UK

‘If you’re looking for “Crimey” music or sound effects, you’ve just found the undisputed best on earth!’ proudly proclaims the website for CrimeSonics, a US-based production-music library (2022c).1 CrimeSonics specializes in music for crime-based media productions, with a particular focus on true crime. Media producers can use this pre-existing catalog of over 5000 tracks to source suitably ‘Crimey’ music for their shows—as a way of saving both time and money in postproduction—rather than employing a composer to write an original score that engages more directly with the specific demands of a real-life narrative. CrimeSonics’ extensive and varied selection responds to prevalent programming trends in true crime media, with recent albums of music including ‘Criminal Minimalist’ and ‘Killers Volume One’, in addition to collections of sound design and effects, such as ‘Walkie-Talkie SFX’ and ‘Slams and Sirens’. The tracks are embedded with metadata tags relating to parameters such as the music’s mood, tempo or preferred usage, enabling users to quickly search for appropriate sonic content. As this production music is most often used as discrete underscore (designed to pass by unnoticed) and is rarely credited on screen, it wields a particular power in shaping audience opinion, functioning as the ‘ultimate hidden persuader’ (Cook 2000, 122 in Deaville 2006). True crime media producers are therefore faced with an ethical responsibility—rarely acknowledged—in their use and choice of music, especially when dealing with the dramatization of traumatic real-life events. This chapter begins by unpacking two primary themes in the scoring of true crime media: the role of music in eliciting an audience’s emotional response and the function of music in the construction of narrative authenticity. It then uses these themes to examine three main components relating to the use of production music in true crime television. First, it explores the process of composing production music, drawing on original interview testimony from one of CrimeSonics’ composers, Brooke Mitchell. It explores how Mitchell negotiates between her own creative judgments and the pragmatic requirements of television editors in preparing her tracks for true-crime-themed media. Second, it analyzes how DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-8

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CrimeSonics markets its music to true crime media producers in its online catalog: for example, through the utilization of specific album titles and metadata tags, in addition to other kinds of extramusical branding practices. The third component of this chapter then uses a recent television case study (Home Sweet Homicide [Investigation Discovery 2019]) to unpack the placements of one particular CrimeSonics track (entitled ‘Chainsaw Murder’), focusing on how music has been used in the service of heightening emotion and constructing a narrative. Taken as a whole, this chapter calls attention to the ethical implications of the composition, branding and synchronization of these production-music tracks, and, more broadly, uses the CrimeSonics case study as a lens through which to explore the fundamental—yet less examined—role of music in shaping an understanding of true crime media.

The Sound of True Crime Before focusing on the CrimeSonics library specifically, it is first necessary to introduce some pertinent industrial and theoretical perspectives relating to the ethical dimension of scoring real-life crime. The ethical responsibility bestowed upon true crime media producers—and the resulting impact of the choice of music on an audience—is exemplified by two recent quotations that represent the extremes of opinion regarding the role of music in true crime series. The first, from composer Ariel Marx, details her experiences of writing an original score for the Amazon Prime Video docuseries, Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer (2020): Writing music for true crime is very difficult because you are inevitably dramatizing real-life trauma. It was important to me that the music was always rooted in a point of view and a purpose—and did not exist just to terrify or cause tension. The moment I felt the music was disconnecting or lacked empathy, I stopped and re-wrote. (Marx 2021) This premium series received praise for director Trish Wood’s decision to decenter the murderer, Bundy, turning the focus instead to the women whose lives he impacted (Edwards 2020); a topic discussed further in Stella Gaynor’s chapter in this volume. Commentators have highlighted Marx’s ‘unique yet […] visceral’ score, and its role in ‘supporting the emotion of [the] story’ (James 2020), whilst also acknowledging the confidence of the documentary to exclude music entirely for certain scenes, ‘which feels respectful and […] help[s] to add a lot more weight to these segments’ (Wheeler 2020). By contrast, the second quotation details an Amazon.com customer review of the aforementioned tabloid-style docuseries, Home Sweet Homicide, produced for Investigation Discovery:2

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Toby Huelin This could be an above average true crime series. […] But the soundtrack makes it unbearable to watch. It is loud, inappropriate, and irritating. I feel sorry for the victims and families whose relaying of tragic incidents is underscored by this awful and badly composed noise. And this nasty soundtrack is so loud! Really no excuse for this cheapness. (Blac 2019)

In appraising the soundtrack, this reviewer negatively highlights the music’s volume (‘so loud’), its aesthetic qualities (‘badly composed noise’), and its lack of responsibility to the real-life narrative (‘I feel sorry for the victims’), in sharp contrast to Marx’s empathetic aims in her work on Ted Bundy. And, whilst Ted Bundy features an original score from Marx, Homicide relies on a compilation of production-music tracks, sourced from a range of catalogs (including CrimeSonics). As these production-music tracks were written in advance of a specific series—and therefore can be synchronized in any number of diverse audiovisual contexts—they cannot respond directly to the narrative in the manner of an originally composed score. The result is that the widespread use of these production-music tracks, coupled with their generic musical content (relying on crime- and horror-inflected musical tropes, such as synthesizer drones, repetitive piano melodies and pounding percussion), means that they inevitably ‘cause tension’ without being ‘rooted in a point of view and a purpose’ (Marx 2021). Arguably, the use of production music therefore gives rise to the Amazon reviewer’s accusations of the ‘inappropriate’ and ‘nasty’ music, which feels disconnected from the specifics of the true crime narrative and, ultimately, impacts upon their enjoyment of the series. The extended focus on the use of music in this review of Homicide, coupled with the commercial success of CrimeSonics, a company solely dedicated to crime soundtracks, is especially notable given the relative lack of attention paid to music and sound in true crime scholarship more broadly. Studies of true crime that do discuss music tend to focus on its emotional power to influence an audience’s response to a narrative. For example, Rachel McCabe, in her work on Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (Netflix 2019), briefly notes, ‘the music dramatizes the emotions the viewers are meant to feel’ (2022, 49), and that the documentary presents the ‘horrific details of [Bundy’s] crimes, all set to the kind of music we would expect in an action film’ (2022, 42). Similarly, Phoebe Morton highlights the ‘irresponsible use of music to inject false emotion’ in Psychopath: with Piers Morgan (2019)—which ‘overcompensate[s]’ for the emotional shortcomings of the series (2021, 243)—in contrast to what she characterizes as the less manipulative musical approach in seminal true crime documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988). In this sense, music can be seen to contribute to the overall ‘packaging’ of sensationalism in true crime media (see Grabe et al. 2001, 638–639; Matthews 2021, 77), used to create ‘sudden and mostly unexpected changes in the (audiovisual) environment to which viewers should attend’ (Vettehen et al. 2008, 320) for the purpose of fostering

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‘increased attention or emotional arousal’ (Matthews 2021, 77). As such, ‘real-life events and people become objectified and reduced to an emotional tool of sensationalism’ through the use of music, among other elements (Matthews 2021, 81). This musical sensationalism is especially pertinent in the case of production music, where composers are responding to a generic notion of what appropriate music for ‘true crime’ media should sound like, based on their prior, instinctive understanding of the genre, rather than any specific narrative elements. Composers are required to heighten the emotional impact of their music (for example, through employing sonic versions of these ‘sudden and mostly unexpected changes’ [Vettehen et al. 2008, 320], such as forceful percussion hits to provide textural contrasts) so that producers will select their track over another composer’s for inclusion in a series, without prior knowledge of the precise contexts in which their music may be synchronized. Beyond its role in the heightening of emotion, music (and sound) also fulfils an important function in constructing a sense of ‘authenticity’ in true crime media, binding disparate evidence together into a cohesive narrative for viewers and, as a result, ‘creating attitudes [and] perspectives among its audience’ (Deaville 2006). The use of music can subtly shape perceptions of a real-life case, for example, by presenting certain characters with music coded as ‘positive’ (e.g. emotional piano melodies) or ‘negative’ (e.g. unstable synth drones). As Philip Tagg notes, ‘music is supposed to influence our feelings, our state of mind, our actions, without our having to think about or analyze what is happening to us’ (2006, 168, italics in original). In her work on the podcast Serial (2014–present), for example, Jillian DeMair highlights the role of the sound design in creating the ‘carefully crafted storyworld’ (2017, 24) of the series, noting the ‘use of pauses, music, and sound effects, all of which contribute to the overall mental image built by the interpreter’ (2017, 26). As a result, DeMair argues that Serial uses sound to emphasize its ‘reality’ (and authenticity), but also that it relies on techniques from fictional crime narratives to do so, thus problematizing this notion of authenticity and highlighting the constructed nature of any such media presentation.3 Where production music is concerned, the use of the same tracks both across and beyond true crime media (in different series and genres, respectively) serves to complicate the narrative of any individual production, blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction as meaning coalesces across the differing uses of these tracks, and thus impacting upon an audience’s experience of this content.4

Composing the Sound of True Crime Original insights from composer Brooke Mitchell help to understand the process of creating commercially successful production music for true crime. Mitchell was initially invited to work on the CrimeSonics project ‘Killers Volume One’, an album marketed as ‘loud, aggressive, abrasive,

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angry and murderous […], horror trailer music at its finest!’ (Warner Chappell Production Music 2019a). For this project, Mitchell states that she was encouraged to focus on musical features such as ‘modern sound design’, making the tracks ‘creepy and scary’ to reflect the proposed title (i.e. ‘Killers’) rather than conceptualizing a specific notion of ‘true crime’. For Mitchell, ‘horror and crime are inherently linked’, so ‘even if [she] didn’t think about the crime aspect for this particular album, it would still work for crime-related stories’ (Interview with the author, September 9, 2021). This necessary generic quality of the tracks proved a creative challenge for Mitchell: as she notes, ‘you have to find something to motivate you to give each track its own personality and its own little world […] because otherwise it just gets extremely boring, especially if you have ten tracks that all sound sort of similar and nothing really sets them apart’. Her solution to this problem was to ‘pick a theme’ for each track. In one notable example, her track entitled ‘Slaughter House’ uses the sounds of real farmyard animals—heavily processed using digital audio software—in order to match the ‘loud, aggressive, angry and murderous’ album concept created by the library. In a sense, creative decisions such as this are designed to ‘provoke increased attention or emotional arousal’ on the part of the audience (Matthews 2021, 77), heightening the sensationalism of a media production’s content. The use of these farmyard animals, as one particular example, is certainly designed to be more horrifying (and more memorable for an audience) than simply using traditional instruments (whether live or virtual), and is constructed in order to induce this emotional response regardless of the specific narrative that is being presented. Ron Rodman notes that television music can function by ‘utilizing musical expressive genres that are accessible to the largest segment of the viewing public’ (2019, 442). In this sense, composers (and libraries) are required to provide music that relies on readily understood, generic musical signifiers, rather than trying to realize a specific musical notion of ‘true crime’ per se. As a result, arguably real-life true crime narratives are sublimated into a generic sense of ‘horror’ or ‘tension’, designed to secure maximum future uses of the tracks in a broad range of genres.5 Consequently, the musical style of Mitchell’s tracks—and of the CrimeSonics catalog more widely—conforms to a broad sense of ‘tension’, ‘horror’ or ‘crime’, rather than a specific sense of what ‘true crime’ might sound like.6 As will be explored, specific metadata keywords relating to true crime can then be mapped onto these tracks to ensure the music is synchronized successfully in true-crime-themed audiovisual media. Once Mitchell had composed her ‘Killers’ tracks and received feedback from Dan Brown Jr., CrimeSonics’ creative director, she had to prepare additional track mixes for the final album. These included a version without percussion and mixes of different durations (e.g. sixty seconds, thirty seconds), which are most suitable for media contexts of a predetermined

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duration, such as advertising. As Mitchell notes, ‘the more options the editor has easily at their fingertips, the more likely they are to use the material, and the easier it’ll be for them’ (2021). She was also guided to include clear ‘edit points’, such as prominent drum hits or brass stabs at semi-regular intervals. These engineered edit points—which call to mind Vettehen et al.’s description of the ‘sudden and mostly unexpected changes in the (audiovisual) environment’ (2008, 320)—add to the sensationalism of the music, heightening the emotional impact on an audience through abrupt sonic shocks, irrespective of the (unknown) narrative context(s) in which the music may eventually be heard. At this pre-release stage, Mitchell would also provide a working title for each track. These titles were frequently altered by the library in order to more directly appeal to the true crime market, promoting the sensationalist aspects of the genre through this extramusical track information. For example, Mitchell notes how she had originally titled one of her tracks ‘Prey Drive’, embodying the instinct of a predator to capture and kill. Whilst a link to true crime is already (somewhat) apparent in this title, the library strengthened this link—and, indeed, the sensationalist marketing of the track—by retitling the track ‘Ted Bundy’. This association between Mitchell’s track and the serial killer captures the zeitgeist of Bundy’s name—due to the proliferation of recent media texts associated with him—in order to catch the eye and ear of television editors and thus to secure usages of the track, even if these specific associations between a track and its title were not initially anticipated, or welcomed, by the composer. As Mitchell comments: Usually, I don’t mind at all if an editor or publisher wants to rename a track. But I particularly don’t like ‘Ted Bundy’ […], he just really was an awful guy. But of course, most serial killers are! So, you know, […] it’s fine. I was just like, ‘oh, Ted Bundy, I hate him’. (2021) This process of composition—and the consequent naming of tracks by the library—demonstrates the negotiation between the generic and tracks highlights their suitability for specific aspects of a composer’s work (cf. Tagg 2013, 224). Composers must employ easily understood, generic musical signifiers for categories such as ‘crime’ or ‘horror’, in order to suit a wide range of media synchronizations, facilitated by the creation of multiple track versions to give editors added flexibility. Conversely, the retitling of the tracks to match specific true crime figures—in order to provide a point of differentiation between tracks in the same generic musical style—demonstrates a specificity in the anticipated musical applications, if not in the musical content itself. As will be explored, it is arguably these extramusical attachments—such as the track titling, keywords and other elements of branding—rather than any inherent musical characteristics, that create the specific link between the musical content and the genre of ‘true crime’, and thus ensure the commercial success of the music.

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Selling the Sound of True Crime CrimeSonics pays close attention to its metadata tagging practices so that the marketing of its tracks highlights their suitability for true crime programming (and, indeed, specific subgenres of true crime, such as ‘cybercrime’ or ‘missing persons’), even as the generic nature of the music suggests the tracks’ suitability for a much broader range of programming contexts. As Brown Jr. notes: My wife and I write detailed descriptions for each individual track as well as the [albums] and we put together really robust keywords. So, for example, if we’re talking about a forensic science track, you’re going to see words like ‘criminal’ and ‘law’ and ‘justice’, but also words like ‘luminol’ and ‘DNA’ and ‘forensic science’. […] I find writing the descriptions and coming up with the keywords almost as fun as writing the music. (In Griffiths 2019) These specific metadata tags and keywords—which enable clients to find appropriate music for their productions—function in addition to salient true crime statistics and ‘fun facts’, which the company attaches to the tracks as an additional marketing strategy. According to Brown Jr.: For our [album] descriptions I actually spend a considerable amount of time doing research on crime and stats so that music supervisors and editors searching our library get interesting facts. It adds value—if you’re listening to our ‘Percussive Pursuits’ volume, for example, we can tell you the stats of how many criminals actually get away from the cops, or how many innocent bystanders are killed in high speed pursuits. (In Griffiths 2019) Some of the album catalogs also appeal to the user directly in order to draw them into an invented true crime narrative. For example, the description for the album ‘Killers Volume Two’ states: Jodi Arias … A Killer … Ted Bundy … A Killer … Jeffery Dahmer … Yep! He’s a Killer too … You know what else is killer? The 10 nasty and wonderfully gruesome tracks of Killers Volume 2. ANGRY, LOUD & MURDEROUS!!! These tracks are modern horror trailer and tension promo perfection. Honestly, most editors would kill for tracks this evil so, just give in to the voices in your head and do what they command. You know, go ahead and license these! (Warner Chappell Production Music 2019b)

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This description moves from objective, true-crime-related facts (i.e. the names of serial killers), to the appropriately ‘gruesome’ musical nature of the tracks for true crime content, to the (tongue-in-cheek) equating of the user with a serial killer (‘give in to the voices in your head’), in order to license the music. The result is that—rather than being a musical genre per se—‘true crime’ functions as a way of marketing the content to media producers. Whilst the sound of the music can be understood as generic—suitable for a wide range of media placements—the marketing of this music is much more specific in its targeting of true crime media productions. The prominence of true crime in CrimeSonics’ marketing practices also extends into the content of its other sonic products (beyond music). The company positions itself as a full-service agency for crime-related audio content, including ‘criminal and investigatory music, SFX, foley, police chatter and CrimeScapes’ (2022c).7 These categories of sound design and effects incorporate over 100,000 sampled elements, produced and marketed specifically for crime-themed programming. They are rooted in the ‘real’ sounds of criminal activities and designed to construct reality in a media production through their use: for example, the ‘Custom Cues & SFX’ page of the company’s website announces that ‘our Creative Director, Dan Brown Jr., has trained with nearly all calibers of hand guns, assault rifles, shotguns and a few other fun weapons’ (2022a). These effects were not synthesized by a computer, the company tells us, but were recorded live with dangerous firearms. As such, a link is created between the sonic content relating to true crime (i.e. ‘CrimeScapes’) and a mode of production which invokes true crime narratives (i.e. the use of real weapons), for the purpose of marketing the company’s services. The company’s aim is that these ‘real’ sounds will then be used to construct a soundscape in a media production. CrimeSonics also provides other crime-specific services that extend beyond the remit of a traditional music library, and which are specific to true-crime-based productions. For example, the company offers ‘forensic audio and video enhancement’ services marketed towards real law enforcement officers, thus blurring the boundaries between true crime media and real true crime events in their services. These include ‘cellphone audio enhancement’ and ‘CCTV surveillance video enhancement’, which ‘[offer] law enforcement agencies the full power of our Emmy Award-Winning studio’ (2022b). Whilst the creation of the music itself was primarily designed to heighten the emotion of a production, these extensions to the CrimeSonics brand are designed to construct a sense of authenticity, with the company engaging with real-life true crime narratives and practical requirements to sell its products. These various marketing strands serve to ensure the commercial success of the CrimeSonics brand, but also highlight ethical questions relating to the company’s role in capitalizing on real-life trauma and criminality

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through these sensational marketing tactics. The use of heightened language—demonstrated most pertinently in the ‘Killers’ album description, discussed above—is designed to elicit strong emotions in its consumers through the invocation of sensational narratives, which are rendered all the more shocking due to their foundation in reality. This appeal to the emotions is complemented by the company’s targeting of true-crime-specific audio services, which extends the remit of the brand to ‘authentic’ criminal cases. As will be explored, however, the marketing of these tracks does not necessarily determine where and how this sonic content will be synchronized in audiovisual media.8

Synchronizing the Sound of True Crime A case study of the use (and reuse) of music within a specific series helps to unpack how CrimeSonics’ production music can function in varying narrative contexts. The series Home Sweet Homicide comprises six episodes; each focuses on a domestic murder and details, as the channel’s marketing materials state, ‘the real-life accounts of relentless, cold-blooded murderers who know their target intimately, understand their routines, and have a perfect knowledge of the home in which they will kill’ (Discovery+, n.d). Its generic visual presentation combines interview testimony from family, friends and investigation officials with real archive footage and dramatic reconstructions. As will be explored, production music is used in tandem with this visual presentation to both heighten an audience’s emotional response to the murders and construct a sense of ‘authenticity’. One of the CrimeSonics tracks in the series is ‘Chainsaw Murder’, composed by Thomas Gallegos and taken from the album, ‘Killers Volume One’, discussed previously. ‘Chainsaw Murder’ foregrounds its textural qualities over its melodic elements, with atmospheric synthesizers and ominous sound design providing the main auditory interest. The track is described by CrimeSonics using the following hyperbolic statements: Leatherface is coming for you! Bummer! This track will slowly but steadily track you, hunt you down, find you in your hiding place and kill you with a chainsaw. Probably a rusty one too. ‘Chainsaw Murder’ is slow in tempo but quick to torment. Full of terrifying textures, metallic sound effects, massive hits and all things scary, this modern horror cue was truly unleashed from your darkest nightmares. (Warner Chappell Production Music 2019a) ‘Chainsaw Murder’ is used in two different episodes of Homicide. The first, ‘In the Name of the Father’ (S1E5), details the 2013 murder of high school basketball coach Jimmy McClain. McClain was shot multiple times by his stepson, Dwayne Moore. The second episode, ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ (S1E6), details the fatal stabbing of Cody MacPherson in 2017. In the first episode,

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‘In the Name of the Father’, the track ‘Chainsaw Murder’ provides underscore for part of a sequence in which several contributors—including police officers and the victim’s family—describe the moments after McClain’s death, intercut with both real footage of the crime scene (and victim), and dramatic reconstructions of McClain’s family home. In the second episode, ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, this same track is heard in a similar context, as a police officer describes the events directly following the murder, intercut with a reconstruction of the events that the officer is discussing. The placement of production music in these scenes serves two main functions: first, it draws together specific and disparate real-life tragedies into a generic sense of ‘true crime’, cueing the audience to certain emotional reactions (i.e. shock or fear) through the circulation of the same music. Specifically, the decision to underscore similar scenes across multiple episodes with the same production-music track—a ‘modern horror cue’ with ‘terrifying textures’ (Warner Chappell Production Music 2019a)— mirrors the emotional tension of the narrative through the increasing tension of the musical content, ‘inject[ing] false emotion’ to shape an audience’s response to a scene (Morton 2021, 243), as discussed further at the start of this chapter. As this musical content is not composed for a particular narrative situation, it serves to ‘cause tension’ regardless of its connection to the specific context in which it is used, and is not ‘rooted in a point of view and a purpose’ in the manner of an originally composed score (Marx 2021). Consequently, Matthews’ contention that ‘real-life events and people become objectified and reduced to an emotional tool of sensationalism’ in true crime media (2021, 81) is thus embodied in the use of music in Home Sweet Homicide, with the music designed to foster ‘increased attention or emotional arousal’ on the part of the audience—without responding to the specifics of the narrative—and thus to ensure continued viewing (Matthews 2021, 77). The second function of the music here is to construct a sense of authenticity through the continuation of the same music across distinct scene types within the same episode.9 Across this series, testimony of law enforcement officers describing a murder scene (and subsequent investigation) is frequently overlaid with both real footage (e.g. family photographs, newsreels) of the victims, criminals and crime scenes, and dramatized versions of the same figures and locations—and these sequences often feature a single, steadily building, production-music track. The use of the same music serves to bind these contrasting visual aspects together, as a way of building an episode’s narrative and highlighting the supposed ‘reality’ of the series. In one sense, the use of ‘real evidence’—such as interview testimony and archive footage—creates the perception that ‘the truth has been revealed’ to the audience throughout the documentary (Morton 2021, 240), and to foreground this impression of reality in the series, the archive (i.e. ‘real’) footage is labelled with subtitles such as ‘actual crime scene photograph’ when it appears on screen. However, the ‘reality’ of this evidence is blurred

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through its presentation alongside reconstructions of the same events. The soundtrack—both music and voiceover—thus serves to suture these distinct visual elements together to strengthen the narrative experience, presenting a specific construction of reality and blurring the lines between ‘real’ and ‘constructed’ content. This circulation of production music is heightened by the use of the same track, ‘Chainsaw Murder’, in other contexts beyond Homicide, where the meanings generated by the music extend beyond the true crime genre. This plurality of meanings generated through the reuse of the same production music in different media contexts can be usefully understood with reference to the concept of ‘interference’, as theorised by Sébastian Babeux (2004) and Andréane Morin-Simard (2016). As Morin-Simard writes: Any film [or other media text] the viewer has seen may be interpreted as a reference and prompt a projection of supplementary meaning on the part of the receiver. Since the author didn’t plan for this added meaning when conceiving the message, the projected reference acts as a source of ‘noise’ which disturbs the signal and transforms its nature at the time of interpretation. (2016, 77) The use of the same element—such as a production-music track—in multiple media texts can therefore ‘give the illusion of being connected th[r]ough the viewer’s interpretation’, providing new meanings to the viewer—either positive or negative—that were neither intended nor anticipated by the media producer, but become linked through the reuse of a certain component of the production (Morin-Simard 2016, 77). Where music is concerned, ‘the [use of the same] song may preserve traces of this occurrence in the viewer’s memory and prompt an addition of meaning upon viewing or playing any other text featuring the song’ (Morin-Simard 2016, 77). For example, in her analysis of the popular song ‘(Don’t Fear) the Reaper’ (Blue Öyster Cult, 1976), Morin-Simard notes how the synchronization of this song in a range of media productions can (potentially) serve to ‘work against [the media production’s] intended message’, thereby ‘undermin[ing] the […] feeling the [producers] are trying to convey’ (2016, 85), through its use in both horror- and comedy-inflected contexts.10 In terms of production music, these tracks are available for synchronization in any number of audiovisual sequences and can therefore take on different meanings in each context—retaining certain qualities from the composer’s (and library’s) initial intentions (i.e. in their composition and branding of the tracks, as discussed in the preceding sections of this chapter), and also accumulating new meanings through the deployment of these tracks in tandem with particular visual information. This practice can serve to promote certain emotional reactions for an audience—due to the accumulated associations created between the use of certain music in particular narrative contexts (often linked by genre or theme)—but can also complicate a sense

