“The serial killer media industrial complex rages on, but what has it taught us? Very little about the crimes in question, and much more about ourselves.”
serial killers
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Eric Borsuk, Aaron Gell, Laurie Penny, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Will Rees.
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Bushra Seddique, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Laura Mauldin, Kathryn Miles, and Lucas Mann.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Three Amateurs Solved the Zodiac Killer’s ‘340’ Cipher
In 1969, the Zodiac Killer sent an encoded note to the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2020, someone finally cracked the code. And that someone was three people, with zero cryptography experience, who had met in an online true-crime forum. Kathryn Miles tells you how, and the result is a must for any puzzle fan. Most experts, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
What Lies Beneath: The Secrets of France’s Top Serial Killer Expert
Stéphane Bourgoin is a bestselling author in France, known for his expertise in serial killers and extensive interviews with more than 70 of them. Then a group of strangers began to investigate his past.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Night Gary Drove Me Home
“It is not a normal thing to do—to acknowledge to yourself that you may have slept with a serial killer.”
Posted inBooks, Crime, Essays & Criticism, History, Nonfiction, Story
Jill the Ripper
True crime’s massive gender gap (95% of murderers are male) isn’t really one that needs fixing. And yet, since the beginning, a steadfast minority of Ripperologists have argued that Jack was really Jill.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Searching for Truth in Florida Folklore
In the Oxford American, John O’Connor searches the Everglades for the facts within the folklore of sugar cane farmer and outlaw E.J. “Bloody” Watson.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How to Tell Your Children and Friends That Your Father Is a Serial Killer
Recently, Roy Wenzl profiled a woman named Kerri Rawson for The Wichita Eagle. Rawson’s life was upended a decade ago, when an FBI agent knocked on her door and informed her that the man she’d always known as a loving father was in fact the BTK serial killer. Wenzl’s piece is a compelling and meticulous portrait of a […]
Posted inUncategorized
An Encounter With a Serial Killer
“You blink. You look again. You look at other photos. You wonder if you’re being melodramatic, if your memory is faulty. You wonder if people will believe you, or simply think your imagination has run away with you. You wonder if there is a class of neurotic people who make up false accounts of run-ins […]