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of ‘authenticity’ due to the interference created through the use of same music in other, unrelated productions, across both fictional and factual contexts.11 Following Tagg (2013), Morin-Simard distinguishes between two types of ‘codal interference’—‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’—which can be mapped onto the reuse of production music in different contexts, and the resultant implications for audience experience (2016, 80). The first category, ‘voluntary codal interference’, refers to situations where the placement of the same production-music tracks can serve to strengthen an audience’s emotional response to a scene, ‘determining the function of the music’ (2016, 80) through ‘multiple […] occurrences’ of the same song in different contexts (2016, 84). In such cases, an audience’s previous connotations relating to a certain piece of music can contribute to their emotional response to hearing that same music in combination with similar kinds of narrative information in comparable audiovisual sequences, for example, by equating a track’s generic, musical features (e.g. eerie string textures) with stock narrative scene formats (i.e. dramatic crime reconstructions), and accumulating these meanings over time.12 Beyond its uses in Homicide, for example, the aforementioned track ‘Chainsaw Murder’, is used in the final episode of the first season of the Spanishlanguage (fictional) crime drama series Oscuro Deseo ([Dark Desire], Netflix, 2020).13 In this episode, ‘Chainsaw Murder’ is heard as we see the character of Alma glimpse a lifeless body of Darío in a swimming pool (in a dream-like sequence), before she is drugged and held captive by Esteban. The music occupies a prominent position in this context, as the ‘real’ diegetic sounds are overwhelmed by the non-diegetic music (which noticeably increases in volume), thus arguably promoting an audience’s emotional response to the musical content and suggesting a greater degree of recognition. The use of ‘Chainsaw Murder’ is followed by two other CrimeSonics tracks, ‘Decomposing’ and ‘The Damned’ (both by Mitchell). In the context of this series, these tracks, with their emphasis on sound design and abrupt percussion hits, serve to amplify the excitement of a scene, adding to the ‘increased attention or emotional arousal’ for the audience (Matthews 2021, 77) through the accrual of ‘sudden and mostly unexpected changes in the (audiovisual) environment’ (Vettehen et al. 2008, 320). This process means that these scenes ‘simultaneously benefit from and participate in an accumulation effect’ (Morin-Simard 2016, 86), whereby the placement of the same production-music tracks can serve to strengthen an audience’s emotional response to a scene, making implicit links between different audiovisual contexts. Whilst the synchronization of the same production music can be positive—in terms of strengthening an audience’s emotional response to a scene through the implied associations with previous music—this practice can also impact audience experience more negatively through the second of Morin-Simard’s categories—‘involuntary codal interference’. This practice

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refers to contexts where the use of the same music ‘may prevent the transmitter’s message from getting across’ (Morin-Simard 2016, 80), due to the synchronization of the same music in disparate narrative contexts, where an audience’s recognition of the tracks could bring to mind unwelcome associations that detract from their viewing experience. In the example of ‘Chainsaw Murder’, the same production music is heard in both a ‘factual’ crime series (Homicide) and a fictional narrative drama (Oscuro Deseo). Consequently, the music takes on new meanings which conflate the ‘true crime’ scenarios of the Homicide scenes—and the original true-crimecentered marketing of the tracks by CrimeSonics—with the placement of music in this fictional series. This is extended by the use of the track ‘Chainsaw Murder’, in particular, within a dream-like sequence within Oscuro Deseo itself, adding another level of ‘fiction’ to the use of music. The placement of ‘Chainsaw Murder’ across these series creates a ‘blurr [ing]’ of narrative events, thus complicating the distinction between fact and fiction in any single production (Morin-Simard 2016, 80). In a sense, this practice detracts from the attempted ‘authenticity’ provided by the soundtrack to Homicide due to the track’s appearance in both fiction and nonfiction contexts (especially if an audience member is familiar with both productions). Across both series, then, the music serves to heighten the emotion and sensationalism of a scene—whether grounded in reality or fiction—for the enjoyment of an audience, and the emotional power of the music accumulates due to the uses of the track in prior media texts. At the same time, the role of the soundtrack in the construction of authenticity is rendered problematic due to potential ‘interference’ created due to the music’s contrasting reuses.

Conclusions This chapter has examined the implications of the use of production music on the emotional and narrative content of true crime television. Focusing in particular on the composition, marketing and synchronization of these tracks, it has demonstrated the tension between the genericity of the music—to ensure its suitability for a wide variety of media placements—and the specificity of its marketing—in order to appeal directly to true crime media producers. Whilst the sound of certain production-music tracks can be seen to represent ‘crime’ due to the use of specific musical signifiers commonly understood as pertinent to this genre, the tracks come to be associated with ‘true crime’ latterly, by libraries and media producers.14 Within the context of a specific media production, the numerous semiotic possibilities engendered through the combination of visual and musical information can serve to heighten an audience’s response to a series in the service of sensationalism, and can also blur the boundaries between different criminal cases, and indeed, between fact and fiction.

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Taken as a whole, the examples discussed in this chapter bring to the fore two different types of media ethics, in terms of, first, the creation and marketing of music for true crime productions, and second, the implications for an audience of the use of these tracks in this particular media genre. The specific example of CrimeSonics, and its close relationship to the true crime genre, highlights the ethical responsibilities of both media producers (in their selection and placement of music) and music libraries (in their branding of these tracks), and raises the question of how these decisions made at the level of production can alter an audience’s perception of true crime media. By targeting a specific, and successful, programming genre, CrimeSonics has found an effective way to market its products to consumers, centered around receiving as many media synchronizations (and resultantly, synchronization fees) as possible. At the same time, however, by engaging with instances of real-life trauma and criminality, the practices of CrimeSonics—and indeed, the industry of true crime media more generally—raise pertinent ethical issues due to the relationship between the commercial imperatives for cheap, rapid production (and the sensationalist practices that this provides in terms of the composition, marketing and production of truecrime-themed music) and the effect of the producers’ selection of music on the finished text. This circulation of the same production-music tracks within true crime media can be viewed as analogous to the wider intertextual links created between (non-musical) concepts, narratives and figures in this genre. In terms of the content mentioned in this chapter, for example, we might include, first, the myriad media treatments of Ted Bundy across film, podcasts and streaming platforms; second, the appearance of lower-profile cases—such as the murder of Jimmy McClain—in (at least) two other separate media texts beyond Home Sweet Homicide—Nightmare Next Door (2011–16, also Investigation Discovery) and An Unexpected Killer (Oxygen, 2019–present); and, third, the recruitment of the same actors by Investigation Discovery to play both victims and villains in their productions (Catlin 2013). These passing examples all serve to demonstrate the permeable borders between different cases and their various representations across media, raising the question of an audience’s recognition of the constructed nature of their true crime viewing habits. In contrast to these clearly recognizable visual examples, however, the specific potency of music (and sound) for shaping an audience’s emotional response lies in its ‘hidden’ status (Cook 2000, 122 in Deaville 2006), with its power seldom understood by audiences. Consequently, as the rapid growth of true crime media sees set to continue, the need for a focus on the ethical dimension of these auditory components will only expand in the future, as new opportunities for the production and distribution of true crime content emerge across a variety of media forms.

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Notes 1 Production music (also known as ‘library’ or ‘stock’ music) has a long history, which can be traced back to the physical collections of sheet-music anthologies that were used to provide live musical accompaniment for silent films. Today, production music is used in contexts ranging from blockbuster film trailers and advertising, to social-media videos and background music in commercial spaces (see, for example, Durand 2020). 2 In 2018, for example, Investigation Discovery was the 6th most-watched basic cable channel in the US in terms of total day viewers, surpassing, among others, CNN ( Katz 2019). Its market share is particularly prominent among female viewers, the dominant audience for true crime across media forms (see, for example, Boling and Hull 2018; Discovery 2019). 3 Notably, this approach differs from that taken in some more recent true crime podcasts: for example, Lindsey Sherrill’s chapter in this volume discusses the use of audio in In the Dark as way of ‘modeling transparency’, using a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach to present the inner workings of the investigative process. 4 For further information on the relationship between music, non-fiction narrative and documentary authenticity beyond the true crime genre, see Rogers 2015. 5 In addition to many synchronizations in true crime media productions, tracks from the CrimeSonics catalog have been used in a diverse array of other contexts, including, for example, Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Netflix), Married At First Sight (Lifetime), Animal Cops: Houston (Animal Planet) and RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1). 6 Examples from other music libraries help to illustrate the lack of a specific sonic referent for ‘true crime’: the Universal Production Music catalog, for example, includes 3563 results for the keyword ‘crime’, but only five results for the term ‘true crime’. Similarly, a search of the Audio Network website for the keyword ‘crime’ reveals 945 tracks, whereas a search for the keyword ‘true crime’ reveals just a single result; a ‘dark, dynamic indie rock song with piano & electric guitars’ entitled ‘Felt’ ( 2021). These catalogs were accessed in September 2022. 7 The concept of ‘CrimeScapes’ refers to crime-themed ambient sound design for media productions. 8 One reason for this is that media producers would not necessarily use the CrimeSonics site directly to find tracks, and, as a result, would not always be aware of the company’s specific (true) crime-themed marketing. 9 The use of production music also serves a third, related, function—beyond the scope of this chapter—by adding weight and impact to the interview testimony, heightening the dramatic qualities of the narrative given the relatively static visual content in such moments. In a sense, these three functions are analogous to three of Claudia Gorbman’s ‘Principles of Composition, Mixing and Editing’ in classical Hollywood film music: ‘signifier of emotion’ (‘set[ting] specific moods and emphasiz[ing] particular emotions’), ‘narrative cueing’ (‘indicating point of view […] and establishing setting’), and ‘unity’ (‘aid[ing] in the construction of formal and narrative unity’). See Gorbman 1987, 73. 10 For a broader discussion of this phenomenon of ‘post-existing music’, see Godsall 2019, pp. 131–61. 11 Whilst this concept of ‘interference’ could be used to examine the multiple placements of the same tracks in the same series (as in the example of Homicide), it most usefully accounts for the synchronization of the same tracks in unrelated contexts, as undertaken in this section of the chapter. 12 Morin-Simard approaches her analysis from the ‘perspective of an ideal listener’—who recognizes the same track in different contexts—and this approach is followed in this chapter ( 2016, 87). Without further empirical

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work, it is difficult to determine the precise degree to which a particular viewer would recognize the use of the same track in different media texts—especially given the brevity of some of the production-music excerpts, and their reliance on atmospheric sound design over prominent melodies. Nevertheless, at a broad level, these types of ‘interference’ provide a useful framework for understanding the relationship between production music and audience experience. 13 In its year of release (2020), this series was the most watched non-English Netflix title. 14 It is also worth noting that it is quite rare to find a library targeting a specific media genre. Although others do exist, such as Cute Music (children’s TV) and Music for Sport, most libraries target a much broader range of programming types in order to secure the maximum synchronizations of their music.

References Audio Network. 2021. “Track Details: Felt.” Accessed July 4, 2021. https://www. audionetwork.com/browse/m/track/felt_1037336. Babeux, Sébastien. 2004. ‘From Citation to Interference: Crossovers in Contemporary Film’, Unpublished, Master’s thesis, University of Montréal. Blac, V. 2019. “Review of Home Sweet Homicide.” Amazon. Accessed July 5, 2021. https://www.amazon.com/Home-Sweet-Homicide-Season-1/dp/B07Z3YWKB6. Boling, Kelli S. and Kevin Hull. 2018. “Undisclosed Information – Serial is My Favorite Murder: Examining Motivations in the True Crime Podcast Audience.” Journal of Radio & Audio Media 25, no. 1: 92–108. Brown Jr., Dan. 2019. “Exquisitely Criminal Production Music: A Q&A with CrimeSonics Founder Dan Brown Jr.” Interview by Emma Griffiths. Synchtank, September 30, 2019. https://www.synchtank.com/blog/exquisitely-criminalproduction-music-a-qa-with-CrimeSonics-founder-dan-brown-jr. Catlin, Roger. 2013. “True-crime TV rampant in Washington.” The Washington Post, August 16, 2013. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/ true-crime-tv-rampant-in-washington/2013/08/15/c3b72e92-dd0c-11e2-9218bc2ac7cd44e2_story.html. Cook, Nicholas. 2000. Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrimeSonics. 2022a. “Custom Cues & SFX.” Accessed July 4, 2022. https:// CrimeSonics.com/pages/customcuesandsfx. CrimeSonics. 2022b. “Forensic Audio/Video Enhancement.” Accessed July 4, 2022. https://crimesonics.com/pages/forensicaudioservices. CrimeSonics. 2022c. “Home.” Accessed July 4, 2022. https://CrimeSonics.com. DeMair, Jillian. 2017. “Sounds Authentic: The Acoustic Construction of Serial’s Storyworld.” In The Serial Podcast and Storytelling in the Digital Age, edited by Ellen McCracken, 24–38. London: Routledge. Deaville, James. 2006. “Selling War: Television News Music and the Shaping of American Public Opinion.” ECHO: A Music-Centered Journal 8, no. 1. http:// www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume8-Issue1/roundtable/deaville.html. Discovery. 2019. “Discovery Inc. Share Gains Make Company #1 for Women Viewership Across All of Television for First Time.” Accessed June 25, 2021. https://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-newsroom/discovery-inc-share-gainsmake-company-1-for-women-viewership-across-all-of-television-for-first-time.

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Discovery+. n.d. “Home Sweet Homicide.” Accessed July 6, 2021. https://www. discoveryplus.co.uk/show/home-sweet-homicide. Durand, Júlia. 2020. “‘Romantic Piano’ and ‘Sleazy Saxophone’: Categories and Stereotypes in Library Music Catalogues.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 14, no. 1 (Spring): 23–45. Edwards, Stassa. 2020. “Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer Renders the Women ThreeDimensional.” Jezebel, February 6, 2020. https://jezebel.com/ted-bundy-fallingfor-a-killer-renders-the-women-three-1841453387. Godsall, Jonathan. 2019. Reeled In: Pre-existing Music in Narrative Film. London and New York: Routledge. Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Grabe, Maria E., Shuhua Zhou and Brooke Barnett. 2001. “Explicating Sensationalism in Television News: Content and the Bells and Whistles of Form.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 45, no. 4: 635–655. James, Daron. 2020. “Music to a Director’s Ears: Pro Tips from ‘Ted Bundy’ Composer Ariel Marx.” No Film School, August 19, 2020. https://nofilmschool. com/ted-bundy-composer-ariel-marx-interview. Katz, A. J. 2019. “2018 Year-End Cable Ranker: Fox News, MSNBC, Hallmark Channel Are Among Top Networks to Also Post Audience Growth.” TV Newser, January 3, 2019. https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-2018-year-end-cableranker-fox-news-msnbc-hallmark-channel-are-among-the-top-networks-to-alsopost-audience-growth/389422. Marx, Ariel. 2021. “Scoring for a Crime Documentary.” Lecture, New York University, Online, June 17, 2021. Matthews, Harriet. 2021. “Persuasion, Representation, and Emotional Heightening: The Ethical Implications of Music as a Creative Practice in the Contemporary Social Documentary.” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 15, no. 1: 71–93. McCabe, Rachel. 2022. “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes and affective responses to the true crime documentary.” Studies in Documentary Film 16, no. 1: 38–54. Morin-Simard, Andréane. 2016. “Gamers (Don’t) Fear the Reaper: Musical Intertextuality and Interference in Video Games.” In Contemporary Research on Intertextuality in Video Games, edited by Christophe Duret and Christian-Marie Pons, 71–91. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. Morton, Phoebe. 2021. “Stylistic choices in true-crime documentaries: the duty of responsibility between filmmaker and audience.” Media Practice and Education 22, no. 3: 239–252. Rodman, Ron. 2019. “Television Genre/Musical Genre/Expressive Genre.” American Music 37, no. 4: 435–457. Rogers, Holly, ed. 2015. Music and Sound in Documentary Film. New York; Oxon: Routledge. Tagg, Philip. 2006. “Music, moving images, semiotics and the democratic right to know.” In Music and Manipulation: On the Social Uses and Social Control of Music, edited by Steven Brown and Ulrik Volgsten, 163–186. New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books.

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Tagg, Philip. 2013. Music’s Meanings: A Modern Musicology for Non-Musos. New York: Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press. Vettehen, Paul Hendriks, Koos Nuijten and Allerd Peeters, 2008. “Explaining Effects of Sensationalism on Liking of Television News Stories: The Role of Emotional Arousal.” Communication Research 35, no. 3: 319–338. Warner Chappell Production Music. 2019a. “Killers 1.” Accessed September 14, 2022. https://www.warnerchappellpm.com/album/-/MjA0OTk4MS0yMGI1Zjc. Warner Chappell Production Music. 2019b. “Killers 2.” Accessed September 14, 2022. https://www.warnerchappellpm.com/album/-/MjA4MDM0OS1iYjBiYzk. Wheeler, Greg. 2020. “Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer – Season 1 Review.” The Review Geek, January 31, 2020. https://www.thereviewgeek.com/fallingforakillers1review.

8

Barthes’s “Grand Project” and the Negative Capability of Contemporary True Crime: On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error Michael Buozis Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Muhlenberg College, PA, USA

Towards the end of his life, the French theorist Roland Barthes began to elaborate a vision for how one might produce literature—or any sort of text really—“outside the bounds of power” (Barthes 1982, 462). His near contemporary, Michel Foucault, thought this was impossible, but in a series of lectures only recently published in English, Barthes elaborated what he called a “Grand Project” of reimagining the possibilities of language (Barthes 2011, 8). Language, he argued, could work to center liminality and uncertainty, rather than centering the certainty of power and ideology. This “Grand Project” finds an unlikely contemporary analogy in a number of popular true crime texts, chief among them Errol Morris’s 2012 book A Wilderness of Error. Historically, the true crime genre, dating back at least to the 16th century, has worked to make “sense of the senseless,” using institutional narratives from the courts and police to construct moral tales with little room for ambiguity regarding right and wrong (Murley 2008, 2). Though it became a commercial genre in the 20th century and remains so in its many forms—from books to television to podcasts—in the 21st century, for much of that period the most prominent examples of true crime worked in this same paradigm (Murley 2008). Yet, a number of recent critically-lauded true crime texts have outplayed this paradigm, achieving something like Barthes’ “Grand Project” by interrogating and juxtaposing texts to reinvent and reinvigorate the genre. In A Wilderness of Error, Morris, perhaps best known as the director of the true crime documentary The Thin Blue Line, interrogates and juxtaposes a variety of popular texts related to the case of Jeffrey MacDonald accused and convicted of the 1979 murder of his wife and two children. Yet Morris does not straighten out the “raggedy-ness on the edges of reality” to produce the typical certainty promised by a true crime text (Davis 2012, 11). Instead, DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-9

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 133 Wilderness becomes an intertextual palimpsest emphasizing the ungraspable nature of truth in the case, relinquishing the power of certainty, and reimagining the possibilities of the genre. In this way, that “raggedy-ness” becomes Morris’s subject; the result, if not the goal, of Wilderness is to reimagine the true crime genre as something that can function outside the bounds of the power of institutions and discourses which have defined it in the past. Unlike some of the texts examined in this book, which pursue justice by trying to establish the truth about who committed a crime or what a crime might mean, Morris’s book, much like The Thin Blue Line before it, pursues justice by establishing that the truth is inaccessible.

Outplaying the paradigm Crime and justice seem not to have preoccupied Roland Barthes—certainly not in the way they preoccupied his contemporary Michel Foucault. A distinction Barthes made in a Collège de France lecture in 1978, between the concepts of panorama and panopticon, elucidates how the two theorists diverged—at least as Barthes moved into his late period—regarding how language and discourse can function (Barthes 2005, 163). The panorama gets its power through transparency and revelation; the panopticon, which occupies a whole chapter in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, gets its power through opacity and surveillance (Foucault 1977). These definitions might serve as metaphors for what Barthes and Foucault thought language could do. For Foucault, discourse and power were intractably bound; you could not have one without the other (Foucault 1980). Like the architectural panopticon which garnered its power through concealing its interior, the discourses which made the power of the state possible did so by concealing ideology in common sense. The work of the critic was to unravel the discourse and reveal the structures of power undergirding it. If Barthes were to have stopped writing in the late 1950s, when he published the long essay “Myth Today” and his many critiques of popular culture collected in Mythologies, one could have argued that he agreed with this idea of a depoliticized and naturalized language forever hiding its ideology (Barthes 2013b). Yet even during this earlier period of Barthes’s work, the few times when he directly interrogates any form of power, it is often the disembodied power of language and representation as opposed to the literal power of the state. The myths of politics and political ideologies were what Barthes called the “manifest datum” of mythological signification (Barthes 2013b, 223); these myths made themselves so obvious, their semiological structure was so simple, that the critic’s work was already done for him. This might explain why he could write that language “is quite simply fascist” (Barthes 1982, 461) but have so little to say about real fascism; totalitarianism was so manifestly contrary to humanity, why waste the breath on theorizing it?

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By the time he gave his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France—for a post he had been nominated for by none other than Foucault (McQuillan 2011)—Barthes set out to describe and explore a literature “outside the bounds of power” (Barthes 1982, 462). In a mythology essay on the Eiffel Tower from the mid-1960s, Barthes had already started exploring the panoramic nature of myths, images, and language in a way that pushed the bounds of the earlier methodological implications of “Myth Today.” The myth of the Tower, instead of obscuring its own meaning, reveals to whoever embodies it, or climbs to its observation deck, a panoramic view of Paris, perhaps of all of France, made possible by the very emptiness of the Tower as a sign, the uselessness of the Tower as an object (Barthes 1979/1982). Rather than conceal some ideological power at the heart of its own myth, the Tower reveals and makes manifest other myths. Hearkening back to Barthes’s first book, Writing Degree Zero, we might call this type of “virtually empty sign” a zero degree myth, a type of language wholly “outside the bounds of power.” In the three lecture courses he gave at the Collège in the last five years of his life—translated only recently into English as How to Live Together (2013a), The Neutral (2005), and The Preparation of the Novel (2011)—Barthes developed three concepts that further articulate how language and discourse can operate beyond Foucault’s conception of discourse and power as co-constituted and interlocked. In How to Live Together, Barthes began to describe what he would later call in an interview, an appreciation for the “stereotyped languages of marginality” (Henric 2009, 283) Barthes suggested that a reappraisal of discourses which have become marginalized, at least in the academy, by their association with the bourgeoisie, could reveal ways in which the structures of power that so occupied theorists like Foucault could be evaded. In developing a discourse of the lover, of the monk, of the mother who let her child roam in his own rhythm, Barthes developed a language beyond possession. In The Neutral, he further theorized this unbounded language, writing that it “outplay[s] the paradigm,” by refusing the binary paradigmatic structure of standard semiology (Barthes 2005, 7). Here Barthes pushes back against his earlier idea that the only critical response to a myth is to produce a countermyth (Barthes 2013b). Like Foucault’s discursive “point of resistance” (Foucault 1978, 95), this earlier conception held that power could never be evaded but only reconfigured; the countermyth, like the resistance, became power in its own right. As Barthes described it, the neutral, or what we might call liminality, does not synthesize the two terms, as in Hegelian dialectic (Fox 2005), nor does it produce a third term. Rather, the neutral refers to those “unprecedented states” in which language “exempt[s] meaning” (Barthes 2005, 7). Finally, in The Preparation of the Novel, Barthes developed what he called a “Grand Project” (Barthes 2011, 8), a fantasy of writing in which the interrogation and juxtaposition of texts—in other words the work of the critic and the teacher—would be fused with the work upon language that

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 135 Barthes, all the way back in his first book, argued can only be done by literature: the breaking of boundaries and the extension of the “horizon” of language (Barthes 2012, 34). Where might we find examples of just such a “Grand Project” in contemporary literature? As Barthes’s interest in re-centering a marginalized subject like bourgeois love suggests (Barthes 1978), we need not necessarily look to the avant-garde for such work. After all, the project of his later work—from the inaugural lecture to Camera Lucida (Barthes 1981), the last book he published in his lifetime—was to overcome a perpetual failure to “Speak[] of What One Loves” (Lèger 2011, xx): in Barthes’s case, to speak of his mother. Such a quotidian, domestic quest, reveals an aspect of the postmodern condition—that lack of God, of the father, of the mother, Lacan’s (1981) objet petit a—which destabilizes the meaning of everything for the subject. So, instead of abstract indecipherable postmodern fiction or poetry, we might look to the margins of a commercial form to observe how language and power are being torn asunder in a way Barthes might have admired. Though Barthes concerned himself little with crime and justice, he did write at least one mythology which addressed the subject and which offers some analytical purchase for understanding a commercial, critically-marginalized genre which perpetually “tests the boundaries of the very notions upon which it depends” (Biressi 2001, 38): true crime. One particular postmodern iteration of this genre, furthermore, embraces Keats’s negative capability in resisting the conventions of an otherwise thoroughly high modern form and can be used as an exemplar of Barthes’s “Grand Project.”

A brief genealogy of true crime Genre historians have traced the profusion of popular narratives about real crimes and real criminals at least as far back as 16th century Europe, when religious pamphlets and tracts often used the example of everyday crimes to argue for moral reform (Wiltenburg 2004). In Britain, by the 17th century, the form had been adopted by the state to recount the crimes of those executed in London’s prisons (Newgate Calendar 1932). As soon as there came to be a bourgeois reading public in the next century, they were consuming bound volumes of these moralizing sketches which made vivid the need for law-and-order and capital punishment. Yet not until the early-20th century, as the modern journalistic value of objectivity came to define the newspaper industry’s concept of itself and thus excluded such vivid narratives about real crime and criminals from mainstream journalism, did true crime become a distinct commercial genre with the proliferation of pulp magazines such as True Detective and Master Detective (Murley 2008). The new commercial form, however, borrowed the law-and-order perspective of the earlier narratives and rarely, if ever, questioned the official accounts of crimes provided by police and, later, the courts (Biressi 2001; Murley 2008). By the middle of the 20th century, a genre of book-length studies of

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single crimes and criminals had sprung up around such exemplars as Truman Capote’s (1966) In Cold Blood. Yet, apart from Capote’s work and a few other exceptions, the genre remained critically maligned or ignored, consigned as it was to book racks in grocery stores filled with foilembossed mass market paperbacks. Nothing could be more bourgeois than late-century supermarkets. However, as Jean Murley (2008) and Anita Biressi (2001) have argued, the genre, more than other forms that deal with crime, has long been willing to look intently at the criminal and the “facts of the case” as legitimate subjects of inquiry and interrogation. By the 21st century, popular true crime narratives, like NPR’s Serial, Netflix’s Making a Murderer, and HBO’s The Jinx, had begun to test the limits of the institutional logic that the genre and the American criminal justice system have rested upon (Buozis 2017). Critics and audiences took notice of these audio and televisual manifestations of the genre, specifically praising the liminality which, for many, made the narratives so compelling. None of these stories provided a definitive version of the crimes of which they told; the “facts of the case” had become almost beside the point (e.g. Huddleston 2015; Larson 2014; Schulz 2016). Less critical and popular attention has been paid to similar innovative examples in the genre’s written form. One particular example, Errol Morris’s 2012 book A Wilderness of Error, makes evident the importance of formal innovation in destabilizing the genre’s relationship with binary paradigmatic notions of guilt and innocence, injustice and justice, revealing that language can produce a liminal understanding of a given crime or criminal that evades the discursively constructed power of the justice system. Parallels with Barthes’s projects in his late lectures abound in Wilderness; the text even looks like the published versions of those lectures, full of dossiers, bulleted lists, long block quotes, charts, copious conflicting timelines, the juxtaposition of Gay Talese and daytime television, and a reproduced photo of a hobby horse. In Wilderness, Morris achieves something much like Barthes’s “Grand Project,” working on form, on discourse itself, to resist the power of the paradigmatic representation of reality through language. Morris’s original search for meaning became “an ardent, burning activity” (Barthes 2005, 7) in which meaning and form became one.

Barthes on crime and punishment: “The Dupriez Trial” and the young assassin Before exploring, in more detail, how Morris’s book “outplay[s] the paradigm” to produce a discourse of true crime that resists power, I first turn to one of Barthes’s earlier mythologies—“The Dupriez Trial” (Barthes 2013c)—which can be read as the Barthesian equivalent of a true crime sketch, embedded as it is with the keys to unraveling the logic of the discourse with which the crime it relates has been constructed by the justice

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 137 system. In this brief study of the trial of a patricide/matricide, Barthes describes the self-contradictory discourses of crime and justice, in the process revealing how the slipperiness of any criminal’s marginality leaves him vulnerable to either neglect or annihilation. Already, in the mid-1950s, Barthes had begun his work on marginality, two decades before he began the late lectures. The confessed murderer’s trial, for Barthes, “exposes the crude contradictions in which our Justice is imprisoned.” Crime does not exist without the discourse of the state; “crime is always constructed by Justice … as an element of a linear notionality”; it “must be useful or else it loses its essence, cannot be recognized” (Barthes 2013c, 113). As is often the case, Barthes’s emphasis in these statements—crime “is …constructed” and “must be useful”—is telling. Crime, like any other discourse beyond the zero degree he described so early in his career, works paradigmatically. Herein lies the contradiction. The court, in constructing Dupriez’s crime as useful—the prosecutor found that he killed his parents because they forbid him to marry as he wished—labeled him as a rational actor. To maintain the logic of justice, it must be understood that “even if he [Dupriez] kills them out of anger, this anger does not cease being a rational state, since it directly serves a purpose.” The paradigm, however, must instantly invert its polarity in order for the logic of “penal reason” to function. The rationality which is used to make the crime non-marginal leads to Dupriez’s conviction; this conviction, in turn, makes Dupriez’s crime irrational as he never thought he would be able to get away with the murder of his mother and father, and if he had thought so he would have been thinking irrationally in the first place. Dupriez eliminates the possibility of the very marriage which his parents forbid, which had prompted his murder of them. For Barthes, the contradiction of the discourse of crime and justice is that “we impute to the criminal a mentality sufficiently logical to conceive the abstract utility of his crime, but not its real consequences” (Barthes 2013c, 114). As soon as the marginal (the crime) is made rational, and therefore non-marginal, it loses its usefulness and must revert to its marginality in order to serve the purposes of the court. The justice system ignores this contradiction in the logic of crime and is thus blinded to how crime and punishment resist meaning as you pull back the layers of their discursive construction. Later, Barthes would briefly comment on the symbolic representation of justice and the disturbing effect of temporal liminality inherent in portraying death in the past. In Camera Lucida, Barthes used an image of Lewis Payne, the young would-be assassin of William H. Seward, to explore a second type of punctum which drew him to certain photographs: the temporal flux created by knowing the intervening years between the photograph and the viewing of the photograph bring death for the subject. The studium of the photograph, what makes the viewer know how to read it instantly, is the young man’s handsomeness, his ruffled hair, and the shackles on his wrists. Payne is the charismatic outlaw. Yet the punctum

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rests in the fact of his punishment after the photo was taken; “the punctum is: he is going to die.” Viewing the photograph twists time back upon itself, because the viewer witnesses the anticipation of death, while knowing the anticipated death is already in the past; “This will be and this has been.” The punctum for Barthes is “an anterior future of which death is the stake” (Barthes 1981, 96). Here, Barthes has perfectly summed up the textual punctum of traditional examples of the true crime genre. Since the crimes related by true crime narratives have already been litigated and, most often, solved, readers are not compelled by any sense of mystery; unlike crime fiction, readers of true crime know who did it and, often, how it was done, before even opening the book. Rather than rewinding time to a moment before death was inevitable, true crime suspends the crime, the criminal, and the victims in a temporal limbo; death is anticipated, even though it has already happened. These two brief bits of analysis in “The Dupriez Trial” and Camera Lucida, though fleeting, align with much of Barthes’s work in the late lectures. The contradictory discourses of crime and justice, and the destabilizing potential of representing past deaths, can be understood as discursive opportunities to explore questions of marginality and liminality in the “Grand Project” of contemporary true crime as exemplified by Morris’s Wilderness. Rather than take this project as an example of the search for meaning in a postmodern context, Morris’s textual choices can be understood as necessitated by the central existential meaning voided by the postmodern condition. The postmodern condition has given us a desire for Barthes’s Neutral and the opportunity for the “suspension … of orders, laws, summons, arrogances, terrorisms, puttings on notice, the will-topossess” (Barthes 2005, 12) in other words to separate language from paradigmatic meaning and discursive power.

A wilderness of intertextuality Errol Morris is perhaps best known as the director of the 1988 documentary film The Thin Blue Line, which recounts the murder of a police officer in Texas and the trial and imprisonment of a man Morris believed did not commit the crime (Morris 1988). Critics have cited the film as one of the first documentaries to use cinematic reenactments of potential real events. As the story unravels and Morris reveals more evidence pointing to the guilt of a different man, the details in the reenactments likewise shift. In effect, Morris winds up a discursive construction of the truth through interviews and other evidence in order to unravel the idea that institutional truth is the literal truth. He also developed an innovative technology for filming interview subjects; by affixing a screen to the front of his camera through which he remotely interviews his films’ subjects, he allows those subjects to peer directly into the camera lens, and therefore directly at the audience, as they speak. His feature films, like The Unknown Known (2013), his

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 139 interrogation of Donald Rumsfeld, and short films, like The Umbrella Man (2011), which deconstructs a single frame of the Zapruder film, often dwell in the contingency of language and truth, and the consequences of trusting too fully the power of language and images to shape reality (for more on Morris’s films, see Resha 2015). For A Wilderness of Error, Morris’s only narrative book to date, he recounts the story of Jeffrey MacDonald, a Green Beret and practicing physician who was convicted of the 1970 murder of his wife and two daughters at their home at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. MacDonald claimed during his trial, and has maintained ever since, that four intruders—“hippie killers”—entered his house while on an acid trip, incapacitated him, murdered his family, and wrote “PIG” on the wall in blood (Morris 2012, 19). A friend of MacDonald’s later told investigators that he had talked about the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the Manson Family the year before after reading an account of them in Esquire magazine. His account of the events on the night of his family’s murders bears striking resemblances to popular accounts of the Tate-LaBianca murders, not to mention the 1954 Sam Sheppard case in which Sheppard was accused of murdering his wife but maintained that an intruder had bound and knocked him out before committing the crime. Both of these earlier cases were canonized in popular book-length true crime treatments (Bugliosi 1974; Holmes 1961), as was the MacDonald case, in Joe McGinniss’s (1983) Fatal Vision, nearly three decades before Morris put his mind to the story. In the early 1990s, Morris initially wanted to produce an experimental film treatment of the MacDonald case in which he would juxtapose scenes from a 1984 television mini-series adaptation of McGinniss’s true crime book (Green 1984) with newly filmed reenactments—a la The Thin Blue Line—based on his own research of the case. As Morris writes, “It would be a version of Rashomon, the film by Akira Kurosawa, with competing narrators and different points of view” (Morris 2012, 4). The same actor from the original mini-series would even reprise his role as MacDonald in Morris’s proposal. No studio, however, would fund such an ambiguous relitigation of a case, the public memory of which had been shaped by McGinniss’s assertion that there was no doubt that MacDonald was guilty. As J. Madison Davis has written of commercial narratives about real crimes, “There is a raggedy-ness on the edges of reality that has to be straightened to make an effective story” (Davis 2012, 11). Morris pushes back against this discursive straightening of reality in Wilderness, though his own conception of his project is occasionally muddled. Comparing his writing of MacDonald to Dumas’s writing of Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, Morris argues, “In a fictional narrative all of the pieces can be engineered to fit perfectly together. But reality is different. We have to discover what is out there” (Morris 2012, 12; emphasis added). This conception of reality as something out there to be discovered, conflicts with the ambiguity inherent in the text Morris has

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created and the project he has otherwise elaborated. Instead of presenting merely what he has found out for himself about MacDonald, he puts these newly reported details and conjectures in juxtaposition with McGinniss’s book, a short book by Janet Malcolm in which she uses McGinniss’s book as a case study to interrogate the ethical responsibility of writing about real people (Malcolm 1990), along with many layers of media more contemporary to the murders, like photographs and newspaper clippings, old trial transcripts, and recorded interviews from the early 1970s. Morris allows that a “real Dantes, like all real characters, [would be] bottomless” (Morris 2012, 12). Leaving the raggedy-ness of reality intact, Morris has created an intertextual palimpsest, the literary equivalent of his Rashomon-style film project, a sort of bottomlessness discourse that emphasizes the ambiguity of even the most critical truth, and therefore a less fascistic and more “real” representation of reality.

Errol Morris’s “Grand Project” As Morris’s proposal for a probably unwatchable Rashomon-style experiment in documentary film suggests, along with the lack of critical attention to Wilderness in relation to other recent true crime texts, Morris’s presentation of McDonald’s story, rather than embracing the central genre conventions of true crime, plays in the margins of the form. If traditional “true crime is a way of making sense of the senseless” (Murley 2008, 2) it does so by “generat[ing] its appeal specifically through its attempt to capture the distinctive experience of particular crimes and the uniqueness of their perpetrators” (Biressi 2001, 16). Sense-making and particularity, then, drive the standard narrative conventions of the genre. Morris’s narrative choices push back against the sensible and the particular at every turn. In parsing the logic of the criminal justice system in MacDonald’s initial trial and throughout the many appeals to his conviction, Morris dismantles the discursive structure which makes sense of each decision by the courts, just as Barthes did in “The Dupriez Trial.” The results are similar. For example, in the first trial, MacDonald’s previous knowledge about the Manson murders through the Esquire magazine cover story, “Evil Lurks in California: Lee Marvin is Afraid,” stands as evidence that he could have fabricated a phantasmagoric band of bloodthirsty hippies based on what he had read. When the case went to the Supreme Court in 1979, the logic of this initial argument broke down. Yet neither the court, nor Morris, can make sense of the evidence. Morris writes, In 1970, it was easy to conjure in the mind “a marauding, drug-crazed purposeless group of homicidal maniacs.” It didn’t take much conjuring at all, since it was only months after Charles Manson and his “family” were … splashed across the national news. But in 1979 … Manson had already receded into the crepuscular memory palace of

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 141 history. … MacDonald’s claim that his family had been killed by drugcrazed hippies seemed far-fetched. Unbelievable. Even laughable. (Morris 2012, 269) So, just as Dupriez’s murder of his parents proves both his rationality and irrationality, MacDonald’s claim about the “marauding” hippies is both too obvious and too far-fetched for the courts to take seriously. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court because testimony, potentially from one of these “drug-crazed” hippies, had been left out of a previous trial. Yet, that witness is discounted, in part, because, as the court wrote, “Her apparent longstanding drug habits made her an inherently unreliable witness” (Quoted in Morris 2012, 268). She both must be “drug-crazed,” in order to fit MacDonald’s account of the crime, but not a drug addict, if she is to be believed. The discursive logic of the system, in pursuit of its sense-making capacities, both condemns and ignores this witness as a subject, marginalizing her even further. Morris re-centers her by acknowledging her testimony, yet does not “hold forth,” in the sense Barthes describes. Rather than break down the logic of the justice system in order to argue that this witness should be trusted and that MacDonald should be set free, Morris “statutorily takes no line” as Barthes describes “the Marginal [Paumé]” (Barthes 2013a, 151). Morris uses this textual marginality to avoid merely inverting the discursive power of the story. A more parallel expression of Barthes’s sense of marginality lies in Morris’s selection of a subject for Wilderness. Like Barthes’s evocation of the bourgeois lover in A Lover’s Discourse, Morris focuses on a figure that has been thoroughly commodified and stereotyped by popular culture—the psychopath. Instead of luxuriating in the horror of the killer who looks and acts just like anyone else, Morris’s project becomes an interrogation of how the psychopath becomes marginalized by the same discourses which have centered it as an object of fascination. Narrative representations of real-life and fictional psychopaths like Ted Bundy (Rule 1980) and Hannibal Lector (Demme 1991) have made one of the most marginal figures imaginable, the psychopathic serial killer, a preoccupation of the most bourgeois, gauche audiences. Yet the idea of the psychopath rests on unstable discursive ground. Morris titles a short chapter in Wilderness, which serves as a brief genealogy of the pop culture conception of the psychopath, “A Subtly Constructed Reflex Machine,” a phrase he draws from a longer quotation of Hervey Cleckley, who helped define the 20th century idea of the psychopath in his book The Mask of Sanity: We are dealing here not with a complete man at all but with something that suggests a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly. This smoothly operating psychic apparatus

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Yet, we might turn Cleckley’s phrase back against his discursive construction of psychopathy. The diagnosis of psychopathy has become incredibly reflexive thanks to his work, particularly in the rare cases when such an incomplete man fails to “mimic the human personality perfectly.” The psychopath is marginal because he, to quote Barthes, “is abnormal,” because he fails to meet the norms of “what is communal, the community” (Barthes 2013a, 92). But the psychopath’s very marginality is his ability to flawlessly replicate those norms. He baffles the discursive logic of stereotypical marginality, or, as Mark Seltzer puts it, “The stranger in the lonely crowd is one who is near but also far; he is abnormally normal, the violence-normality paradox in person” (Seltzer 2007, 46). The psychopath is the master of Barthes’s idiorhythmy; he feels what he feels—which might be nothing at all—yet lives together with the norms. Until he doesn’t. Unlike the members of the hippie communes, which Barthes rejects as un-idiorhythmic because they separate only to conform (Henric 2009, 288–289), the psychopath pretends to conform to belong without committing his inner rhythms to the project. If he doesn’t kill, or otherwise do harm, the psychopath evades power through this “mask of sanity.” The structure of juxtaposition in Morris’s Wilderness, which recalls the format of Barthes’s published late lectures, embodies the “sidestepping [of] assertion” elaborated in The Neutral (Barthes 2005, 44). In this sense, Morris not only provides copious conflicting evidence for the many possible realities of MacDonald’s crime, he also produces a “(philosophical) critique of “it is” … the assertive mode of language” (Barthes 2005, 45). Rather than committing to “it is” or “it is not,” the formal ambiguity which drives Morris’s project dodges these paradigmatic distinctions. In a chapter in which Morris quotes liberally from an interview with a private investigator who worked on the case at the same time McGinniss was writing his bestselling book, Morris devotes a page to three illustrations: a floorplan of the MacDonald residence where the murders took place, and two thumbnails showing the same section of the living room (Morris 2012, 303). One thumbnail is labeled “The Arguments”; the other is labeled “The Evidence.” The thumbnails show two different versions of reality, one showing a body and blood stains, another showing the absence of the same. A reader, glancing at these illustrations, might privilege “The Evidence,” if Morris had not, just a few short chapters earlier, contended with “the use and abuse of physical evidence” (Morris 2012, 261). So, on this page, and throughout the book, reality is not resolved. Morris sidesteps assertion. He later quotes the same private investigator who remembered MacDonald saying, “These are not killing hands. These are the hands of a healer” (Morris 2012, 305). Morris presents the killing and the

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 143 healing hands, at the same time. In these moments of juxtaposition, the marginal and the neutral align; the paradigmatic discourses of justice and positivist reality break down in the new discourse of liminality. Just as Barthes argued against a militant oppositionality in his work, Morris does not present a simple story of innocence and exoneration; rather he “inject [s] new styles of discourse to make things change” (Brooks 2009, 362). This alignment of the marginal and the neutral in Wilderness, rather than representing postmodern nihilism in its rejection of certainty, embodies what Barthes called “the undecidable point where the Technical and the Ethical meet” (Barthes 2011, 21). No longer is form—or Technique—treated as merely a vessel for the subject—or Ethics. In Morris’s treatment, form becomes subject, and technique and ethics meet. Rather than straighten out the “raggedy-ness on the edges of reality” (Davis 2012, 11). Morris makes that raggedy-ness his subject and produces a discursive form that captures the ragged form of reality. Morris’s idiorhythmy, then, is to resist the normative narrative techniques that would impose an artificial rhythm on a story which does not conform. Yet, like Barthes’s “The Dupriez Trial,” Wilderness does not merely dismantle the normative discourses around this one case but challenges the discourses of a paradigmatic reality that hold up justice and positivist conceptions of knowledge. Morris quotes John Milton’s defense of Oliver Cromwell’s execution of Charles I, perhaps ironically: “For truth is but justice in our knowledge, and justice is but truth in our practice” (quoted in Morris 2012, 251). If the truth is what the judges say it is, then the truth is a self-contradictory monster.

Conclusion: The negative capability of true crime The “Grand Project” Barthes described in his final lecture course, can be understood, despite its fractured presentation, as a practical response to the postmodern problem of the inaccessibility of truth. Barthes had long thought of this problem as a problem of literature. Earlier, in the inaugural lecture, Barthes reframed the death of literature in postmodernity, writing: It is not, if you will, that literature is destroyed; rather it is no longer protected: so this is the moment to go there. Literary semiology is, as it were, that journey that lands us in a country free by default; angels and dragons are no longer there to defend it. (Barthes 1982, 475–476) The old forms where sense had been made in the past—the novel, the poem, the true crime story—were no longer protected by the “angels and dragons,” the sacred notions of normative reality and representation. Barthes committed himself in his waning days to a “Grand Project” in which the novel and the work of the critic could be invigorated by a fusion of the two forms: not so much a metanovel as a critical novel.

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In the 21st century, forms other than true crime have certainly taken up the call to destabilize the epistemological assumptions of their audiences. Take, for instance, the small (if worrisomely growing) communities of right-wing conspiracy theorists who isolate themselves from civilization in their basements and on message boards, like bands of paranoid postmodern monks. Like the hippie communes Barthes rejected in his study of idiorhthymy, these groups separate themselves not to evade discourses of power, but to establish their own. As Richard Popp has argued, these groups of conspiracy theorists and enthusiasts form what Victor Turner called a “communitas” in which “an alternative type of reality [is] experienced in liminality” (Turner 1969; quote in Popp 2006, 255). So, Alex Jones of InfoWars, to offer just one example, thrived not just because he destabilized tired notions of what is real, but because he used the liminality offered by the small group—the enthusiasts who form a subculture around him—in order to assert “an alternative type of reality.” In Jones’s world, it’s not so much that the moon landing or the attacks of 9/11 or the Newtown school shooting might not be exactly what they seem; it’s that they have, in fact, been faked. The reality we have known before is not the true reality, and Jones offers what is just as much as what is not. For all the irrationality inherent in denying the obvious, Jones and his ilk, red in the face with anger and irritation, demand that “fact and reason” be reestablished. What might set contemporary true crime apart from such postmodern genres, then, is its negative capability, what Keats described as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Keats 1899, 277). The “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts” are a given in the postmodern condition, and give conspiracy theorists endless raw material to work with. Morris, unlike those conspiracy theorists, refuses to reach after certainty. The negative capability suggested in Barthes’s “Grand Project,” as befits the friendly critic’s style, is an easy embrace of postmodernism. If Barthes were to have taken up a story like MacDonald’s, he might have argued that the problem is not so much a problem of power as a problem of language. And so, rather than a militant point of resistance to the criminal justice system, Morris has produced a “new kind of discourse” (Brooks 2009, 362) with which to address the problem of misused power.

References Barthes, Roland. 1978. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 1979/1982. “The Eiffel Tower.” In A Barthes Reader, edited by Susan Sontag, 236–250. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 1981. Camera Lucida. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang.

On Errol Morris’s A Wilderness of Error 145 Barthes, Roland. 1982. “Inaugural Lecture, Collège de France.” In A Barthes Reader, edited by Susan Sontag, 457–478. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 2005. The Neutral: Lecture Course at the Collège de France (1977-1978). Translated by Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier. New York: Columbia University Press. Barthes, Roland. 2011. The Preparation of the Novel: Lecture Courses and Seminars at the Collège de France (1978-1979 and 1979-1980). Translated by Kate Briggs. New York: Columbia University Press. Barthes, Roland. 2012. Writing Degree Zero. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 2013a. How to Live Together: Novelistic Simulations of Some Everyday Spaces: Notes for a lecture course and seminar at the Collège de France (1976-1977). Translated by Kate Briggs. New York: Columbia University Press. Barthes, Roland. 2013b. “Myth Today.” In Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers, 215–273. New York: Hill and Wang. Barthes, Roland. 2013c. “The Dupriez Trial.” In Mythologies, translated by Annette Lavers, 67–70. New York: Hill and Wang. Biressi, Anita. 2001. Crime, Fear and the Law in True Crime Stories. New York: Palgrave. Brooks, Philip. 2009. “The Crisis of Desire.” In The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962-1980, translated by Linda Coverdale, 361–366. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Bugliosi, Vincent, with Curt Gentry. 1974. Helter Skelter. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Buozis, Michael. 2017. “Giving Voice to the Accused: Serial and the Critical Potential of True Crime.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 14, no. 3: 254–270. Capote, Truman. 1966. In Cold Blood. New York: Random House. Cleckley, Hervey M. 1988. The Mask of Sanity. Augusta, GA: Emily S. Cleckley. Davis, J. Madison. 2012. “Recognizing the Art of Nonfiction: Literary Excellence in True Crime,” World Literature Today 86, no 5: 10–12. Demme, Jonathan, dir. 1991. Silence of the Lambs. United States: Strong Heart/ Demme Production. Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, Michel. 1980. “Two Lectures.” In Power/Knowledge: Selected Interview and Other Writings, edited by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books. Fox, Michael Allen. 2005. The Accessible Hegel. New York: Humanity Books. Green, David, dir. 1984. Fatal Vision. Directed by David Green. United States: NBC. Henric, Jacques. 2009. “A Lover’s Discourse.” In The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962-1980, translated by Linda Coverdale, 281–289. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Holmes, Paul. 1961. The Sheppard Murder Case. New York: Bantam Books. Huddleston, Jr., Thomas. 2015. “How True Crime Series are Exposing America’s Criminal Justice System,” Fortune, June 1, 2015. http://fortune.com/2016/02/11/ true-crime-series-oj-murderer/one/4/inconsistencies

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Keats, John. 1899. The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge Edition. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Lacan, Jacques. 1981. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton. Larson, Sarah. 2014. “What ‘Serial’ Really Taught Us.” The New Yorker, December 18, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/serialreally-taught-us Lèger, Nathalie. 2011. “Editor’s Preface.” In The Preparation of the Novel: Lecture Courses and Seminars at the Collège de France (1978-1979 and 1979-1980), xviixiv. New York: Columbia University Press. Malcolm, Janet. 1990. The Journalist and the Murderer. New York: Vintage Books. McGinniss, Joe. 1983. Fatal Vision. New York: New American Library. McQuillan, Martin. 2011. Roland Barthes. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Morris, Errol, dir. 1988. The Thin Blue Line. United States: American Playhouse. Morris, Errol, dir. 2011. The Umbrella Man. United States: The New York Times. Morris, Errol. 2012. A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald. New York: The Penguin Press. Morris, Errol, dir. 2013. The Unknown Known. United States: Moxie Pictures. Murley, Jean. 2008. The Rise of True Crime: Twentieth Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers. Popp, Richard K. 2006. “History in Discursive Limbo: Ritual and Conspiracy Narratives on the History Channel,” Popular Communication 4, no. 4: 253–272. Resha, David. 2015. The Cinema of Errol Morris. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Rule, Ann. 1980. The Stranger Beside Me. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Schulz, Kathryn. 2016. “Dead Certainty: How “Making a Murderer” Goes Wrong.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2016. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/ 25/dead-certainty?mbid=nl_160118_Daily&CNDID=31255130&spMailingID= 8445542&spUserID=MTA5MjQwNzQzNjYyS0&spJobID=841985642& spReportId=ODQxOTg1NjQyS0 Seltzer, Mark. 2007. True Crime: Observations on Violence and Modernity. New York: Routledge. The Newgate Calendar or Malefactor’s Bloody Register. 1932. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Turner, Victor W. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine. Wiltenburg, Joy. 2004. “True Crime: The Origins of Modern Sensationalism,” The American Historical Review 109, no 5: 1377–1404.

9

My Friend Dahmer: A GraphicNarrative Search for the Origins of Evil Jesús Jiménez-Varea Universidad de Sevilla, Spain

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. […] but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. (H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Joshi 2008, 355)

Introduction On July 23, 1991, a new name joined the ranks of the most infamous criminals in America: news media across the country reported that a 31-year-old white male named Jeffrey Dahmer had been arrested in Milwaukee as the alleged perpetrator of what appeared to be a series of atrocious crimes. In fact, the subject in question had not only confessed almost immediately to having killed several young men and teenagers – the official figure was eventually set at 17 victims – but, as the grisly evidence found in his apartment indicated, he had also engaged in practices that included mutilation, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism (Masters 1993). The particularly macabre nature of Dahmer’s actions combined with his ordinary appearance, which had helped him go unnoticed for years, caught the attention of a public that, especially since the 1970s, had become aware of – and, in more than a few cases, fascinated by – the type of criminal known as a serial killer. Of course, it is clear that those who suffered most from the tragic revelation were the families of the victims, who had constituted missing persons cases, since Dahmer had demonstrated considerable skill in disposing of their remains. However, also suffering their own kind of shock were the family of the soon-to-be known as “The Milwaukee Monster,” including his father, Lionel Dahmer, who would devote an entire book to lamenting his son’s actions as well as, perhaps more importantly, his own inability to prevent him from becoming such a man (Dahmer 1994). Likewise, the shockwave of this news spread to other people who, at some point, had crossed Jeffrey Dahmer’s life without ever suspecting the DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-10

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homicidal extremes of his psychological abnormality, even if his behavior had always seemed unconventional. Among this group was journalist and cartoonist John “Derf” Backderf, one of the very few students who had maintained a relatively close and cordial relationship with Dahmer during their high school years. As Backderf himself has repeatedly explained, all his memories of those years were redefined the instant he discovered the terrible fantasies that haunted that peculiar classmate and how he had tried to make them come true in the form of horrendous crimes. Suddenly, places and moments from Backderf’s youth took on new and sinister meanings, at the same time as previously unrelated and anecdotal events came to fit into the mosaic that paved young Jeffrey Dahmer’s path to criminal depravity. All in all, the appalling facts brought to light during that summer of 1991 made such an impression on the cartoonist that he soon began to take steps towards developing a narrative that somehow made sense of them in the way he knew best, that is, through graphic storytelling. Eventually, this comic would become the acclaimed graphic novel My Friend Dahmer, but that would only come to pass after twenty years, during which time Backderf’s own feelings and approaches to his story changed, as did the reception to an initiative such as his. In fact, Backderf’s project evolved through three successive versions, each more extensive and sophisticated than the previous one: first, a short comic story in an anthology magazine (Zero Zero no. 18, Fantagraphics Books, July 1997); then, a self-published comic book (DerfCity, 2002); and finally, a graphic novel launched by a prestigious publishing company (Abrams ComicsArt, 2012). This chapter will discuss how Backderf’s personal enterprise to depict the Jeffrey Dahmer he had known firsthand grew from a modest subjective approach to this character to what has ultimately become an extensive, exhaustively researched work of speculative psychology and contextualization. Along with the project’s growth in length and depth over its successive iterations, the next few pages will also pay attention to how its author used the expressive resources of graphic narrative to construct an articulate discussion of the factors that led to the onset of Dahmer’s murderous career. Finally, this chapter will also consider the conditions of production and reception that helped shape the final graphic novel, thereby attempting to determine what makes My Friend Dahmer a significant work within American true crime media.

First iteration: “Young Dahmer”, the short story Like Jeffrey Dahmer, Backderf attended Eastview Junior High and then Revere High School during the 1970s in rural Ohio. After that stint, which ended in the summer of 1978 – precisely when, as would later become known, Dahmer committed his first murder – their paths never crossed again. Inclined to express himself through drawing since childhood,

My Friend Dahmer 149 Backderf tried his luck at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, but soon dropped out. Instead, he would later redirect his university training towards journalism, a discipline in which he would graduate from Ohio State University. Even so, he continued to pursue his artistic vocation, which he combined with his lifelong satirical streak to specialize as a cartoonist for alternative newspapers. In this field, his most notable work in terms of longevity, popularity, and critical recognition is the comic strip The City, which appeared in more than 140 alternative newspapers across the country between 1990 and 2014; and for which he received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2006. Backderf had only been producing his strip The City for about a year when news of Jeffrey Dahmer’s arrest made headlines, sparking a media frenzy to learn more about this particularly gruesome addition to the list of America’s serial killers. By Backderf’s own account, he had to spend several weeks after the story first broke “dodging calls from Oprah and Geraldo and The National Enquirer” (Backderf 2002). But, at the same time, he also found himself overwhelmed by the revelation of what had become of that strange old classmate, whom he had not heard from again since they both graduated from high school. Despite what the provocative title of his graphic novel states, Backderf has explained more than once that he did not really maintain a close friendship with Dahmer, but it is true that he was among the few who socially interacted with what was an extremely lonely and maladjusted teenager. In fact, for some time Backderf and some of his true friends even formed a so-called “Dahmer fan club,” comically fascinated by their companion’s bizarre behavior that included pretending to have cerebral palsy in public places (Backderf 1997, 4). In that sense, it could well be argued that they were granting Dahmer some of the attention he seemed to desperately demand, but they were also encouraging him to continue a way of behaving that most probably did not contribute to his social integration if that was ever possible. Shortly after that, Dahmer disappeared from the area and, for years, he would be nothing more than an occasional recollection of anecdotes that hovered between the amusing and the embarrassing, although seemingly inconsequential. So much so that, when Dahmer’s name had come up at a lighthearted conversation with a couple of high school friends in 1988, Backderf had made them laugh by jokingly commenting, “Heh. He’s probably a serial killer by now!” (Backderf 2002). Ironically, when this humorous speculation proved terrifyingly accurate three years later, the cartoonist again sought out the company of those old classmates, even if this time he did so in order to “commiserate about what was happening—they were the only people who could understand exactly what I was going through” (Backderf 2012, 262). During that meeting, while sharing impressions of those last weeks and reminiscences of their juvenile experiences with the now infamous Dahmer, the idea of capturing all that experience in the form of a comic began to take shape in Backderf’s mind:

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His experience as a cartoonist in the early nineties had been concentrated in the very specific format of the comic strip, therefore, it made sense that his first approach to Dahmer’s adolescence took the form of a brief graphic narrative centered mainly on an anecdote told to him by one of his old classmates. Thus, the short story “Young Dahmer” revolves around one of the episodes that, looking back, could now be interpreted as a harbinger of what was to come: during a day of fishing, Dahmer violently slashes a fish to pieces; to the indignation of the boy who accompanies him, the future murderer simply replies inexpressively, “I just wanted to see what it looked like” Backderf 1997, 10). Moreover, this eight-page story is already the unmistakable embryo of the meticulously documented graphic novel to be published fifteen years later, as it opens with the question that functions as the driving force of this entire project: “You went to school with Dahmer, the serial killer? What was he like?” (Backderf 1997, 3). In this first fleeting glimpse of Dahmer’s adolescence, Backderf managed to intersperse elements that he would later develop: the character’s isolation, the bullying he suffered, his desperate need for attention and his precocious alcoholism; and, just as important, the cartoonist’s honest attitude in recognizing the inappropriateness of some of his own immature behaviors in relation to Dahmer during those years. From the beginning, Backderf was well aware that he was in a privileged position to bring a unique perspective to a possible inquiry into the past of a notorious criminal. Specifically, he could offer first-hand testimony about some little-known facets of Dahmer during his teenage years. In this sense, the cartoonist was conforming – probably intuitively – to two of the characteristics that have been observed as particularly defining of successful contemporary true crime narratives about particularly violent delinquents: first of all, the author’s direct relationship with the criminal in question; and secondly, the focus of his story on the character’s early years (Schmid 2005, 204–6). As for the first aspect, it is well known that in the cases of such milestones of the true crime genre as In Cold Blood (1966) and Helter Skelter (1974), the authors met the perpetrators of their respective cases when they had already been arrested – or even sentenced – for their crimes: in preparation for his book, Truman Capote had extensive conversations with convicted murderers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith; while Vincent Bugliosi had served as a prosecutor during the trial of Charles Manson and several members of the latter’s “family” for the Tate-LaBianca murders. Yet, another paradigmatic example of this genre, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me (1980), seems reasonably closer to Backderf’s case since the

My Friend Dahmer 151 author had maintained a friendly relationship with another iconic killer, Ted Bundy, without imagining her co-worker’s hidden nature. Of course, there are also major differences between the two cases in several respects. Rule was an adult who had some criminological training when she befriended Bundy, whose sympathetic facade made her reluctant to believe him guilty even as the evidence against him mounted after his arrest. By contrast, during the period that Backderf knew him, Dahmer had not yet begun his murderous activity, but he was – unlike Bundy – an extremely marginalized young man among his adolescent peers, most of whom ended up avoiding him. Thus, it was only natural for My Friend Dahmer to focus on the criminal’s youth, thus foregrounding that other favorite trait of true crime narrative mentioned above, the search for the origins of the violent criminal.1 However, while other prominent examples of this genre – such as The Stranger Beside Me – tend to reconstruct these early years as backstories mainly through research, Backderf’s novel has it at its center. Another aspect to note in connection with these biographical works on Bundy and Dahmer is the fact that both cases played a somewhat providential role in the careers of their respective authors, although their visions differed greatly. For a budding true crime writer like Rule, the shocking revelation that a friend of hers was a serial killer gave her the opportunity to develop a best-selling book that made her one of the most influential authors in this genre and ensured Bundy “a definitional status in the pantheon of serial killers only rivaled by that of Jack the Ripper” (Schmid 2005, 197). For his part, Backderf was already a professional storyteller – albeit on completely unrelated subjects – when his former classmate’s murderous career was uncovered, and, as seen above, he realized very soon that fate had provided him with a story that deserved more than just eight pages. However, as will be discussed below, his intention with this narrative would go against the cultural enthronement of the serial killer that Rule’s book had resulted in. Naturally, being a cartoonist, Backderf would capture his demythologizing chronicle of Dahmer’s adolescence in the form of comics, a medium in which the true crime genre was nowhere near as common or accepted as in nonfiction prose.

Second iteration: My Friend Dahmer, the comic book The popularity of true crime comic books – spearheaded by Crime Does Not Pay (Lev Gleason Publ., 1942–55) – during the 1940s had led to a wave of moral panic that resulted in most publishers creating the so-called Comics Code Authority in 1954 to clean up their public image. Consequently, a rigid set of self-regulatory rules prevented any minimally realistic depiction of criminal acts in the pages of comic books for many years. By the early 1990s, however, the once all-powerful Comics Code had relaxed considerably and there were independent comic-book publishers that did not even submit to it at all (Nyberg 1998). Such was the case of

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Boneyard Press, founded by young writer Hart D. Fisher in 1991 to publish his own comics, full of violence, gore and willingness to shock. When, that same year, the Dahmer case took America by storm, Fisher did not fail to seize the opportunity, starting with the controversial one-shot Jeffery [sic] Dahmer: An Unauthorized Biography of a Serial Killer (1992). A foreword by Fisher himself states that the comic book “is not a celebration of Dahmer’s deeds. It’s an examination. It is an attempt to deal with a monster, to cope. For the victim’s families … you have my sympathy, but this story must be told. Uncensored”. However, an advertisement on the back cover of the same comic book announces: “Jeffery [sic] Dahmer Milwaukee’s Best. […] Don’t miss the Dahmer t-shirts! […] Send a mere $14 to Boneyard Press […] Be the coolest sicko on your block!” The juxtaposition of sympathy and profiteering certainly seems a paradigmatic example of the culture of exploitation that surrounds the serial killer figure. Abby Bentham (2016), in her history of the serial killer in popular culture, notes: “The rise of the celebrity culture and the commodification of murder continued unabated in the latter years of the twentieth century, and matters of taste and decency increasingly took second place to sensationalism” (2016, 212). All in all, this publication so offended the families of several of Dahmer’s victims that they sued Fisher in an initially successful attempt to ban it.2 Yet, when an appellate court ultimately ruled in Fisher’s favor, Boneyard Press went on to publish several new comic books that exploited the killer’s infamy with even more outrageous content: The Further Adventures of Young Jeffy Dahmer (October 1992), Jeffrey Dahmer vs. Jesus Christ (October 1993), and Dahmer’s Zombie Squad (1993). Thus, the first initiatives to deal with the Dahmer figure in comics were marked by a combination of bad taste and exploitative intent that may explain, at least partially, how difficult it would be for Backderf to find a serious publisher for his graphic novel My Friend Dahmer. As mentioned above, Backderf’s first short story “Young Dahmer” established many of the key features of his approach to the subject, including the avoidance of overly graphic scenes of sex or violence.3 Still, over the next few years, all his attempts to get any publisher interested in his project for a 100-page graphic novel about Dahmer failed. Meanwhile, some acclaimed true crime comics emerged during that period, notably Torso (Image Comics, 1998–99), a miniseries by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko; and most importantly the first single-volume compilation of From Hell (Top Shelf, 1999), by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. However, these works dealt with cases – the Torso Cleveland Murderer and Jack the Ripper, respectively – that were old enough to lack the potential controversy of the much more recent Dahmer murders. Then also, Backderf had very little demonstrable experience in the field of extensive graphic storytelling, as his professional work was focused on comic strips without long plot continuities. In such conditions, the cartoonist had to resign himself to self-publishing a comic-book version of My Friend Dahmer, cut

My Friend Dahmer 153 down to 24 pages, consisting of a reprint of “Young Dahmer” plus a couple of new segments of reminiscences. In his foreword, Backderf took pains to dispel suspicions that his efforts to publish this story were motivated by exploitative interests: I don’t expect to make a dime off this book. I published this out of my own pocket, because, not unexpectedly, I couldn’t find a publisher who was daring enough to put it out. […] Just the title alone will provoke outrage and disgust. […] set aside your preconceptions as you read this. I’ll tell you right now … there’s no violence. No gore. No graphic depictions of unspeakable acts. […] A word of warning … if you’re a serial killer “fan,” if you’re some teenage goth dork with an unholy attraction to Dahmer […] I’d prefer you didn’t buy this book at all. Go away. Get help (Backderf 2002) Instead of a profit motive, Backderf insisted on an irresistible urge, but it no longer responded so much to a personal need to make peace with his own adolescence either: “I long ago dealt with the freak-out aspect of knowing Dahmer anyways” (Backderf 2002). Now, his goal was to prevent other cases like that one: There are lessons to be learned in Dahmer’s story. It’s my belief that he COULD have been saved … that his victims could have been spared their horrible fate. If only some adult in his life had interceded while there was still hope. […] It’s the same lesson that Colombine [sic] teaches. Vigilance. Perception. As in the reference to the Columbine High School massacre, Backderf has often compared the Dahmer case with subsequent massacres perpetrated by young men, in order to underline the relevant admonitory function of his graphic novel, despite the different modus operandi: “I see the same patterns with these shooters, especially the younger ones, like [Seung-Hui Cho] at Virginia Tech [in 2007] and Adam Lanza [at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012]. I see the same kind of patterns that I saw with Jeff. The result is the same: a pile of bodies. I mean, 17 dead is 17 dead. It doesn’t matter whether it was done in 5 minutes or a period of 13 years” (in (Johnson 2017). Thus, Backderf had finally added to his project the definitive ingredient that allows the true crime genre to justify its own existence and deflect accusations that focus on the authors’ profit motive or the readers’ morbid curiosity; Backderf’s added the communication of a socially useful message. Without this dimension, Ann Rule herself had considered this genre could be reduced to “monetizing gory details about somebody’s death,” lacking a “contemplative context” (Punnett 2018, 104). Although Rule did not

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invent this feature of true crime, she endowed it with particular relevance, positing that female readers of her works would be better prepared against possible victimization. Indeed, Schmid argues that in Rule’s work there is an explicit use of the social utility argument to lend respectability to the genre. However, this is a feature common to such otherwise disparate classic true crime authors as Edmund Pearson and Truman Capote, although each one oriented it in a different direction: for the former, “true crime narratives can help bring about a clear-eyed view of the need to punish criminals, while In Cold Blood at some points reads like a crusade against the death penalty and for the reform of legal concepts of insanity” (Schmid 2005, 278). In his case, Backderf suggested that his approach might save people with sociopathic tendencies from succumbing to them. In simple terms, this comic book – the cartoonist claimed in his foreword – attempted to denounce the conditions of adult neglect that had allowed Dahmer to lose himself completely in his macabre fantasies, so that it would not happen again. To some extent, it had much in common with the purpose of Lionel Dahmer’s A Father’s Story, a book that has been described as the “most sustained example of […] the ‘Had I but known’ school of true crime narratives” (Schmid 2005, 206). However, while Lionel Dahmer regrets his own failure but places more responsibility on his unbalanced ex-wife, Backderf’s accusations are directed at all the adults who might have helped Jeffrey, starting with Lionel himself. In the inside pages of this comic-book version of My Friend Dahmer, the cartoonist described with brutal frankness his own and his friends’ behavior toward their strange classmate: “His only interaction with others was with us […]. And even to us, he was mascot not buddy. Dahmer was high entertainment … a strange break in the numbing tedium of a small town high school” (Backderf 2002, 10). Whatever the case may be, Backderf continued to exempt himself and the rest of the youths from real responsibility by virtue of their age and circumstances, while shifting the burden entirely onto the adults. On the whole, none of them came to notice the severity of the symptoms, let alone fit the pieces together, to set off alarm bells about the disturbing evolution of that maladjusted adolescent: “Looking back on it now, knowing what we know today, every incident takes on heavy portent … So many signs. So many warnings. But no one saw them. No one” (Backderf 2002, 20). To sum up, in this iteration, My Friend Dahmer was already outlined as a story about varying degrees of failure on the part of all those who surrounded Jeffrey Dahmer: “Well, everybody did everything wrong. […] Particularly the adult world. Everybody, either through incompetence or indifference, just let this kid go. And it’s astonishing to me that nobody noticed or said they didn’t notice a thing” (Riesman 2017). At the same time, Backderf seemed to be moving forward in a kind of confessional exercise in narrative form to assuage regrets that had plagued him since he discovered the truth about Dahmer:

My Friend Dahmer 155 You look back at your life with this brutal honesty and you think, well I wasn’t the nicest guy at this point. I could have done more at this point. I missed this sign. There’s a lot of regret. Then you have to let go of that because you realize you were just a kid and living in a small town. I had my head up my ass. I’m expecting too much from myself at age 17, but it’s a mixed bag like that. You try to learn some lessons. (Backderf in Lynch and Backderf 2017) Of course, Backderf could not develop this message satisfactorily in the twenty pages of his self-published comic book, but it was so well received by critics that he was nominated for an Eisner Award for the Best One-Shot in 2003. Even though he did not win it, this recognition was a boost to a new career as a graphic novelist, in parallel to his work as a cartoonist with the strip The City.

Third iteration: My Friend Dahmer, the graphic novel During the 2000s, Backderf worked his way up as a graphic storyteller of increasingly longer stories in which the autobiographical component played an important role. First, the 50-page comic book Trashed (SLG Publishing, 2002), inspired by his time working as a garbage man after dropping out of college.4 He also made a 152-page semi-autobiographical homage to the vibrant punk music scene of his youth, Punk Rock & Trailer Parks (SLG, 2008), which is already a graphic novel in its own right. Meanwhile, his project on Dahmer was in a state of transition from the original approach as a subjective memoir to a well-documented biography of the murderer, including his previous life, but also his crimes, his imprisonment, and his murder in prison (Bodart 2016, 54). Thus, the future graphic novel was shaping up to be a documentary comic in which Backderf’s training as a journalist helped him to carry out exhaustive research as evidenced by the abundant footnotes and commentary within the version published in 2012. However, as Backderf continued his research, he also decided to limit the scope of his account to the years when he had coincided with Dahmer at the school, because “it’s Jeff’s story, but it’s also my story. […] So it’s really not about the crime. It’s the story before that story” (Riesman 2017). Without renouncing the support of multiple contrasted sources, it is possible Backderf realized this intersection was what made his approach special and he wanted to examine this period of his own life in juxtaposition to that of Dahmer: “With Dahmer, there are a lot of books, but my story hadn’t been told – that first-person account from one of his friends. That was new, and unique” (Velentzas 2020). Years after the initial shock in 1991, Backderf’s personal reasons for bringing this story forward had evolved from something close to the expression of trauma toward a need to probe how someone not so different from himself had taken such a horrifying turn. In this sense, the final version of My Friend Dahmer hybridizes graphic

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journalism somewhat in the vein of Joe Sacco (e.g. Palestine, Fantagraphics Books, 2001) with a tradition of autobiographical comics, which can be traced back to underground classics such as Justin Green and Robert Crumb (Kunka 2017, 93). The autobiographical genre in comics shows a general predilection for the child and adolescent stages, most often taking the form of coming-ofage narratives or Bildungsroman. Specifically, the existing literature on My Friend Dahmer already includes recognition of this graphic novel as a contemporary Bildungsroman insofar as “the conflict of Dahmer’s individual desires and the expectations of society, which is at the centre of the text, is also the primary concern of the genre as a whole” (Earle 2014, 431). To be sure, Backderf traced Dahmer’s evolution from tormented young man to first-time murderer, paying special attention to the defective – and finally non-existent – network of social relationships that had let him precipitate towards that destiny. In doing so, the cartoonist had to challenge the conception of Dahmer that had taken hold almost from the beginning in the popular imagination: “Jeffrey Dahmer is a monster by any definition, but he wasn’t always. What ‘My Friend Dahmer’ does is humanize him […]. If you just write him off as a monster, then we learn nothing” (Johnson 2017). Of course, the “humanization” of Dahmer was one of the biggest challenges Backderf had to meet in several ways. First, he ran the risk that some people may understand his novel as some sort of apology for the murderer, which he firmly ruled out in his prologue to the graphic novel: “Once Dahmer kills, however – and I can’t stress this enough – my sympathy for him ends. […] Dahmer was a twisted wretch whose depravity was almost beyond comprehension. Pity him, but don’t empathize with him” (Backderf 2012, 11). Also, his thesis of total social failure around Dahmer clashed head-on with how serial killers tend to be envisioned as “individualized monstrous psychopaths, whose crimes tell us little or nothing about the societies in which they live” (Schmid 2005, 176). To make matters worse, the task was especially difficult because the figure of Dahmer had come to take on particularly hideous overtones even among this type of criminal: not only had he quickly earned a place at the top of serial killer stardom, alongside Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy (Winters 2010, 18); but also his very name had become “now shorthand for unimaginably perverse, cannibalistic serial murder” and he himself might well have been “the ultimate serial killer due to the grotesque nature of his notorious crimes“ (Zirngibl 2010, 171). In fact, Dahmer was considered the culmination of the so-called “golden age” of serial killers, marked by a growing media attention and public fascination with these criminals (Vronsky 2021, 183). So much so that, in his specific case, he had been transformed into a cultural icon of aberration from the very first moment and, since then, “the compound effect of the myriad retellings of the story; the overlay of fictional representations and news” had done nothing but enshrine him as a “gothic spectacle” (Bentham 2016, 215). On the other

My Friend Dahmer 157 hand, in favor of his humanizing endeavor, Backderf counted on the double strength of having directly met the person behind – or rather before – the myth, as well as feeling a complete disaffection for the cult phenomenon of serial killers in general: “I know why I was interested in [the case of Dahmer] because of my ties to it, but the continued fascination with serial killers is kind of a puzzler to me. Honestly” (Riesman 2017).5 Throughout its more than two hundred pages, the common awareness of Dahmer’s terrible future looms over all the events narrated, someway reflecting how the shock of the truth about his former classmate had redefined Backderf’s own memories. In this sense, My Friend Dahmer bears a resemblance to a certain kind of proleptic narratives, understood simultaneously as backstory and countdown to the status quo and better-known exploits of some popular culture myths. Interestingly enough, this approach has been applied prominently to icons of evil from Darth Vader (the Star Wars prequel trilogy) to the Joker (Todd Phillips’ eponymous film) to fictional serial killers such as Michael Myers (the initial segment of Rob Zombie’s Halloween), Norman Bates (the TV show Bates Motel) or Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris’ novel Hannibal Rising and its film adaptation). Arguably, all such accounts respond to a popular curiosity about the origins of evil that crosses the barriers between fiction and reality, constituting a major feature of the contemporary true crime genre, as noted above. In particular, it has been established that these narratives tend to oscillate between the two poles of a monstrosity-versus-representativeness dialectic that fits particularly well with attempts to delve into the phenomenon of serial killers (Schmid 2005, 182). Unlike the bulk of fiction and much of nonfiction, Backderf foregrounds the denunciation of the abandonment suffered by the future killer, but does not fail to remember that – at least in the case of Dahmer – the boy suffered from serious disorders that would have made him even more deserving of special attention. In fact, to emphasize that fateful combination, Backderf highlights at several points his circumstantial similarities with Dahmer: in both cases, a younger brother, a housewife mother, and a professional chemist father, distant and focused on work; and in high school, a social status far removed from the popular elites and equally subjected to abuse by bullies. However, the evolutions of one and the other followed drastically different paths, by virtue of their respective degrees of social ostracism and coping mechanisms. Of course, strictly speaking, Backderf – trained as a journalist and cartoonist – lacks the qualifications to clinically diagnose Dahmer and his analyses must be understood as the result of an informal approach to the case as a witness and storyteller: When I sat down to write the final draft of the book, I spent about a month pulling all this stuff together and just sitting down and writing. Man, that was not a lot of fun because you’re really in his head. You’re in his world […]. And when I finished writing, I had to spend a year

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The extension of a graphic novel allowed Backderf to elaborate these ideas taking full advantage of the comic medium’s expressive potential. At last, the ample number of pages available served him to carefully capture in both words and pictures his questions – rather than answers – about the unhappy combination of intrinsic and circumstantial factors that had converged in Dahmer’s formative years. According to Backderf, a major challenge was to find a way to externalize in some visual way what might be going on in the mind of the almost invariably hermetic Dahmer: “Everything about that guy was hidden from view. It’s the power of the comics medium, and if you do it effectively, you can show those hidden things” (Velentzas 2020). Regarding his psychological abnormality, probably the best visual exponent of Dahmer’s inherent weirdness was his peculiar body language, which had not gone unnoticed by his own father, although he only attached importance to it after the truth about his son was revealed: “He looked continually tense, his body very straight. When he walked, his legs appeared to lock at the knee. This caused his legs to stiffen so much that his feet seemed to scrape across the ground, as if he were dragging them along rather than being carried by them” (Dahmer 1994, 76). In fact, Jeffrey Dahmer’s nonverbal language had fascinated Backderf from the beginning, as attested by the numerous youthful sketches of his robotic gait, his impassive face, and his blank stare: “He never seemed to quite fit into his own body or into the world around him. It was kind of a reflection, I think, of his mental state” (Riesman 2017). Thus, the cartoonist relied heavily on these visual cues to convey Dahmer’s disconnection and progressive dehumanization, beginning by portraying him in almost every panel with an impassive face that was part of what Backderf has described as an “incredible ability to mask emotion” (Velentzas 2020).6 In this regard, among the most interesting entries in the literature on this graphic novel is Earle’s detailed study of the specific visual motif of Dahmer’s characteristic eyeglasses, converted into frames for his strange worldview as well as opaque panes that conceal his gaze ever more often as he moves “from outcast teenager to murderer” (Earle 2014, 430). At that time, the rare occasions when Dahmer seemed to abandon his frozen expression and automaton-like movements in public were when he displayed his penchant for copying the atypical bodily behaviors of some of the people around him – such as the gait of his mother’s interior designer, afflicted with cerebral palsy, or the epileptic seizures his own mother apparently suffered from – to get the attention of his high school classmates. Toward the end of the novel, this pitiful spectacle that Backderf and his friends called “Dahmer’s schtick” became practically the only way through which the young misfit was able to

My Friend Dahmer 159 communicate with his environment, until even these few “fans” ceased to find him amusing and ended up casting him aside. In the novel, Backderf describes in detail how he and the rest of the Dahmer Fan Club arranged a visit to a nearby mall for Jeffrey to wander around doing his grotesque displays, to their own delight and the alarm of the unwary who crossed paths with him. By the end of that day, Backderf and his friends were definitely fed up with Dahmer: As we walked back to the car, Kent and I made plans for later that evening. Dahmer, following silently, was not invited. In truth, I couldn’t ditch the guy fast enough. And we dropped off Dahmer at his house … that marked the end of the Dahmer Fan Club. From here on, we excluded Dahmer from our group. (Backderf 2012, 142–3) As for Dahmer’s flawed social environment, Backderf chose to express it through the very spaces in which the narrative takes place. Above all, the Dahmer family home functions as a powerful spatial metaphor that somehow serves Backderf as the focal point of the entire narrative: “All that could be seen of it from the road was the blank façade of the garage. It was as if the house itself mirrored Jeff’s isolation” (2012, 41). In particular, the domestic setting frames one of the sequences that most explicitly compares the respective family lives of the young Backderf and Dahmer: the former is shown kidding around with his younger brother, receiving attention from an affectionate mother and interacting even with his stern father during breakfast; but, as the adult Backderf’ narrative voice puts it: “The vibe at Dahmer’s house was quite different” (2012, 92) since, at the Dahmer family home, Jeff stares seemingly undaunted at the television while his parents argue loudly in the next room, until he cannot take it anymore and goes out to roam the roads. As a matter of fact, roads play a major symbolic role throughout the story, either as an ineffectual connection to the unattainable normalcy of high school or rather as a route to Dahmer’s depraved fantasies: from the collection of roadkill for his early preservation experiments to the fatal encounter with the hitchhiker who will be his first victim, forever isolating him from the rest of society. As a significant example, again, Backderf depicts his younger self after the last day of high school, heading euphorically down “a highway into the distance, full of hope and possibility” (2012, 166). In contrast, he then describes Dahmer taking the school bus in the opposite direction, leaving the hopeful horizon behind, both literally and figuratively, while the accompanying captions sentence: “It was not the road that lay before Dahmer. His life essentially ended on this day. He soon shed his humanity forever. The person I knew became something utterly unknowable. The rest of his life would be a living hell” (Backderf 2012, 167–8). Thus, at the end of the novel, the final destiny of young Jeffrey Dahmer, abandoned by everyone, is the deserted family home that

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represents his death as a human being and his definitive transformation into a monster. Taking into account Dahmer’s later modus operandi of luring men to his apartment in order to act out his ghoulish fantasies in seclusion, it is as if, in a sense, he was still trapped in that Ohio house where he had killed his first victim.

Conclusion My Friend Dahmer, consisting of three iterations between 1997 and 2012, stands as a unique specimen both within the general corpus of contemporary true crime texts across media and the more specific subset of works devoted to the so-called “Cannibal of Milwaukee”. Unlike the case of Ann Rule and her book on Ted Bundy, this graphic novel remains a one-off contribution – albeit in three stages of development – to the serial-killer subgenre for which its author does not feel a particular interest, not even in the case of Dahmer’s murderous career itself: “People often ask when I’m going to do the rest of Dahmer’s story. Never. It’s not my story, and it’s gross” (in Velentzas 2020). Actually, the significance of My Friend Dahmer lies in Backderf’s attempt to connect early behaviors and social isolation to later events. This provides the novel with a privileged insight into his evolution from a social outcast to an infamous serial killer, while also serving as a sort of confessional exercise for the author. In this process, Backderf portrays Dahmer as someone who fell between the cracks of the system with terrible consequences, but also acknowledges there was something intrinsically abnormal in Dahmer that was identifiable from an early age. Thus, Backderf’s thesis of total failure comes to establish that the eponymous protagonist was undoubtedly an aberrant personality whose development in the worst possible way was also the symptom of a social fabric that had forsaken him. Furthermore, My Friend Dahmer draws attention to the constellation of acquaintances or even friends around the serial murderer. Although many of these peripheral figures are deeply marked by their unsuspecting proximity to extremely aberrant personalities, true crime narratives often neglect them in favor of the criminals themselves or the victims and their families. Throughout this graphic novel, the pervasive narrator’s voice repeatedly ponders how everyone around Dahmer, especially the adults, failed to realize the extent of his abnormality. In the end, the novel laments the many lost opportunities to help him and perhaps turn him in a different direction that may have prevented him from harming other people.

Notes 1 In his seminal Natural Born Celebrities, David Schmid observes that “Ann Rule’s work on Bundy contains this feature, but so does the vast majority of true crime work on serial killers as a whole” ( Schmid 2005, 206).

My Friend Dahmer 161 2 “’True Crime’ Cards Thriving Despite Outrage”. New York Times (6 December 6 1992), p. 44. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/06/us/true crime-cards-thrivingdespite-outrage.html 3 Backderf maintained that intention also when developing the final version of My Friend Dahmer (2012) in order to have a PG rating ( Bodart 2016, 55). Thus, as a Graphic Novel for Teens, it even won several awards from the Young Adult Library Services Association. 4 In 2015, following the success of My Friend Dahmer, Abrams ComicsArt would also publish a new version of Trash, upgraded to a 240-page graphic novel. 5 Within his chapter elsewhere in this collection, Michael Buozis also addresses the phenomenon of popular fascination with both real-world and fictional serial killers. 6 For more on the ability of psychopaths to hide their emotions and seemingly live by social norms, see the articulate discussion on the so-called “mask of sanity” in Buozi’s chapter elsewhere in this collection.

References Backderf, John. 1997. “Young Dahmer.” Zero Zero no. 18 (July): 3–10. Seattle: Fantagraphics. Backderf, John. 2002. My Friend Dahmer (March). DerfCity. Backderf, John. 2012. My Friend Dahmer. New York: Abrams ComicArts. Bentham, Abby. 2016. “Fatal Attraction: The Serial Killer in American Popular Culture.” In Violence in American Popular Culture. Volume 1: American History and Violent Popular Culture, edited by David Schmid, 203–222. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Bodart, Joni Richards. 2016. They Hurt, They Scar, They Shoot, They Kill: Toxic Characters in Young Adult Fiction. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Dahmer, Lionel. 1994. A Father’s Story. New York: William Morrow. Earle, H. E. H. 2014. “My Friend Dahmer: The Comic as Bildungsroman,” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 5 (4): 429–440. Fisher, Hart D., and Al Hanford. 1992. Jeffery Dahmer: An Unauthorized Biography of a Serial Killer (March 1992). Champaign: Boneyard Press. Johnson, G. Allen. 2017. “High School Friend Recounts Time with Serial Killer in ‘My Friend Dahmer’.” SFGate, November 14, 2017. https://www.sfgate.com/ movies/article/High-school-friend-recounts-time-with-serial-12358022.php Joshi, S. T., ed. 2008. H. P. Lovecraft. The Fiction. Complete and Unabridged. New York: Barnes & Noble. Kunka, Andrew. 2017. Autobiographical Comics. New York: Bloomsbury. Lynch, Ross, and John Backderf. 2017. “My Friend Dahmer: Ross Lynch X Derf Backderf.” Issue Magazine, 2017. https://issuemagazine.com/my-friend-dahmerross-lynch-x-derf-backderf/#/ Masters, Brian. 1993. The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Nyberg, Amy Kiste. 1998. Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Pearlman, Jeff. 2013. “John Backderf by Jeff Pearlman.” Jrpearlman1 Comment, January 16, 2013. https://jeffpearlman.com/2013/01/16/the-quaz-qa-johnbackderf/

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Punnett, Ian Case. 2018. Toward a Theory of True Crime Narratives: A Textual Analysis. New York & London: Routledge. Riesman, Abraham. 2017. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s Childhood Friend Talks about His Graphic Novel My Friend Dahmer and Its New Movie Adaptation.” Vulture, April 20, 2017. https://www.vulture.com/2017/04/my-friend-dahmer-authorrecalls-the-boy-behind-the-killer.html Schmid, David. 2005. Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Velentzas, Irene. 2020. “’We Seem To Just Be Steamrolling Toward Tragedy:’ An Interview With Derf Backderf.” The Comics Journal, 31 August 2020. http:// www.tcj.com/we-seem-to-just-be-steamrolling-toward-tragedy-an-interviewwith-derf-backderf/ Vronsky, Peter. 2021. American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950–2000. New York: Berkley. Winters, Andrew M. 2010. “Man is the Most Dangerous Animal of All: A Philosophical Gaze into the Writings of the Zodiac Killer.” In Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing, edited by S. Waller, 17–28. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Zirngibl, Wendy M. 2010. “Wolves and Widows: Naming, Metaphor, and the Language of Serial Murder.” In Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing, edited by S. Waller, 166–177. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

10 Forensic Fandom: True Crime, Citizen Investigation and Social Media Bethan Jones Research Associate in the Screen Industries Growth Network (SIGN) at the University of York, UK

Introduction 521,705 people were reported missing in the United States in 2021. Of these, 148,950 were white women (FBI 2021); the one almost everyone heard of was Gabby Petito. A 22 year old influencer, Petito began a US-wide road trip with fiancé Brian Laundrie in July 2021. An avid social media user Petito shared photographs and videos of the journey, under the hashtag #vanlife, on her Instagram and on her and Laundrie’s shared TikTok account. The last posts to these accounts were made on 21 and 25 August 2021, respectively, with Petito being reported missing by her mother on September 11. Her remains were eventually found at the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping area in Wyoming on September 19, two days after Laundrie was also reported missing (on September 17). Petito’s disappearance was not unusual, but what is distinctive, and consequently forms the focus of this chapter, is the interest that the case generated online. True crime fans are no strangers to analyzing cases, uncovering evidence and occasionally helping to exonerate those already convicted. Indeed, the last twenty years have seen a rapid growth in the emergence not only of true crime narratives across a range of media but an increase in the number of ways true crime audiences can discuss these cases. The emergence of online communities responding to both the highly successful Serial podcast and the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer demonstrate the ways in which changing digital technologies and changing audience/producer relationships can combine to create a community that blurs the boundaries between engaged fandom and citizen investigation. This chapter argues that these practices converged in the Gabby Petito case, which went viral thanks to TikTok users posting videos speculating over her disappearance and subsequent death. I argue that those investigating Petito’s disappearance moved from interested observers to active fans and as a result they blur the lines between the practices of citizen investigation and the practice of what Jason Mittel has called forensic fandom (2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2012, 2015). Of course, referring to fans and fandom in the context of true crime may seem DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-11

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inappropriate. As Matt Hills writes, “Everyone knows what a ‘fan’ is. It’s somebody who is obsessed with a particular star, celebrity, film, TV program, band; somebody who can produce reams of information on the object of their fandom, can quote their favored lines or lyrics, chapter and verse” (2002, ix). Indeed, fandom has become ubiquitous: we are comfortable recognizing fans of sports teams, singers, actors and writers, just as we are comfortable with the idea that people can be fans of different genres: comedy, science-fiction, soaps and even horror. Yet what is important to note are the kinds of fandoms and texts which obtain this approval. Music, film and television are acceptable objects of fandom provided they remain an “appropriate” text and evidence “appropriate” behavior from fans. Being a fan of the Saw horror franchise, featuring a serial killer who plays games with his victims using physical or psychological torture in order to test their will to survive, is considered generally acceptable: being a fan of A Serbian Film, which features an out-of-work porn star who agrees to take part in an art film that turns out to be a snuff film containing pedophilia and necrophilia is not. Those fans and fandoms surrounding clearly disturbing, socially unacceptable, content are thus relegated to the extreme end of inappropriate fan behavior, and treated in media – and indeed, academic – discourse accordingly (Broll 2020; Rico 2015). Nevertheless, as Daniel Cavicchi notes of the term “fan”: On the whole, it is used both descriptively and prescriptively to refer to diverse individuals and groups, including fanatics, spectators, groupies, enthusiasts, celebrity stalkers, collectors, consumers, members of subcultures, and entire audiences, and, depending on the context, to refer to complex relationships involving affinity, enthusiasm, identification, desire, obsession, possession, neurosis, hysteria, consumerism, political resistance, or a combination. (1998, 39) I therefore use the terms fan and fandom throughout this chapter given the types of practices those following the Gabby Petito case participated in, and the discourse surrounding these in mainstream media.

Contemporary True Crime and Forensic Fandom True crime has been in the spotlight for much of the last decade, driven by changes in technology and subsequently format. Emerging media forms like podcasting converged with the, often participatory, nature of the internet, resulting in a series of programs such as Serial, The Jinx and Making A Murderer. Serial, for example – as detailed in other chapters featured in this collection – broke records as the fastest podcast ever to reach 5 million downloads on Apple’s iTunes store (Dredge 2014) and led to the creation of a forum on Reddit to discuss the case, which is still active with over 77,000 members at the time of writing. The Jinx, an HBO documentary that used a

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range of narrative techniques including news footage, archival interviews, re-enactments, contemporary interviews and self-reflexive recordings by writer/director Andrew Jarecki, ran for six episodes and raised a series of questions about the lines between journalism and storytelling, while Netflix’s Making A Murderer investigated the potential framing of Steven Avery, convicted along with his nephew Brendan Dassey of the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. Much like Serial and The Jinx, Making A Murderer received wide acclaim and a large, international audience. As detailed in Caitlin Shaw’s chapter in this collection, it owes much to Netflix’s brand of quality drama and its practice of releasing all episodes at once, thus urging viewers to empathize with Avery and Dassey. Indeed, two petitions were circulated requesting pardons for the pair and Dassey’s conviction was overturned in November 2016, before being reinstated the following year. Other true crime texts have emerged in the years since these highly visible forerunners, including podcasts like My Favorite Murder, Redhanded and Last Podcast on the Left and documentaries including Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel and Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer. Each of these have garnered intense popular interest and, in some cases, a fan audience which becomes actively involved in investigating the real-life features of the case. This kind of behavior is, of course, not new within fan communities. Lovers of film, television and books will often interrogate the texts to highlight inconsistences, analyze characters’ motivations and predict future storylines or outcomes. As Jason Mittell notes, “fan cultures have long demonstrated intense engagement in storyworlds, policing backstory consistency, character unity, and internal logic in classic programs such as Star Trek and Doctor Who” (2015, 52). Yet he also argues that contemporary programs focus this detailed dissection onto complex questions of plotting and enigmatic events in addition to storyworld and characters […] convert many viewers into amateur narratologists, noting patterns and violations of convention, chronicling chronologies, and highlighting both inconsistencies and continuities across episodes and even series (2015, 52). Mittell names this form of engagement “forensic fandom” and suggests that complex television fosters this mode of viewing, “invit[ing] viewers to dig deeper, probing beneath the surface to understand the complexity of a story and its telling” (2012). Clues in the text and surrounding discourses allow viewers to work out what the creators of series like The X-Files and Lost were trying to achieve and how this might affect the future narrative. Analyzing Lost in particular, Mittell argues the program’s central narrative presents the series as a puzzle to be solved, encouraging “research, collaboration, analysis, and interpretation” among viewers (2009a). Although

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Mittell refers explicitly to fictional TV series I nevertheless contend that forensic fandom is evidenced in audience behaviors around true crime narratives, not least the texts already referenced elsewhere in this chapter. When the first season of Serial concluded with no definitive answer for who killed Hae Min Lee fans retreated to Reddit to continue examining the murder (Berry 2015; Yardley et al. 2017). An examination of some of the posts relating to season one demonstrates the ways in which fans engaged with the content. One post, featuring a link to part one of The Intercept’s 2014 interview with witness Jay received over 3,000 comments ranging from memes to speculation about Jay’s motives to analysis of call logs refuting some of the claims he made. Some are tongue in cheek, but they nevertheless highlight the active engagement and participation fans developed over the course of the podcast. The same kind of behavior is evidenced in relation to Making A Murderer, where fans created online resources to continue investigating such as an interactive “Remaking a Murderer” map of the Avery property featuring important sites and a timeline of events. One Reddit user posted satellite images of the Avery yard one month before Halbach’s murder and one month after in case other users might be able to find something significant, and while commenters point out some of the issues with the images – Google hadn’t updated them in that time period, the images weren’t high resolution, there was a lot of cloud cover – there were nevertheless further discussions both in that thread and the wider subreddit about how users could gather more data and other sources to look into. Online collaboration in the form of Mittel’s forensic fandom was thus evident in both of the communities around these texts. Mittel acknowledges that this kind of engagement with the text is not a new one. Fans – even before the internet – have analyzed texts and discussed possible theories, endings, character motivations and so on. But he highlights the use of digital tools that allow these processes to accelerate, arguing that contemporary examples like Lost and Battlestar Galactica “are notable for both the digital tools that have enabled fans to collectively apply and share their forensic efforts and the demands that mainstream network programs make on their viewers to pay attention and connect the narrative dots” (2012). Demand for viewers to pay attention is also evident in the structure of the various podcasts and documentaries that we have seen over the last decade. In thinking about Serial, for example, various critics have questioned the tone and structure of the podcast. Koenig talks through her reporting, offering personal opinion as well as the facts as she understands them thus allowing for listeners to feel as though they can participate in the search for answers. She also highlights the points where she’s not sure of events, timings, etc., making her reporting far more personal than we might normally expect from a journalist, and far more similar to what we might see within fan communities. Jessica Goldstein, writing about the ethics of Serial, says “By employing a multitude of tactics typically utilized in fiction – cliffhangers, hunches, personal asides –

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Koenig’s narration lands somewhere between straight reporting and something more personal” (2014). These elements, and the question of what Koenig knew and when she knew it, are pertinent in thinking about Mittel’s forensic fandom. These texts are not fictional but the producers still demand the audience pay attention and, by asking questions, encourage them to join the narrative dots. But they also encourage what we might think of as citizen investigation, or websleuthing, and consider how forensic fandom might play out on social media in the real-time investigation of a case.

Gabby Petito, Citizen Investigation and Social Media Elizabeth Yardley et al. argue that “Websleuthing is the embodiment of participatory media, where the lines between the producer, consumer and subject are blurred, there are fewer restrictions in relation to time and space and online activities have real world, embodied consequences” (2018, 82). The advent of new technologies and the grasp of new skills enable citizens to perform amateur detective work which would have previously been out of bounds. Law enforcement has often called on the public for help in cases – shows such as America’s Most Wanted and Wanted (20th Century Fox TV, 1988–2012; Fox TV, 2020 –) appeal to viewers to call in tips and police forces across the country highlight calls for information about missing people, crimes and murder on their social media channels – and the growth of networked technologies have thus “enhanced opportunities not only for people to consume cases but to participate in collective investigations and create their own representations” (Yardley et al. 2018, 85). As Shaw argues in her chapter in this collection, Netflix recognized viewers of Making A Murderer would engage with case-related resources and participate in discussion and debate, and of course they did, Greg Stratton pointing out that websleuths responded “by presenting arguments, debates, and evidence that may help resolve the debates around the convictions of Avery and Dassey” (2019, 188). We see this in the myriad of discussion threads on social media platforms and videos on YouTube. Yet Stratton further argues that “The community in this sense moved beyond standard fandom process such as detailed analysis of the documentary to conduct independent research and demonstrate greater concern for the status of Avery and Dassey’s cases” (2019, 188) by scouring the documentary, media statements and trial documents for evidence. This was done in order to question the prosecution’s arguments, key forensic evidence, and timelines of events. I would argue that, rather than going beyond standard fandom practices, this epitomizes forensic fandom. Consider, for example, how Mittell discusses Lost fans: To be a Lost fan is to embrace a detective mentality, seeking out clues, charting patterns, and assembling evidence into narrative hypotheses and theories. This forensic engagement finds a natural home in online

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Detailed analysis, the gathering of data and discussion is a fundamental part of fan communities, and this brings me back to the Gabby Petito case. As previously mentioned, Petito began a US-wide road trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie in July 2021. Posts were made regularly on her Instagram and the TikTok account she shared with Laundrie until late August 2021 but it wasn’t until two days after her mother reported her missing on September 11 that the case began to make waves on social media. The first platform on which the news circulated was TikTok, a video-sharing app that allows users to create and share videos of between 15 seconds to 10 minutes in length. Comedian Paris Campbell posted a video on September 13, sharing a missing person’s poster she’d seen in an article. The video shows Campbell superimposed over an image of the missing person’s poster asking viewers to pay attention to the poster and share on their networks. Campbell suggests at the beginning of the video that there is more to this than a simple missing person, explaining to viewers that Laundrie had returned home after Petito went missing. Multiple images from news websites and Instagram appear in the video as Campbell begins to outline some of the “weird” occurrences surrounding Petito going missing, like Petito disappearing from social media, Laundrie’s Instagram moving from featuring images of the couple to images of himself alone, and Petito’s mother receiving a text message which had not been verified as being sent by Petito. Campbell ends the video saying, “this whole thing just seems really bad”. Campbell initially posted the video because there was nothing on TikTok about it and she wanted to “spread accurate information” (quoted in Lucas 2021) but the form her content took reflects the forensic analysis afforded by TikTok as a platform (Aguilar et al. 2021). Among the app’s features is the ability to “green screen” i.e. display an image or GIF as a background on the video while the creator themselves appear in front of it. Campbell makes use of this in the second video she posts about the case. She opens the video by recapping the stops that Petito and Laundrie took on their journey and highlighting various photos from both Petito and Laundrie’s Instagram accounts. Later in the video she focuses on several of these images, pointing out that in the photos posted of Petito and Laundrie, Laundrie can be seen wearing a necklace. In the photos posted after Petitio goes missing the necklace also disappears. Campbell also examines some of the photos posted of Petito, highlighting two images in particular which – she speculates – point to the photos being taken on dates other than those suggested by the date the photos were posted on Instagram. 880 comments were posted to Campbell’s video, with users speculating on the topics she raised. One comment read “Also her last 2 [Instagram] photos are the only 2 without locations attached” while another stated “You’ll also notice her latest photo she has henna on her hand from February so the photo

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does not line up with it being current, her new photo is old”. These comments, and others like them, point to the level of detailed analysis TikTok users were putting into content posted on other platforms. The analysis of Petito’s Instagram captions points out that they were normally much longer than in the final photo posted to her account and that they generally included hashtags. This fueled speculation that Petito was not the person posting those images online. As Campbell posted updates about the case others also began to do the same. True crime podcaster Haley Toumaian was another TikToker drawn to the case. Like Campbell she made use of the green screen function, but she also encouraged her followers to speculate in the comments to her videos and responded to these by creating new videos that linked to the original comment. Toumaian posted several videos a day providing updates to the case as well as offering her own thoughts. Two of these, posted on 16 September, offer an analysis of Petito’s Spotify playlist. She opens by referring to speculation about “haunting” songs added to the playlist on September 1, the day after the last text to Petito’s mother (Campbell 2021a). One of the songs people focused on was Matt Berry’s “Woman”, the lyrics of which Toumaian reads out. Although Toumaian notes that she is not sure how meaningful the additions to the playlist were, the second video responds to a comment that if Petito did not have cell service she would not have been able to add the songs to the playlist. Toumaian also shares a photo of a post she was sent on Instagram talking about the songs and sharing the lyrics to the first song on the playlist which, the author says, “might be something” (Campbell 2021b). These practices reflect what we have already seen with other true crime podcasts and documentaries – fans engage with the text to find clues, use digital resources to look into real word locations or artifacts and suggest alternative theories. However, the main different between the Petito case and that of, say, Making A Murderer is that these fan activities were taking place in real time. Mittell’s description of “a hyper-attentive mode of spectatorship” that requires viewers “to embrace a detective mentality, seeking out clues, charting patterns, and assembling evidence into narrative hypotheses and theories” (2007) certainly applies to both texts despite the fact they are not fictional; although, in the case of Steven Avery, the goal was to establish the “truth” of what happened and ensure justice was actually served. In the Petito case, the goal was to find Gabby alive. Yet social media users also attempted to assemble a narrative of the days leading up to Petito’s disappearance as further information was released. The Petito case was therefore treated like an evolving narrative, the storyline changing with each new update – whether that came from news sources or from other social media users. These websleuths also used a variety of additional digital tools including geotags from the couple’s Instagram posts, information from AllTrails, an app which allows users to track their outdoor activities, and Pinterest account activity to draw up a timeline of events and speculate as to what had happened. On 17 September 2021

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Miranda Baker posted a video to TikTok telling viewers that she and her boyfriend had picked up Laundrie in Grand Teton National Park on August 29. Laundrie asked for a ride to Jackson, before getting out of the car at the Jackson dam. Two days later Jessica Schutz uploaded a video claiming she saw Laundrie, who appeared to be alone, parking the van at Spread Creek on August 26, and remaining there until the 29th. Jenn and Kyle Bethune, who were travelling across the US in their van, also posted a YouTube video on 19 September featuring what they believed to be Petito’s van. In a comment below the video they described the social media activity that prompted them to examine their footage: Today I got a comment from someone on Instagram saying “please tell your 10k followers about finding gabby!” […] Tonight, I was editing our Sunday video and it was of our August 27th footage. […] I opened Facebook and saw that @fettisonthemove had tagged me in a story asking me to check all my videos from the 25th27th of August. I INSTANTLY got a bone chilling feeling. I leapt up and ran to my laptop. I watched the rest of my footage and sure enough, her van was in the video. […] The reason why I am sharing this, is because when we left to go up to the gravel lot, we got a message from someone on Instagram saying they saw us drive through the Spread Creek Area and are now following us, watching our videos. We have our logo on the back of the bus with social media stickers. (Red White and Bethune 2021) The YouTube video was thus both a result of forensic fandom and an exhortation for others to engage in similar practices to establish a timeline of events and help investigators find Petito.

Narrative Storytelling and Trial by TikTok Like a fictional narrative, a villain also emerged. Petito’s fiancé had returned from the trip alone on 1 September and as further details of the investigation were released social media users became increasingly suspicious. Several comments on Campbell’s second TikTok video suggested that the necklace Laundrie was wearing was missing because Petito had grabbed it when he killed her: “I wonder if he pushed her from a high place and she reached out for help and grabbed his necklace as she fell:( I hate to put that out there but”; “Necklace was m*rder weapon and disposed of … thats my guess”. Others suspected Laundrie of doing something to Petito because of his reluctance to talk to the police. On September 19 a body was found in

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Grand Teton National Park, near the campsite referred to in the Bethune’s video, and was confirmed to be that of Petito the following day – the same day the FBI executed a search warrant on the Laundrie home. If, as I suggest, we view these events in the context of other fandoms we can see how the piecing together of information encourages particular responses. In Philipp Dominik Keidl’s work on fan responses to the documentary Finding Neverland he argues that the films fans produced are expanded versions of Mittell’s concept: “a specific research perspective and mode of textual production working with a variety of evidence to convince viewers of [Michael] Jackson’s innocence” (2022, 1,109). To the contrary, in the case of Petito, responses on social media asserted Laundrie’s guilt. The release of body cam footage from police responding to a 911 call on August 12 resulted in social media analyses of the footage for clues into Petito’s state of mind as well as discussions about domestic abuse, gaslighting and coercive control. On 16 September Toumaian posted three TikTok videos analyzing the footage (2021c, 2021d, 2021e). Petito, visibly upset, explains to the police that she has OCD and can sometimes get “really mean”. When asking Laundrie about the scratches on his face, Laundrie explains it was because Petito was holding her cell phone which is why Laundrie was trying to push her away. The police officer then asks about a mark on Laundrie’s hand, which he explains was caused by a wire. Toumaian pauses the footage and talks about her own OCD and the strain she knows it can cause in a relationship, expressing sympathy for Petito. She also discusses information provided in the police report but not featured in the video about Petito noticing the sirens behind them and trying to get Laundrie to pull over. The second video shows footage of Petito in the back of a police car while an officer asks her if she intended to harm Laundrie. Toumaian again analyses the video, explaining that the police were attempting to understand if domestic violence was taking place. She argues that Petito is not her “normal self” in the footage but that officers “could not do much more” at that point. In the third video she offers her opinion that neither Petito nor Laundrie were afraid to get physical with each other and she could imagine a similar argument taking place at the edge of a cliff and an accident occurring. Scores of comments to the videos offer users’ own experiences of abuse, with many highlighting aspects of Petito’s demeanor, language, or expression they could relate to. Several of the comments to the second video, however, refer to another murder which had taken place in Moab shortly after the police had stopped Petito and Laundrie: “Okay here’s my thinking … she didn’t scratch him. I really feel like he did something to those girls, she was unaware but seen [sic] the scratch”. The girls referred to in the comment were Kylen Schulte and Crystal Turner who were found on 18 August, after having complained to friends that “a man they described as a “weirdo” and a “creep” had been camping nearby” (Kilander 2022). True crime YouTuber Joseph Morris posted a video providing “evidence” that Laundrie was the serial killer responsible for the deaths (2022). Drawing on

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newspaper reports he shows in the video, Morris posits that Laundrie and Petito had an argument outside the Moonflower Community Cooperative where Schulte worked. He suggests that Laundrie murdered Schulte and Turner because they had witnessed the argument with Petito, backed up by the fact that a set of tags, rumored to be membership tags for a gym, were found near the bodies and a deleted photo from Laundrie’s Instagram shows him at a rock-climbing center. Various commentors offered their own thoughts about the theory, agreeing that Laundrie had killed Schulte and Turner and then killed Petito when she discovered the crime. This approach to Laundrie clearly demonstrated social media users searching for information, consuming related content, sharing and discussing the case with other users and, in some cases, generating content of their own. The Laundrie family’s refusal to speak to Petito’s parents and the news that Laundrie had apparently gone “on the run” on September 18 further added to speculation that he was responsible for Petito’s disappearance, and brought scrutiny to his wider family. Campbell (2021c) posted a TikTok video providing some new information gathered from the FBI search warrant, to which commentors responded with their belief that his parents were helping: His parents are in on it Yes, they knew. Their [sic] the ones that told him to come home. All three of them will go to jail … 100000% I hope they get charged Absolutely! They are now co-conspirators. They better get arrested & charged. “Aiding and abedding” [sic] and potentially “accessory after the fact” This approach to creating a coherent narrative reflects similar features and concerns found in fans engaging in forensic fandom for their favorite show. Mittell argues that “unity is less of an absolute quality of the text than an ideal to be anticipated and perceived – viewers watch Lost with a mind toward the totality of the series, working to assemble each segment into a unified narrative that will not be fulfilled for years to come” (2007). Those following the Petito case were piecing together what they thought had happened based on information that had already been released and their knowledge of other domestic violence cases. Mittell writes that “As the series unfolds, fans judge each episode in large part against their own notions of the show’s whole, and frequently rework their assumptions about this whole in light of new narrative twists and storytelling strategies” (2007). Although non-fiction, the updates about the Petito case had been released in almost episodic instalments, with some pieces of information released weeks after the incidents forcing those following to revise their assumptions. While not storytelling assumptions as such, a narrative still

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formed which users could use to make sense of the case and predict the outcome. Indeed, Campbell posted a video on 20 October in which she says “I understand that you guys are seeing some comparisons between today’s event and the show You from Netflix. You guys I have not seen the end of the season, please stop” (Campbell 2021d). These comparisons were made by several TikTokers, but early comments on TikTok videos by a range of creators had also referred to true crime documentaries and suggested that this case would also appear on Netflix, suggesting the lines between fictional texts, historic true crime and the Petito case were blurred.

The Darker Side of True Crime Fandom Of course, there were criticisms of the social media coverage of the Petito case from early on. True crime can be a controversial genre, with discussions about the ethics of turning real life events into entertainment taking place in much of its recent history (Bolin 2018; Russell 2022). There are also scores of news articles that examine the ethics of true crime in ways that differ when we consider fictional narratives of serial killings, murder and other crimes (Foreman 2021; Kemp-Jackson 2021). Abbie Richards, who researches misinformation and disinformation, pointed out on Twitter that there are serious ethical and moral issues that should be considered in speculating on the events in an ongoing investigation (2021). Jessica Dean, whose younger brother was friends with the girls convicted in the Slender Man stabbing in 2014, also criticized the obsession with true crime, and Petito in particular, in a video posted to TikTok. Discussing the “tremendous insensitivity” of social media she says: A lot of videos would start with things, like, ‘Omg, guys, we are watching a true crime episode unfold in real life,’ or people saying, ‘I can’t wait to be a part of the Netflix documentary. Someone should get the movie rights to this before someone else does.’ (quoted in Chen 2021) These concerns are valid ones and speak to some of the problems I referred to earlier in this chapter about using the terms “fan” and “forensic fandom” in discussing emerging, real-life cases. However, there are other issues raised in the coverage of Gabby Petito and reflected in fan communities at large. I noted at the start of this chapter that of the 521,705 people reported missing in the United States in 2021, 148,950 were white women. Of the remaining missing women, 99,413 were women of color: 5,203 Asian; 89,020 Black; and 5,203 Indian (for 9,022 their race was unknown). Yet media coverage of missing people has disproportionately favored white women. Kristen Gilchrist (2010), comparing press coverage of missing Aboriginal and White women in Canada, found that the Aboriginal women received three and a half times less coverage while Tracey Everbach (2013)

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noted that white victims are disproportionately represented in the media even though people of color are overrepresented in their risk for becoming a missing person. Indeed, Everbach has pointed out that while several cases of missing white women “received intense media coverage (and later, Lifetime network movie portrayals), several women of color who disappeared received little to no coverage” (2013, 21). This Missing White Women Syndrome seemed particularly evident in the Petito case, not least when it emerged that five other bodies had been discovered during the search for Petito and Laundrie, including Josue Calderon and Lauren Cho (Hurley 2021). The Wyoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force also published a report stating that at least 710 indigenous people had vanished between 2011 and 2020 but media portrayals differed between indigenous and white people: White people were more likely to have an article written while they were still missing (76% of articles on White missing people, compared to 42% of articles on Indigenous missing people). Indigenous people were more likely to have an article written about them being missing only after they were found dead (57% of articles about Indigenous missing people, compared to 0% of articles about White missing people). (Wyoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force 2021, 23) The report additionally found that depictions of indigenous people in the press were more likely to be negative, reflecting the fact that people of color are more likely to be portrayed as perpetrators of crime in news stories than white people (Sommers 2016). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva argues that “racial grammar” “normalizes the standards of white supremacy as the standards for all sorts of everyday transactions” (2012, 174) including the whitewashing of parts in film and television, and the under-representation of minority female victims of crime. I would argue that this occurs within true crime fandom, despite the opportunities for podcasts and documentaries to address miscarriages of justice and advocate for political and social change. While Tanya Horeck notes that some comments on the Making A Murderer trailer “take a critical stance on the whiteness of the Netflix blockbuster by noting the corresponding lack of hit true crime shows featuring black people” (2019, 109) she nevertheless points out that “it is deeply significant that the most talked about twenty-first-century mainstream true crime series to date should center so emphatically on white people” (2019, 155). Even the new, feminist, forms of true crime storytelling such as the podcast My Favorite Murder fall down when it comes to true intersectionality. Stella M. Gaynor, in her chapter in this collection, argues that My Favorite Murder offers a “female led discourse around victims and serial killers”, giving voices to women who previously did not have one. However, as Scaachi Koul points

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out, “Like a lot of true crime, MFM still struggles to broach stories that aren’t specifically about white women (like so many of the white women who make up their Facebook fanbase)” (2017). Indeed, the podcast came under fire for selling merchandise featuring teepees, which some fans considered inappropriate given the disproportionate rate of, and coverage given to, indigenous women being murdered. Coupled with this was a racist story posted to the Facebook group in August 2018 which ultimately led to the group being closed down. As Kat Harding notes People of color and American Indians spent countless hours trying to explain why pointing out racism mattered. White fans, angry that their entertainment—murder—had been sullied with real-life problems begged people to get over it and move on. Admins started blocking people speaking up about racism in the group. Hardstark liked inflammatory comments from people on Instagram, called others “dummies,” blocked them, and deleted negative comments. (2018) In addition to the myriad Facebook support groups Gaynor refers to, fans, and former fans, of My Favorite Murder also set up groups to try and offer a space for a wider discussion about intersectionality in true crime, much as many social media users uploaded their own videos and podcasts about the Petito case. The array of platforms and apps allow for a range of fans to produce and distribute their own content on a range of true crime cases, encouraging discussion, engagement and participation in forensic fandom.

Conclusion Laundrie’s remains were discovered in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on 20 October 2021 near a backpack, revolver, and a notebook in which he confessed to killing Petito. The contents of the notebook were released in June 2022 and were dissected on social media. I noted earlier the role that narrative plays in forensic fandom of fictional texts, and it appeared as though Laundrie was constructing his own story to explain Petito’s murder. He wrote that Petito had slipped and fallen into a stream, hitting her head on the way down. She began lapsing in and out of consciousness and asking for an end to the pain. The killing as Laundrie describes it was an act of mercy, but his confession instead reads much like the plot of a soap opera: the darkness closing in, him stumbling as he attempted to carry her, spooning her next to the fire he built. Even the way he writes is reminiscent of a narrative rather than a factual account of what happened. Given true crime fandom treated the case like a narrative to be solved it is perhaps not surprising that Laundrie contributed to this: he knew he was wanted for questioning and was likely aware of the discussions taking place across the news and on social media. Yet is it also not surprising that some who had followed the case did not believe this was

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how it ended. Despite the remains being confirmed as Laundrie’s, suspicions were nevertheless aired that it was an elaborate hoax and he was still alive, having been aided by his parents. I have demonstrated throughout this chapter that forensic fandom applies to non-fictional texts as much as it does to complex serial narratives. The realtime analysis of Petito and Laundrie’s social media accounts and the investigations into their movements can be framed as citizen investigation, even while it displays the same kinds of behavior as forensic fandom. Yet this blurring of the lines between websleuthing and fandom, and the increasing treatment of the case as a fictional narrative puts true crime fandom on the cusp of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Indeed, the conjecture after Petito’s body had been discovered, and the speculation about what “really” happened to Laundrie, move it more firmly into the “obsessive fan” camp, and turn what is fundamentally a case of murder as a result of domestic violence into a form of entertainment. The affordances of platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube make it much easier for users to create and share their own content, analyze that of others and create communities that blur the boundaries between engaged fandom and citizen investigation, as well as raising questions about what it means to be a concerned citizen, a content creator, and a true crime fan. Social media has created an environment where real-time investigations can and do take place on a global rather than local scale and these investigations mimic the practices and behaviors of forensic fandom. However, the ethical, social and psychological impacts of these need to be explored more deeply, rather than simply being written off as “obsessive fans” or “true crime fanatics”.

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Kemp-Jackson, Samantha. 2021. “True crime as entertainment is a disturbing trend.” Medium, 12 February. https://medium.com/life-unvarnished/true-crimeas-entertainment-is-a-disturbing-trend-c2c8a1a16691 Kilander, Gustaf. 2022. “Persons of interest identified in Moab double murder but Brian Laundrie ruled out as suspect.” The Independent, 24 January. https://www. independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/murder-kylen-schulte-crystalturner-b1999611.html Koul, Scaachi. 2017. “Being ‘Polite’ often gets women killed.” BuzzFeed News, 15 February. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/whats-yourfavorite-murder Lucas, Jessica. 2021. “Meet the TikTokers fixated on the Gabby Petito case.” Input, 20 September. https://www.inputmag.com/culture/tiktok-gabby-petito-casesocial-media Mittell, Jason. 2007. “Lost in a great story”. Just TV, 23 October. https://justtv. wordpress.com/2007/10/23/lost-in-a-great-story/ Mittell, Jason. 2009a. “Sites of participation: Wiki fandom and the case of lostpedia.” Transformative Works and Cultures, 3. 10.3983/twc.2009.0118. Mittell, Jason. 2009b. “Lost in a great story: Evaluation in narrative television (and television studies).” In Reading “Lost”: Perspectives on a hit television show, edited by Roberta Pearson, 119–138. London: I. B. Tauris. Mittell, Jason. 2012. “Forensic fandom and the drillable text.” Spreadable Media, 17 December. https://spreadablemedia.org/essays/mittell/index.html Mittell, Jason. 2015. Complex TV: The poetics of contemporary television storytelling. New York: NYU Press. Morris, Joseph. 2022. “Brian laundrie murdered kylen schulte and crystal turner: Dog the bounty hunter joins.” YouTube, 3 January. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6DlZ4jhik6c Red White & Bethune. 2021. “Is this Gabby Petito’s Van caught on Youtuber’s Camera? read description.” YouTube video, 19 September. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=PBp3aNAGuFM Richards, Abbie (@abbieasr). 2021. “The way true crime turns real people’s trauma into entertainment for profit is already disgusting. But watching it unfold in real time with Gabby Petito’s case is nauseating.” Twitter post, 16 September. https:// twitter.com/abbieasr/status/1438580799603892232 Rico, Andrew Ryan. 2015. “Fans of columbine shooters eric harris and dylan klebold.” Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 20. 10.3983/twc.2015.0671. Russell, Calum. 2022. “Why we have to stop the ‘true crime’ obsession.” Far Out, 24 April. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/problem-with-true-crime-content/ Sommers, Zach. 2016. “Missing white woman syndrome: An empirical analysis of race and gender disparities in online news coverage of missing persons.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 106: 275–314. Stratton, Gregory. 2019. “Wrongful conviction, pop culture, and achieving justice in the digital age.” In Crime, Deviance and Popular Culture International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Dimitris Akrivos and Alexandros K. Antonioupp, 177–201. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Toumaian, Haley (@robandhaley). 2021a. “Gabby Petito spotify playlist.” TikTok Video, 16 September. https://www.tiktok.com/@robandhaley/video/7008541347569323269

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Toumaian, Haley (@robandhaley). 2021b. “Spotify playlist part 2.” TikTok Video, 16 September. https://www.tiktok.com/@robandhaley/video/7008541347569323269 Toumaian, Haley (@robandhaley). 2021c. “Body came footage.” TikTok Video, 16 September. https://www.tiktok.com/@robandhaley/video/7008531518503128326 Toumaian, Haley (@robandhaley). 2021d. “Gabby petito body cam footage part 2.” TikTok Video, 16 September. https://www.tiktok.com/@robandhaley/video/ 7008534817058966790 Toumaian, Haley (@robandhaley). 2021e. “Extended body cam footage.” TikTok Video, 16 September. https://www.tiktok.com/@robandhaley/video/7008652306421943557 Wyoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Task Force. n.d. “Missing and murdered indigenous people statewide report wyoming.” Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center. Accessed 11 September 2022. https://wysac.uwyo.edu/wysac/ reports/View/7713 Yardley, Elizabeth, David Wilson, and Morag Kennedy. 2017. “‘TO ME ITS [SIC] REAL LIFE’: Secondary victims of homicide in newer media.” Victims & Offenders, 12(3): 467–496. Yardley, Elizabeth, Adam George Thomas Lynes, David Wilson, and Emma Kelly. 2018. “What’s the deal with ‘websleuthing’? News media representations of amateur detectives in networked spaces.” Crime, Media, Culture, 14(1): 81–109.

11 “What Else Can I Add?”: Inverting the Narrative through Female Perspectives in Falling for A Killer, My Favorite Murder, and Murder, Mystery & Make Up Stella Marie Gaynor Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication at Liverpool John Moores University, UK

His name, his actions, and his trial and execution are synonymous with popular true crime. His story has been told and retold, imbuing him with almost superhuman qualities. In asking “what else can I add?” Bailey Sarian succinctly sums up at the start of her retelling of the much-requested Ted Bundy case that there is seemingly nothing more to contribute to the myriad accounts of Bundy. Around 2019, there was a surge of interest in the case, driven in part by two texts from Joe Berlinger: a four-part documentary on Netflix, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and a film starring Zack Efron as Bundy, in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile and Evil, both released in January 2019, marking 30 years since Bundy was executed at Florida State Prison in January 1989. Aside from these two offerings from Berlinger, the Bundy story has been told over and over again, by men.1 Troublingly, in these previous Bundy texts, he is presented as handsome and clever, heroic and iconic. As Jean Murley notes, Bundy as a “primal socio-psychopathic American icon [has been] granted the kind of cultural capital usually given to celebrities” (Murley 2008). In Conversations with a Killer, Bundy is suggested as an awe-inspiring character, so smart he was able to outwit the police and detectives time and time again. By holding Bundy up in this way, those tasked to find him and those who failed to keep hold of him (Bundy escaped twice) maintain their authoritative and folk hero status (Gaynor 2022). Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked takes great pains to show us how handsome Bundy was, with scene after scene depicting women swooning and smiling at Bundy (Zack Efron) as he goes about his business. In this film, Bundy is a rogue who is only finally shown to be the monster he was, when he writes the word HACKSAW in the dirty glass that separates him and Elizabeth Kendall (Lily Collins) in the final days of his life on Death Row; this is done in response to Elizabeth’s request to know what happened to the head

DOI: 10.4324/9781003225638-12

“What Else Can I Add?” 181 of a victim. Only in this tiny moment, in the closing minutes of the film, does Berlinger present the monstrous Ted, and not the handsome, plucky, lovable rogue that the previous ninety minutes have given us. All of this adoration for Bundy is given reason by David Schmid, as he notes that “the only way they [filmmakers, directors] can get around the problem of Bundy’s ordinariness is to assume the presence of the extraordinary […] comforted by the thought that Bundy’s apparent normality is just that, an apparition, with no stability next to the reliable solidarity of the monster” (Schmid 2006). Such a persistent fascination with Bundy is, as David Foster Williams states, part of our “lengthy interactions with hideous men” (quoted in Mittell 2004), and these narratives about Bundy and other murderers “are shaped by the means of their production” (Murley 2008). In response to these presentations, this chapter explores what happens when this story is told by women, examining three very different media texts which all engage with the Bundy tale, and explores three different emotional responses to the story. Where previous telling’s of Bundy are told by men and from Bundy’s perspective,2 the three case studies chosen here are told by women – women who were directly involved, or telling the story from a women’s perspective. According to a report from Los Angeles Community Policing in 2010, of the 1,398 known victims of serial killers since 1985, 70% are women. In addition, “women are fuelling the genre’s [true crime] renaissance, in terms of being disproportionately the victims of crimes and the consumers of their retellings” (Levy 2020). Laura Browder notes that in a poll which asked publishers, true crime writers and bookstore owners, “two-thirds to three-quarters of the readers […] are women” (Browder 2006). With that in mind, this chapter unpacks what happens and what is added to this well-known tale of Ted Bundy when women tell it: A live recording of the My Favorite Murder podcast in 2017 hosted by Karen Kilgraff and Georgia Hardstark; a five-part series on Amazon Prime directed by Trish Wood titled Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer (2020) which interviews Bundy’s long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Kendall and her daughter Molly alongside a raft of women involved – survivors, victims’ families, women who knew Ted; and an episode from Bailey Sarian’s Murder, Mystery & Make Up series on YouTube, “1 of America’s Most Notorious, Ted Bundy” (2020). These female-led narratives present an inversion of the story, adding the female perspective, giving space to previously unheard voices, taking Bundy’s power away and giving autonomy and identity back to the women whose lives he destroyed. As a reviewer on Letterboxd noted about Falling for a Killer, “what good is a crime documentary if it is made by someone who has never held their keys like a weapon when walking home?” (Raine 2020).

My Favorite Murder Launching in 2016, My Favorite Murder is a weekly podcast hosted by Karen Kilgraff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week the hosts take turns to

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tell the other about a particular, or favourite murder. As one tells, the other listens and reacts, and both frequently go off on tangents about anything and everything that takes their fancy. Although a true crime podcast, My Favorite Murder (MFM) also sits firmly in the comedy genre, with both hosts having strong backgrounds in comedy3 and stand up. The podcast has legions of fans who call themselves “Murderinos,” and the show has given birth to many a catchphrase, including “Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered,” and the fantastically useful “Fuck Politeness.” Taking their podcast out on the road for live shows, in 2017 MFM played The Neptune Theatre in Seattle, located in the University District – where Bundy attacked and abducted a number of victims. After Hardstark tells her story about Mia Zapata,4 Kilgraff knows she will not fail to beat that tale, as she announces “I’m doing Ted Bundy,” and the crowd in The Neptune scream and roar to this announcement of the telling of the tale of, as Kilgraff describes, their “hometown super-monster.” In this live recording, and in all of the MFM episodes, there is very little artifice. We hear the hosts and the crowd; we hear the echo on the mic as it reverberates around the theatre. The audience are very involved, and the cheering continues from these Seattle locals as known place names and locations are read out by Killgraff during the retelling. Like the prerecorded MFM podcast episodes, the show is imperfect, and “not overly edited, Karen and Georgia emote, stumble, divulge and get side-tracked just like any normal conversation” (Quill Podcasting 2020). The only difference with this recording is, at The Neptune, the hosts are in conversation with the crowd as well as each other. We hear the emotional reaction to the story details, emotions which for Seattle residents are still raw. I do not want this chapter to be yet another retelling of Bundy’s crimes, so I will leave out the detail of what he did, but as Kilgraff reads off her written list of crimes committed, this act reveals its complicity in the oft-cited troublesome ethics of true crime consumption. Being an aural telling, an imaginative “reconstruction of gruesome murders […] forces the listener [or crowd member] to acknowledge their own complicity with the propagation of the details” (Greer 2018). This is unpacked on stage as crowd members cheer and clap during various moments of the recounting, and the MFM hosts comment “don’t cheer that,” as Woodrow Wilson High School gets a cheer, as does The University of Washington when these places are cited alongside the women who were abducted at these locations. The crowd cheers at local addresses, and then react with emotive gasps and exclamations of horror at the murder descriptions. Cheering is a reactive and positive response of loud shouting from a crowd as they show their approval, or to encourage a person who is engaged in an activity. There is cheering for Kilgraff as she announces she is doing Bundy, encouraging her to tell the tale, which is then followed by further cheering for locations of abductions. The crowd are loudly complicit in their want to hear this horrible story, but the recognition of it happening in locations that are familiar, personalises the

“What Else Can I Add?” 183 retelling of the Bundy story to them with the recognition and intimacy of knowing both the places and the story so well. While the cheering for the story and the locations seems problematic or in poor taste, it shifts the meaning of the mention of the victims. Instead of the murdered female body being a site that only exists to give evidence about and point to the male killer, rendered a site of only “information and knowledge” (Greer 2018), here there is an affective emotional reaction to the descriptions of the women and what was done to them. Affect theory places emphasis on the emotional effects that are instigated within the receiver, exploring the typical or in this case, the atypical responses. The cheers that the hosts comment on as being illogical – “don’t cheer that” – might be read as inappropriate affect. However, the aural affect heard on the recording is in response to revulsion and horror at Bundy’s actions, and in sympathy and empathy for victims and families. For example, affective responses of sympathy, compassion, and condolences for the family can all be detected when Melissa Smith’s name is read out as victim and daughter of the Salt Lake City Police Chief; there is a clear burst of empathy for her father, which is heard from both Hardstark and the crowd, adding an empathy for the trauma felt by those directly involved, offering a sense of communal commiseration and a collective therapy session, as hosts and audience work through the traumatic elements of the story via affective emotional response. This emotional response to the tale is also juxtaposed with tearing Bundy down through comedic mocking of his actions, words, behaviour, and failures. While “the images flicker in and out the mind” (Greer 2018), this is combined with the feelgood, giving “positive and negative affect” (Horecks 2019) in the combination of humour and horror as presented by the MFM hosts. “Some Amazing Sweaters” While recounting the Bundy story once again and to a very appreciative Pacific Northwest crowd might seem like an obvious crowd-pleasing tactic, a podcast either via digital download or live show, by its very nature demands high levels of listener/audience engagement. A podcast listener needs to find and choose which podcast to listen to and when to play it, or to buy a ticket and go see this podcast live. The listener, or audience member, wants to hear a true crime story be told in this particular way. MFM is as said, a true crime comedy podcast, and it is through the lens of female led comedy that Bundy is torn down and stripped of his power. Comedy has the capacity to address serious social issues, and as comedian Wanda Sykes says, can speak “up for people who don’t have a voice” (Sykes, in Willett and Willett 2019). Humour and comedy gigs are means of fun, but they are also ways to explore and get to the very “guts of an issue,” which here is the pointing to the continuing endemic violence and rage against women.

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Kilgraff and Hardstark are relentless in their mocking of Bundy, pulling away all the extraordinary attributes that have been given to this very ordinary yet disgusting man. As Kilgraff recounts Bundy’s first girlfriend, Stephanie Brooks (a pseudonym) dumping him for lacking ambition, Kilgraff does a scathing impression of Bundy telling Brooks that he appreciates her candour and honesty – a cutting remark that explicitly calls out Bundy as a snivelling loser who could not cope with being rejected. The tale continues as Bundy joins the Republican party, to much booing from the crowd, and Bundy’s 1970s style is mocked with Kilgraff’s searing sarcasm regarding his “amazing sweaters.” The hosts mock his fake British accent, and when the re-telling arrives at the attempted abduction of Carole DaRonch, including her incredible escape after fighting back, the crowd goes wild as Kilgraff yells that DaRonch “escapes from fuckin’ Ted Bundy!” Hardstark supports the roaring crowd with “Fuck yes, Carole!” In this moment, the story is told from a place of identification and incredible affection for the victim, DaRonch, rather than identifying with the killer. In an interview with Elle magazine, Kilgraff said “the actual storytelling has been historically male dominated […] we usually listen to men tell us how it went” (Dibdin 2021). In this moment of joy that DaRonch escaped with such bravery and fight, the emotion from the hosts and the crowd is palpable in the aural recording of the live show. As a listener, I cannot see their faces, I cannot see their arms punching the air in support of DaRonch, but I can hear it, and I can feel the contempt for Bundy. More Than a Chalk Outline In adding empathy to the story, Kilgraff and Hardstark recast the victims as real people. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Kilgraff explained that these women are so much more than “chalk outline plot devices” and they deserved so much better (Fitzpatrick 2017). In recasting the victims as real people and not just sites of information for the (usually) male detectives to understand more about the (usually) male killers, Kilgraff and Hardstark are giving bodily control back to the victims, and women more generally. The women who have been murdered lost their control says Hardstark, “because some fucking guy feels like he has the authority to take her life” (Fitzpatrick 2017). This anger and incredulity towards the actions of such killers, which is then mirrored in the crowd’s reactions and the millions of downloads of MFM, speak to the shifting sands in the way that these stories are told. The podcast offers opportunities for social activism through

“What Else Can I Add?” 185 structured interactivity between the producers and the listeners, and the relationship between the content, the consumer, and the fan communities that build up around them, communities built on a shared empathy. Murderinos have self-created a range of support groups, away from any direct input from Kilgraff and Hardstark. These groups support each other around issues of sexual abuse, domestic abuse or even financial hardship. In short, what MFM and its fans add to the story of Ted Bundy, is mutual support and understanding in spaces away from the “masculine detective gaze” (Greer 2018) and the until now prevailing male dominating voice. Earlier I mentioned catchphrases that have evolved out of MFM. “Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered” closes the show and neatly “encapsulates the central premise that talking (and joking) about murder helps to ward off anxieties about violence” (Horecks 2019). I would elaborate on how Horecks reads the phrase, by exploring how the “Stay Sexy” element also projects an interesting point regarding post-feminist rhetoric around the pride in female beauty and control on how women are perceived. This is not to say that I think that MFM subscribes to any specific post-feminist framework, but I do think that there is a recognition of the idiosyncrasies of post-feminism, and the cult-like nature of the fandom around the show. There is a certain element of “being in the know’ with regards to MFM and Murderino culture. From the outside, “Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered” might be construed as putting the onus of survival on the woman. But for those inside the circle, in the cult fandom, these phrases become an identifying marker of audience participation which sees Murderinos taking charge of their bodies, how they think about them, and how their anxieties and even past experiences can be supported by each other. This identifying marker even more so in “Fuck Politeness,” encapsulates the deep-seated anger towards women being expected to be quiet and attentive. MFM and the Murderinos are crucial to the changing attitudes towards those that inflict violence and those that experience it. No longer do victims need to feel shame, or keep quiet. Women are speaking out and mocking those that cause trauma, and women are having their story heard in a space away from male dominated legacy media, with a comedic and cathartic emotional response which creates community, empathy, sympathy and support. These progressive and constructive additions are the drivers of this retelling of the Bundy story.

Falling for a Killer As mentioned, 2019 saw two high-profile screen works telling the Bundy story, and both by Joe Berlinger. Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile and Evil. While Conversations does in passing suggest Bundy was a monster, the four-part documentary for the most part expounds on Bundy the genius, Bundy the chameleon, and leaves the reputation of the authorities intact. Extremely

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Wicked paints Bundy as an almost impossibly handsome scamp, and was supposed to be telling the story through the eyes of Elizabeth Kendall, his long-time girlfriend. It should be noted that Kendall stated in her own account of her relationship with Bundy, that “there had been no book option,” despite “her story” being told in a new Bundy movie. Kendall was stunned, she writes, “how could they tell my story without ever speaking with me?” (Kendall 2020). In her book, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy5 (originally published in 1981, and then updated in 2020), Kendall explains that it was time to tell the story as she and her daughter Molly experienced it, through a documentary directed by Trish Wood. Kendall states that she was interested in this project because “of its emphasis on the viewpoints of many of the women involved in this tragic story” (Kendall, 2020), and not the sensationalising of the horrific murders, or the placing of Bundy on a celebrity pedestal, or the convenient omittance of the multiple mistakes made by the authorities.6 Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer was released as a full season drop on Amazon Prime in January 2020, telling the story from the perspective of Elizabeth Kendall, her daughter, Molly, and a host of other women including: Dr Donna Schram (psychiatrist who knew Bundy); Barbera Winslow (University of Washington Radical Women Group); Py Bateman (self-defence tutor), Jane Caputi (feminist scholar), Joanne Testa (friend of Lynda Healy); Phyllis Armstrong (friend of Georgeann Hawkins); Ginger Strand (author); Karen Sparks Epley (survivor); Karen Skevlam (housemate of Lynda Healy); Cheryl Martin (Washington State Police); Kathleen McChesney (detective); Jody Zimmerman and Vivian Winters (sister and mother of Susan Rancourt); Barbera Grossman (TV reporter); Carole DaRonch (survivor); Raelynne Shepherd (teacher at Debi Kent’s school); Diana Smith (friend of Carol Boone); Polly Nelson (lawyer). Focusing on so many stories from the female perspective works to undermine the mythos surrounding Bundy, “shattering your fascination for the man, shocking you with the ugly truth that media usually chooses to ignore” (Datta 2020). In agreement, The Daily Dot when reviewing Falling for a Killer said “we see him for everything he was: bullshit artist, molester, rapist, and killer. No time is wasted trying to humanise him. Bundy is shown as the wolf in sheep’s clothing he was” (Bond 2020). Falling for a Killer approaches the story from the female perspective and situates the story in its social, historical, political and cultural setting. The series describes the context of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when women were standing up for their rights, specifically beyond the domestic sphere. Second wave feminism was encouraging activism, education, and individual autonomy in terms of fertility and sexuality. It is significant that in this profound and crucial historical moment for women, Ted Bundy enacts his rage and violence. As Py Bateman states in the opening moments of episode 1 “Boy Meets Girl,” women were making all these strides and suddenly “you get walloped.” As Serba in Decider astutely notes “there’s a quietly seething sense of anger in

“What Else Can I Add?” 187 Falling for a Killer’s opening moments, and its justified” (Serba 2020). Amidst this, is the “breath of fresh air” (Datta 2020) that Falling for a Killer brings, with the first female perspective documentary on Bundy, or rather, the women that Bundy hurt. Indeed, it is a full seven minutes and fifteen seconds before a man even speaks in episode 1. It is clear from the outset that this is “THE most important Bundy documentary ever made […] for the first time, this is not Bundy’s story” (Datta 2020). As stated, his name is synonymous with true crime, with America’s “iconic” figures. And yet, not many people could name one of the victims. As Helen Archer states, “in tales of violence against women, the man traditionally takes centre stage” (Archer 2020). Falling for a Killer is Elizabeth Kendall’s story, her daughter’s story, and the story of the women affected by Bundy, and the series “offers something of a corrective to the way in which Bundy is mythological and exposes the lifelong ripple effect of grief and sorrow” (Archer 2020). Approaching the story chronologically, Falling for a Killer begins – after we have been shown the socio-political contexts of the late 1960s and early 1970s in America, with the arrival of a young Elizabeth and her daughter to Seattle, as they embark on their new life. Once in Seattle and with a new job at the University of Washington, Elizabeth meets Ted. While he settles into their family, and daughter Molly takes to him and finds him in her own words “delightful,” Ted began committing heinous crimes. The Victim’s Perspective As much as the Bundy story is well known, and as much as the victims’ names remain unknown apart from to the families and those who might be particularly interested in true crime, Falling for a Killer in addition to bringing the female perspective also brought with it a number of revelations. For the first time, Karen Sparks Epley speaks out about how she was Bundy’s first victim, and survived with multiple injuries. Director Trish Wood introduces Epley from off camera, as even those well versed in the Bundy story would not know this woman’s name. Epley states quite clearly why she has not spoken before. She wanted to have her own life, and not be a victim, and she speaks to the times in which she was attacked, when women were expected to get on with their lives and to quietly hold secret their traumas. To point back to MFM and the support groups set up by the Murderinos, this contemporary, female led discourse around victims and serial killers is constructive in its approach, by not just telling the story but giving voices to women who previously did not speak, or can no longer speak, and creating spaces for women to find support following their own traumatic experiences. In encouraging Epley and all the other women in Falling for a Killer to speak, Trish Wood told USA Today that “I thought it was time for them to have their moment” (Jenson, 2020). Falling for a Killer presents a raw and emotional response to the recounting of Elizabeth Kendall, Molly and all the other women as they tell their story.

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Their grief, guilt and sorrow are clear from the outset. In episode 1, “Boy Meets Girl,” Kendall reads an excerpt from one of the many letters that Bundy wrote to her from prison. Extolling his everlasting love for her, Kendall states that letter in particular “still gets me.” She struggles to read it without her voice wobbling, an indicator of the story to come in which from Kendall’s perspective, she was in love with a man who was a monster, and has since struggled with guilt, self-doubt and alcoholism as a result. The emotion and trauma is clearly explained by the women that speak in Falling for a Killer, as they talk of their experience, what happened to them or those they knew. Beautiful and intimate details about the victims are talked about, who they were, what they were like. The bodies of the victims – which we do not see in Falling for a Killer, only the occasional shot of a crime scene and its blood patches – rather than being emotionless sites of evidence that point to the male killer, they are instead living, breathing people in the words of those that remember them. Joanne Testa for example, recalls how she first met Lynda Healy. Phyllis Armstrong recalls how she went on trips with Georgann Hawkins. All these women who were University friends with victims recall the warm and wonderful lives that were brutally taken, and we can hear the long reaching trauma in each and every word that these women speak. These accounts contrast with MFM in the way in which community and empathy is built. In Falling for a Killer it is the presentation of the shared female experience of directly living through these events that promotes an understanding of grief and trauma. In MFM, the shared experience of hearing the story generates empathy for those that lived it, or were lost to it. Emotional Verité Stella Bruzzi (2016) wrote about the making of the true crime genre, and the codes and conventions therein. She said that these TV crime series revel in “evidence verité” in which the camera pores over crime scenes, autopsy photos, and in-court reactions. This imagery is always in intimate close-up, to heighten the affective emotional response. In Falling for a Killer, we have the same visual intimacy, as the women speaking are framed in head and shoulders close-up, but instead of the poring over crime scene or corpse imagery, the series presents emotional verité, as an extensive collection of photographs of Elizabeth, Molly and Ted in various family and domestic set ups are examined in detail. The camera slowly pans down a photograph of Elizabeth on Ted’s shoulders, a slow creep in on Ted showing a young Molly how to ride a bike, these pictures and more are intercut with Molly telling us how “we were like a family.” The early days of Ted and Elizabeth’s relationship were happy, warm, and hopeful. This emotional verité continues across the episodes. Laura Healy, younger sister of Lynda Healy who was killed in 1974, speaks over the Healy family archive of video footage, showing the young Lynda playing and interacting with her siblings and family. Stitched together in a montage, showing Lynda grow

“What Else Can I Add?” 189 up, we hear of the hopes and dreams of Lynda, her personable nature, and heartbreakingly, the loss her family felt when she was taken away from them. This emotional verité then, that Falling for a Killer presents in the real photos, the real family footage, gives a clear identity back to Lynda, and to the other women, an identity that had been stripped away by previous tellings of the Bundy story, where they were named only as victims, and described only with what Bundy did to them. Where MFM presents a comedic and cathartic response to Bundy, Falling for a Killer explores the emotion of grief. In contrast, a dispassionate response comes from Bailey Sarian, as she approaches the story from an impartial7 perspective.

Murder, Mystery and Make Up In 2018, the Chris Watts case blew up across media8 and Bailey Sarian spoke about the case on her YouTube channel. Before this, her channel was a space for make-up tutorials and reviews, delivered in Bailey’s warm and chatty style. With the Watts case, Bailey, like much of the internet, was wanting to talk about the story in all of its mind-boggling detail. So, Bailey made a video in which she discussed the case, and applied her make-up at the same time as she “felt awkward just sitting on camera talking and I wanted to keep myself busy” (Jordan 2022). With this video, the Murder, Mystery and Make Up series was born. The series was and remains highly successful, with at the time of writing, earning Bailey 6.46 million subscribers, and the video in which she tackles Ted Bundy, has 8,818,430 views. The make-up tutorial has over the life span of YouTube become a stalwart of the platform, generating many stars and millions of dollars in revenue. The make-up video is currently highly underexamined, due to its connotations of frivolity and being inherently gendered feminine (despite a number of high- and low-profile YouTube make-up content creators being male/identifying as male), and has only so far come under discussion as a marker of post-feminism, as Chae notes that the make-up tutorial upholds “empowerment of women but with (hyper)sexualisation through self-surveillance and self-monitoring” (Chae 2021). With make-up application combined with true crime in Bailey Sarian’s series, the perceived worth of such content drops even lower, both being associated with women’s media.9 Following the structure of a usual make-up video, Bailey directly addresses the camera and speaks to the viewer in a casual manner that creates a sense of intimacy. It feels like a chat with a friend, a sentiment shared by many of her followers.10 Chae further explains that this intimacy in the vlog practice is essential to the YouTube make-up guru’s popularity, whereby even though some of the more “famous beauty creators are stars [they have] the girl-next-door- image so viewers can relate to them” (Chae 2021). Like MFM, Bailey does not try to be perfect – in fact one of the things a viewer can count on is Bailey mis-pronouncing names and locations – the videos feature side notes and distractions, all of which add to the feeling of an

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intimate chat between friends. In this chat in which Bailey recounts the Bundy story, what else is she adding? ‘Suspish.’ The combination of make-up and murder appears to some as “diametrically opposed subjects” (Jordan 2022), and that this “combination of real-life horrors and make-up is one odd combination” (Go 2021). However, I would argue that these two subjects slot together perfectly, both being as they are, gendered feminine. We have already seen that the primary audience for true crime is women, and make-up (despite contemporary views on gender and cosmetics evolving to be more diverse and inclusive of men) is traditionally an activity and interest for women. After the opening moments of Bailey’s Ted Bundy video, and she has gotten the introduction and nudge to like and subscribe out of the way, she explains why she has been reluctant to cover Bundy. I get requested to do these two people the most [Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer] and for a long time, since beginning, I started this whole series, I’ve been putting off doing both of them, ‘cos I just felt like what can I add to this story, like, everything has literally been said, what else can I add? But I have to give the people what they want, and they’ve been asking for Mr Bundy. In amongst Bailey’s catchphrases – “Suspish,” and “Ney Ney” – she tells the Bundy story but keeps it simple and factual. Her approach is in contrast to MFM and Falling for a Killer, in that it is seeking to be impartial, and her emotional response is arguably dispassionate. That is not to say that Bailey is cold, rather it is that she only wants to tell the facts in her awareness of the vast amount of material already available regarding Bundy. The videos are not unlike a podcast in that the viewer has to reconstruct the visual imagery of the story in their own heads. Bailey replaces the usual supplied imagery of the violated female body that we would see on a TV documentary (such as Conversations with a Killer) with her own attractive and pretty face, applying make-up as a highly feminine act juxtaposed with the hyper-masculine violence in the story. Female bodily destruction is juxtaposed with female body celebration in the art of Bailey’s make-up application and in Bailey herself with her many colourful tattoos. Bailey is telling a story of extreme violence against women, but in her thoughtful yet temperate delivery is a resistance against the usual “visualisation of mutilated female bodies” (Greer 2018) we find in the many of the male-dominated telling’s of the story. Seltzer notes, we live in a “wound culture,” in which “the endless spectre of a series of torn and opened bodies” permeates all media. He goes on to explain that the “spectacle of the torn and open body is also the conversion of bodies into information [which renders the once] private person to public

“What Else Can I Add?” 191 spectacle” (Seltzer 1998). Bailey does not show the bodies, affording them a degree of privacy that has been previously disallowed. However, Bailey does still describe some of the murders, but the visuals she provides are either focussed on beauty or supporting factual elements. Again, as Murley (2008) notes, the means of production shapes narrative, as Bailey speaks she inserts pictures that support the facts; images of maps showing the locations of where remains were found on Taylor Mountain, or the front page of The Orlando Sentinel with its headline relating to the Chi Omega attacks. While describing the necrophilia, Bailey wipes away eyeshadow fallout. When she describes Bundy’s trophies (severed heads), she applies the perfect foundation base. At these examples of moments during the telling of extreme horror, the construction of the Murder, Mystery and MakeUp video acts in a way which speaks to contemporary media consumption habits and is very much like the practice of second screening. According to Nielson in 2022, 45% of audiences are using a second screen with the purpose of extra or added entertainment to their primary screen (Garaus and Wolfsteiner 2022), and most “use multiscreens in a manner unrelated to the [primary] content”11 (Nee and Dozier 2017). Bailey provides the primary content (the true crime story) and she also supplies what might be on a second screen (the make-up application). In watching this video, the viewer is media multitasking: They are watching the make-up application, listening to the story, and like a podcast listener, reconstructing the visuals in their own imaginations. This is significant to note as media companies are well aware of second screening, and are working hard to exploit these new habits. In providing two distinct forms of content in one place – true crime and makeup- Bailey is arguably reducing the risk of her audiences second screening by providing what contemporary viewers would seek out: two types of media content at the same time. As stated above, production shapes narrative, but it also shapes emotional affect. Across the first two case studies there is a strong thread of empathy. In Bailey’s factual account is there empathy as the horrific story is told alongside the soothing beauty of makeup application? There is, Bailey is of course empathetic for the victims. In her edit she drops in moments of herself looking down, and saying “aw jeez” at particularly troubling facts, or looking out of the frame to muse for a second on these terrible events. She delivers the facts straight to camera, but her moments of personal empathy take her gaze away as she steps out of the straight facts and into a more emotionally driven moment of thought. Victim Autonomy Bailey asks what can be added to well-worn tale of Ted Bundy? But significantly, it is what Bailey leaves out of her recounting that adds to the story. Bailey does not name the victims. She says she does not want to speak for them, that she has no permission to name them, and perhaps the most important action that Bailey takes is in not reducing these women to this one

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moment in their life. In an interview Bailey said that “I feel like I can’t speak for them unless I’m speaking to the family directly [as is done in Falling for a Killer]. They’ve lived such full lives, why be remembered for this one thing?” (Jordan 2022). By not giving their names Bailey is giving the women back their autonomy and their right to self-govern whether or not their names are used in a story which has through the mass of Bundy media, become public property. A person’s name is their identifier, with deep personal and familial connections. By not naming them, Bailey severs the connection between them and Bundy, empowering them to be their own, private people, away from his deplorable actions. When they are named in Falling for a Killer, it is by those that knew and loved them, and they are talked about and remembered for who they were, and not just as a list of women murdered by Bundy.

Conclusion This chapter explores three case studies that take away Bundy’s monstrous power, and give autonomy and identity back to the women he killed and attacked. My Favorite Murder addresses head on the perceived problematic complicity in consumption of true crime. Unpacking the live show via the consideration of emotional affect exposes a response to the telling of this well-worn story that is empathic, sympathetic, and comedic. MFM adds compassion to the story, while taking away Bundy’s power through the catharsis of comedy. MFM as a constructive and progressive podcast generates social activism, as the fans develop mutual support groups. Falling for a Killer hears directly from the women involved, a key group previously unheard from. The Bundy mythos is shattered as the real lives are presented by emotional verité in family photographs, films, and very personal testimonies. The emotional response is overwhelming grief, but Falling for a Killer strips away Bundy because this retelling is not about him, it is about the women. Bailey Sarian pushes together two perceived feminine activities: make-up and interest in true crime. Her emotional response is dispassionate as she strives to be factual and moderate in her account. The beauty of the female body is a marked resistance to the violated female body that is usually presented in Bundy media. Included in Bailey’s resistance to the usual presentation of the victims, is in her affordance of privacy to those who have otherwise become public property, by not naming the victims and reducing their lives down to one moment of violence. And lastly, Murder, Mystery and Make Up presents media multitasking in one place, inadvertently solving a major problem faced by larger media industries, speaking to contemporary viewing habits and acknowledging that modern true crime, as all these three case studies demonstrate, is more than gratuitous poring over bloodied evidence. It is creative, can be progressive, confronts grief head on, supports trauma, and most importantly, strips power away from those that are violent towards women and gives women back their voices.

“What Else Can I Add?” 193

Notes 1 The Deliberate Stranger (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1986); The Stranger Beside Me (Sandor Stern, 1995); Bundy: A Legacy of Evil (Michael Fiefer, 2009); Ted Bundy: An American Monster (Daniel Farrands, 2017); Ted Bundy: Serial Monster ( Greer, 2018); Ted Bundy: An American Bogeyman (Daniel Farrands, 2021). This is not an exhaustive list, simply a snapshot of the biopics, films, made for TV movies and series, that are by men, about Bundy. 2 We see this across many cases, for example Michael Peterson’s case as examined in The Staircase (Canal+, 2004, and Netflix from 2018). This documentary took Peterson’s side, showing much from the side of the defence, and only small parts from the prosecution. It was not until the HBO dramatization – The Staircase – in 2022, that the victim, Kathleen Peterson’s voice, was heard. 3 As well as being a TV producer and writer, Kilgraff began her career in stand up in the 1990s, and Hardstark worked on TV in various comedy guises including comedic cocktail making for the Food Network, and comedy via YouTube, before pairing up with Kilgraff to create My Favorite Murder. 4 Zapata was a singer in the Seattle punk band, The Gits. She was murdered in 1993. 5 I would encourage anyone interested in the Bundy case to read Elizabeth Kendall’s book, The Phantom Prince. 6 I am not going to go into this too much, but it is worth pointing out a moment Kendall speaks about, when after having spent a full day with a detective, showing him pictures of Ted, explaining her life with him in intimate detail, when Kendall called the detective a few days later, he had no idea who she was. These oversights, or just plain refusals to listen to Kendall and other women during Bundy’s active killing years and while in prison, allowed Bundy to commit many more murders. 7 Impartial in that Bailey is neither from Seattle, nor was she in any way involved with the events, or knew any of the victims or families. 8 Chris Watts eventually admitted to murdering his pregnant wife, Shannann Rzucek and her two children, Bella and Celeste in 2018. 9 The same thing can be observed with other types of media not getting the attention they deserve as they are perceived to be of little worth: The soap opera, reality TV. These things are fluff, and not, apparently, worthy of scholarly attention. This is of course nonsense, and they deserve as much academic attention as the latest glossy drama output from HBO or the BBC. 10 Subscriber Hailey Strait comments on the video titled “1 Of America’s Most Notorious, Ted Bundy” with “why do I feel like Baileys my friend and we’ve never met.” Amythyst replies to Strait with “I think she’d be a fantastic BFF!” 11 For example, a viewer might have the news on TV, primary content they are listening to, and at the same time be scrolling through social media on their smartphone.

Bibliography Archer, Helen. ‘True crime Tuesdays: Ted Bundy: Falling for a killer.’ Vodzilla. July 28, 2020 Bond, John-Michael. ‘Ted Bundy: Falling for a killer tells its story through the eyes of the survivors.’ Daily Dot. January 31, 2020 Browder, Laura. ‘Dystopian romance: True crime and the female reader.’ Journal of Popular Culture 39, no. 6 (2006): 928–953

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Bruzzi, Stella. ‘Making a genre: the case of the contemporary true crime documentary.’ Law and Humanities 10, no 6 (2016): 249–280 Chae, Jiyoung. ‘YouTube makeup tutorials reinforce postfeminist beliefs through social comparison.’ Media Psychology 24, no. 2 (2021): 167–189 Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (Netflix, 2019) Datta, Tejasvani. ‘Review: Ted Bundy: Falling for a killer.’ The Cinemaholic. January 30, 2020 Dibdin, Emma. 2021. ‘How the hosts of my favorite murder built a true crime empire on empathy.’ Elle Magazine. February 22, 2021 Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile, and Evil (Berlinger, 2019) Fitzpatrick, Molly. ‘How two hilarious women turned a comedy murder podcast into a phenomenon.’ Rolling Stone. May 30, 2017 Garaus, M., Wolfsteiner, E. ‘Media multitasking, advertising appeal, and gender effects.’ Rev Manag Sci (2022). 10.1007/s11846-022-00535-7 Gaynor, Stella Marie. ‘Better the Devil You Know: Nostalgia for the Captured Killer in Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,’ in Robinson, Brett A.B, & Daigle, Christine (eds). Serial Killers in Contemporary Television: Familiar Monsters in Post 9/11 Culture. London, Routledge, 2022 Gaynor, Stella Marie. Rethinking Horror in the New Economies of Television. London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 Go, Mara. ‘10 best Murder, Mystery and MakeUp episodes to watch from beauty vlogger bailey sarian.’ Preview. April 11, 2021 Greer, Amanda. ‘Murder, she spoke: the female voice’s ethics of evocation and spatialisation in the true crime podcast.’ Sound Studies 3, no 2 (2018): 152–164 Hardstark, G., & Killgraff, K. (Hosts). (2017, 23 March). Live at Neptune. (No. 61) [Audio Podcast Episode]. In My Favorite Murder. https://myfavoritemurder.com/ episodes Horecks, Tanya. Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era. Wayne State University Press, 2019 Jensen, Erin. ‘Ted bundy’s ex elizabeth kendall recalls devastation in falling for a killer series.’ USA Today. 2020 Jordan, Dearbail. 2022. ‘The YouTuber making millions from true crime and makeup.’ BBC News. July 22, 2022 Kendall, Elizabeth. The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy. New York, Abrams Press, 2020 Levy, Lisa. “The dead have no rights: Women and true crime. (savage appetites: Four true stories of women, crime, and obsession; dead blondes and bad mothers: Monstrosity, patriarchy, and the fear of female power).” TLS, the Times Literary Supplement. London, NI Syndication Limited, 2020 Mittell, Jason. Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture. New York, Routledge, 2004 Murley, Jean. The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2008 Nee, Rebecca Coates, & Dozier, David M. ‘Second screen effects: Linking multiscreen media use to television and incidental learning.’ Convergence 24, no 2 (2017): 214–226 Orth, Stacey. ‘My favorite murder: Podcast review.’ Quill Podcasting. October 17, 2020

“What Else Can I Add?” 195 Raine. ‘Ted bundy: Falling for a killer.’ Letterboxd. 2020 Sarian, Bailey. (2020, March 30). ‘1 Of America’s most notorious, ted bundy – murder, mystery, and MakeUp.’ [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ySOKrCusEjw&t=662s Schmid, David. Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006 Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York, Routledge, 1998 Serba, John. ‘Stream it or skip it: Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer on Amazon Prime, a documentary series driven by a vital female perspective.’ Decider. January 30, 2020 Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer (Amazon Prime, 2020). Willett, Cynthia, & Willett, Julie. Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019

Index

absent father 91 activism 4, 12, 186; social 184, 192 Actual Innocence (2016) 68, 75, 77 affect theory 183 affective impact 100–2, 106 Aguaya, Angela 3 Alexander, Michelle 71–2 Alford plea, The (Henry Alford) 6, 69 alternative; culprit 42; media 15, 17, 19, 24, 36, 41, 149; truth 10, 144, 169 amateur; narratologists 166; podcasting 17 America’s Most Wanted (1988–2012) 167 Apple iTunes 17, 19, 22, 165 Archer, Helen 187 archive; visual 99, 101, 110; footage 122–3, 188; online 56 artifice 182 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The 20–1, 50, 56, 63 Atlanta Monster (2019 –); podcast 7, 22, 50, 53–4, 57–9, 62–4 authenticity 8, 114, 117, 121–3, 125–6. see also inauthenticity autobiographical 10, 155–6 autopsy 84, 89, 188 axiology 55 Baldwin, James 50–2, 59, 64 Baran, Madeline 22–3, 68 Barrios-O’Neill, Danielle 44 Barthes, Roland; Mythologies (1957) 9, 50, 103, 133. see also punctum Bauman, Richard 58–9 Bedau, Hugo 69 Bentham, Abby 152, 156 Bethune, Jenn and Kyle 170–1

bias 8, 20, 24, 36, 41, 45; racial 6, 23, 68, 70–1; systemic 43 binge-watching 33–4, 39–41, 45 Biressi, Anita 2, 72–3, 95, 135–6, 140 Blue Ö yster Cult 124 Bodart, Joni Richards 155 body cam 171 Boling, Kelli S. 15, 67, 74, 128 Bond, John-Michael 186 Boneyard Press 152 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo 174 Borchard, Edwin M 69 Bornat, Joanna see Thompson, Paul Borsellino, Paolo 107–10 bricoleur 52 Browder, Laura 181 Bruzzi, Stella 4, 34, 39, 89, 103, 188 Calvert, C. 84 Campbell, Paris 168–9, 172–3 Capote, Truman. see In Cold Blood Castellano, Paul 103 Case of: JonBenét Ramsey, The (2016) 3, 84, 86–93, 95–6 Casting JonBenét (2017) 7, 92–6 Cavicchi, Daniel 164 The Central Park 5 76 Chae, Jiyoung 189 Chaudry, Rabia 14, 18–20, 24, 68 Cheatwood, Derral 72 Chen, Tanya 173 cinematic 35, 138 cinematicity 34 classical tragedy 8, 98, 105, 107–9, 111 Cleckley, Hervey 141–2 Clemente, Jim 24, 87–91, 95–6 coercive 171 cold 190; blooded 122; cases 19, 21, 83

Index 197 collective; action 16–7, 25; identity 16, 20, 25; therapy 183 Columbine High School 153 comedy 11, 124, 164, 182–3, 192 commentary; author 52, 154; social 2, 37 commodification 152 community; online 11; podcast 18 confession 175; coerced 23, 33, 36–7, 39; false 86 conspiracy theories 9, 24, 45, 103, 144 Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) 116, 165, 180, 185, 190 court 58–9, 69–70, 75–6, 132, 135, 140–1, 152, 188; supreme 19, 22–3, 68, 78, 140–1 courtroom 39, 56, 58, 69, 90 crime scene 42, 84, 88, 95, 123, 188 Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel 165 cultural capital 17, 180 Datta, Tejasvani 186–7 death penalty 154 Deaville, James 114, 117, 127 dehumanization 158 Delgado, Richard 74 DeMair, Jillian 117 Dibdin, Emma 184 digital 72, 106, 118, 183; media 26; technologies 32, 67, 163; tools 166, 169 discrimination; racial 23, 60, 62, 70, 74 Dixon, Travis L 67, 70–1, 77 domestic 135, 159; abuse 171–2, 176, 184; murder 122; terror 74 Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer 165 Dotson, Gary 69 Dozier, David M. 191 Earle, H.E.H. 156, 158 Edwards, Paul 52–3 Edwards, Stassa 115 Ellroy, James 83 embeddedness; institutional 16 emotional impact 116–7, 119 emotional verité 188–9, 192 empathy 33, 37–8, 42–3, 46, 115, 183–5, 188, 191 engagement 84; audience 3, 5, 12, 32–5, 38, 40, 53, 78, 165–7, 175, 183; public 33, 46 Equal Justice Initiative 78

ethics 3–4, 12, 22, 100, 114, 127, 143, 166, 173, 182 Everbach, Tracey 173–4 evil; origins of 68, 98, 108, 120, 147, 157 Excellent Cadavers (2005) 99–101, 104–11 execution 20, 143, 180 exoneration 32, 38, 68–70, 75–77, 79, 86, 143 extratextual 33, 40, 43, 45 Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Vile and Evil (2019) 181, 185 Falcone, Giovanni 104–5, 107–11 feminism; second wave 186; post 185 feminist 174, 186 Fisher, Hart D. 152 Fisher, Walter 50, 55–6 Fitzpatrick, Molly 184 Flowers, Curtis 22–3, 77–9 forensic 23, 84, 120–1, 167; fandom 10, 12, 163–8, 170–6; linguist 87; pathologist 87 Foucault, Michel 132–4 Fradella, Henry F. 74 Freemark, Samara 22–3, 68 From Hell (1999) 152 Fuhs, Kristen 58 Gallegos, Thomas Andrew 122 Garaus M. 191 Generation Why (2012) 21 Georgia Innocence Project 19–20 Gilchrist, Kristen 173 Giroux, Henry 101 Goldstein, Jessica 166 Gothic 156 Gotti, John 103 grass-roots 17, 23, 72 green screen Green, Elon 74 Green, Kitty 84, 92 Greer, Amanda 182–3, 185, 190 Griffiths, Emma 120 Grochowski, Thomas 40–1 Harding, Kat 175 Hardstark, Georgia 175, 181–5 Harlan, John Marshall 68–9 Helter Skelter (1974) 150 heroism 9, 42, 67, 102, 109, 111, 180 heterogeneity 42 heteroglossic 53

198

Index

Hills, Matt 164 Home Sweet Homicide (2019) 115, 122–3, 127 Hook, Alan 44 Horeck, Tanya 2, 68, 70, 174 horror 62, 94, 102, 105, 107–10, 116, 118–23, 141, 182–3, 191; genre 164 Horton, Willie 71–2 Huddleston, Tom 73, 136 Hurwitz, Jon 71–2 I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) 14–5 impact; see affective; emotional; social impact In Cold Blood (1966) 2, 136, 150, 154 In the Dark (2016) 19, 22–3, 68, 72, 75, 78 inauthenticity 36, 90 indigenous people 174–5 Inside the Mafia (2005) 98, 101, 103, 105–11 institutional narratives 132; logic 136 racism 23, 70; truth 138 intertextual 127, 133, 140 investigations; collective 167 isomorphism 24, 25 Jack the Ripper 83, 151–2 James, Daron 115 Jenner, Mareike 32, 34–5 Jenson, Erin 187 Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, The (2015) 15, 33, 136, 164–5 JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation (2000) 85 Jordan, Dearbail 189, 192 judicial system 2, 12, 46, 86, 107 justice reform 6, 14, 16–22, 25, 67, 75 Kaplan, Paul 34, 38, 40, 42 Keidl, Philipp Dominik 171 Kendall, Elizabeth 180–1, 186–8 kidnapping 51, 84, 88–9 Kilgraff, Karen 181–2, 184–5 Koenig, Sarah 25, 68, 73, 166–7 Koerner, David 58 Kolar, James 87–8, 92 Koul, Scaachi 174 Kramer, Eric 49, 52, 60–1 Kurosawa, Akira 139 LaChance, Daniel 34, 38, 40, 42 Larke-Walsh, George S. 33, 36, 42, 73

Last Podcast on the Left 165 Levy, Lisa 181 liberal humanism 34–5 Liebler, Carol M 74 The List: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey? (2021) 85–6 logos 55 lone wolf killer 56–7, 60 Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (2013) 83 Lowery, Wesley 74 Mair, Jolene 44 Marx, Ariel 115–6, 123 Mass Exoneration (2018) 68, 75 mass incarceration 67, 77 Massumi, Brian 104 maternal 90 Matthews, Harriet 116–8, 123, 125 McCabe, Rachel 116 McCormick, Casey J. 34–5, 40 McHugh, Siobhan 25, 72 McLuhan, Marshall 52 media event 33, 40, 46 mental health 62; image 117; state 158 metadata 114–5, 118, 120 Mindhunter (2019) 6, 50, 53–4, 57, 60–4 misconduct; legal 20–21, 23, 70 Mitchell, Brooke 114, 117–9, 125 Mittel, Jason (2012) 165–7, 172, 181 mobilization; narrative 15; resource 17–8, 20–1, 25–6 Morin-Simard, Andréane 124–6 Morris, Joseph 171 Morton, Phoebe 116, 123 Moskowitz, P.E 74 multitasking, media 191–2 Murder, Mystery & Make Up (2020) 181, 189, 191–2 Murley, Jean 56, 132, 135–6, 140, 180–1, 191 My Favorite Murder (2016 –) 11, 165, 174–5, 181–2, 192 My Sister, My Love (2008) 86 narrative; authenticity 8, 114; proleptic 157 narrative web 34–5 necrophilia 147, 164, 191 Nee, Rebecca Coates 191 Nichols, Bill 3, 102, 110 nihilism 143

Index 199

racial bias see bias racial discrimination see discrimination racism see institutional Radelet, Michael L. 69 real-time 4, 10, 12, 21, 25, 39, 45, 167, 169, 176 real-world 2–3, 6, 10, 14, 19, 67 resource mobilization see mobilization Richards, Abbie 173 Richards, Laura 87–91, 95–6 Richards, R.D. 84 Riina, Toto 105 Rodman, Ron 118 Russell, Calum 173

Schifani, Rosario 99, 104–5 Schmid, David 151, 154, 156–7, 181 Seltzer, Mark (2007) 2, 52, 100–2, 142, 190–1 sensationalism 35, 73, 99, 116, 123, 126, 152; musical 117–9 Serba, John 186–7 Serial (2014) 2, 5, 11, 18–9, 23–5, 33, 68, 73–5, 117, 136, 163–6; effect 5–6, 14–7, 25 Serial Dynasty see Truth and Justice (2015 –) serial killer 11, 51–2, 57, 61, 83, 119–121, 141, 147, 149–53, 156–7, 160, 164, 171–4, 181, 187 shared values 16 Sherrill, Lindsey 18, 21 Shooting the Mafia (2019) 98–102, 104, 106–111 Sins of Detroit (2019) 68, 75, 77 ‘Slender Man’ stabbing 173 Slakoff, Danielle C. 74 sleuth; amateur 10; crime 70. see also websleuthing social commentary see commentary social impact 15, 18, 26, 40, 44, 46, 52, 62, 67, 71–2, 94, 98, 100, 103 social media 4, 10, 18, 24, 42, 163; activism 15, 167–76; events 32; platforms 41, 46 social movement theory 14–7, 21, 25–6 social utility 154 solidarity 25, 181 Sontag, Susan 102, 108 soundscape 121 Staircase, The (2004, 2018) 33, 39 Stefancic, Jean 74 Stevenson, Bryan see Equal Justice Initiative Stille, Alexander 109 Stinney Jr., George 76 Stranger Beside Me, The (1980) 150–1 Stratton, Greg 167 Supreme Court; Maryland 19; U.S. 22–3, 68, 78, 140–1 Syed, Adnan see Serial, Truth and Justice, Undisclosed

S-Town (2017) 73–4 Salvio, Paula 99 Sandy Hook Elementary School 153 Sarian, Bailey 181, 189, 192 satellite images 166

tabloid 86, 115 Tagg, Philip 117, 119, 125 Talese, Gay 136 Taylor, John 100 Teacher’s Pet (2018 –) 2

Not Guilty (2020) 68, 75–7 Nyberg, Amy Kiste 151 Ong, Walter J. 78 Ontology 61 organizational ecology 5, 14, 16–7, 21, 24–6, 54 Oscuro Deseo ([Dark Desire], 2020) 125–6 ostracism, social 157 Paradise Lost (1996) 3 paralinguistics 58 participatory see activism Peabody Awards 23 Peffley, Mark 71–2 Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder (1999) 85–6 perspectival 49–50, 64 Popp, Richard 144 Postmodern; condition 135, 138, 143–4; cynicism 52, 64 The Preparation of the Novel (2011) 9, 134 proleptic see narrative Proving Innocence (2018) 68, 75 psychopath 141–2 Psychopath: with Piers Morgan (2019) 116 Punctum; Barthes 137–8 Punnett, Ian 83, 153 puzzle; crime as a 44, 53, 165

200

Index

Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer (2020) 115, 181, 185–93 testimony; character 21, 150; narrative 99–100, 103–5, 100; witness 10, 78, 109, 111, 122–3, 141 Texas Innocence Project 20 Thin Blue Line, The (1988) 116, 132–3, 138–9 This American Life (1995 –) 6, 16, 24, 73 Thompson, Paul 78 Tiger King (2020) 3 Till, Emmett 53 Torso (1998–99) 152 Toumaian, Haley 169, 171 transmedia 12, 41, 44, 47, 78 transnational; business model 32, 34, 40–1, 43, 46–7; narratives 5, 33, 35 transnationalism; grammar 33–4, 40 True Murder (2010) 73 Truth and Justice (2015 –) 20–5 Turow, Scott 68, 70 Undisclosed (2015 –) 14–5, 19–20, 24–5, 68, 73, 75 unidentified 83, 86–7, 105, 109 unreliable; narrator 89; witness 23, 141

Valdez, Charli 68, 74 viseocentrality 60–1 Vronsky, Peter 156 Wacquant, Loïc 72 Wanted (2020 –) 167 War on Drugs, The 71 Warshow, Robert 103 websleuthing 167, 176 Wheeler, Ben 20 Wheeler, Greg 115 White, Hayden 32–3, 41, 44 whodunnit 22, 70 Willett & Willett 183–4 Wiltenburg, Joy 71, 135 Wolfsteiner, E. 191 Worden, Daniel 2 wrongful conviction 6, 14, 19, 23, 67–9, 73–9 Wrongful Conviction (2016) 68, 75–6 Yardley, Elizabeth 166–7 Zirngibl, Wendy M. 156