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What is your view on people who collect memoribilia from crime scenes

Posted by serialbox • 7/19/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: serial killer, true crime, wordpress

My blog originally started out as a place for me to write about my obsession with true crime. It was going strong for about a year until I got bored and let it sit for awhile.

Recently Ive begun to contribute on an almost daily basis but am still having a hard time finding stuff to write about. Last year I had a couple guest posts on what they thought about murderabilia. Here are two excerpts from two different posters.

Collectors of murderabilia upset me. I am sure some of them are the nicest people in the world, but I just can not understand the fascination with having something belonging to a killer or from a crime scene in your home. It would feel to much like inviting evil into my house to purchase one of these seemingly prized possesions.

and this one

There is a stigma that is eternally attached to anyone who collects true crime artifacts. Sure, I have a hard time understanding why someone would pay money for the used socks of a serial killer, but I also have a hard time understanding why someone kills and animal, guts it, mounts it to their wall and calls it “art”. Same goes for people who would pay millions for a dress some starlet wore to the Oscars, a baseball signed by a major leaguer,

What are your thoughts? Im hoping to gather some info for a new post.

User Comments

7/19/08

riverstyxxx

Heh. It's a shame you didn't know me a few years ago, I used to be HEAVILY into true crime. You name it, I probably knew it.

My two cents? It's a waste of time. You wouldn't trust those people in your house, right? Everyone who sees a crazy person on the streets automatically keeps a safe distance. Why would this be any different?

I had to learn that one the hard way. I have a couple of serial killers tattooed on me (These are serious works done by professionals), it's not open for discussion though and no I won't post pictures. I moved on from that frame of mind a long time ago and haven't looked back since.

If people want to collect it, that's their business. I don't care what their morbid fascinations are, everyone has something that they love to look at; true crime isn't any different. It's along the lines of those people who like looking at really nasty porn..Just to satisfy a curiosity, nothing more.

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7/19/08

Skysnowyowl

Looking at it from the point of view as police officer, to me...keeping true crime artifacts, its morbid and inmoral and neverless its like tampering with possible evidence. Some people find fascination with it, but at the end, the outcome alway end up in getting money for it. Making money out of others misery or misfortune.....that is a true crime, right there!

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7/19/08

serialbox

great thanks for responding. I am not a collector at all but everything related to true crime interests me from the culprits themselves to the people who feel the need to be connected in some way.

I just read an article online too about a defense attorney in california who has taken to painting portraits of serial killers as a means to release? who knows.

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7/19/08

MadameX

What I would be interested in is whether the number of people who collect such things or are otherwise fascinated with serial killers, grisly murders and the like has increased, or there has been a change in the items themselves. We're often told that society is going further and further, and that in terms of things like movies and television and video games it takes more graphic gore to keep us interested than it used to. This seems like one place where, if that's true, it would really show.

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7/19/08

serialbox

I would say that it has increased. Look at shows like Dexter which in a sense glorifies serial killers. People have come to "like" dexter as a person but in reality meeting someone like him in the wild is like signing a your death warrant and no one in their right minds would want to get that close and personal with people like that yet people can't get enough of it...

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1. 7/19/08
  
  cooper
  
  yea but Dexter only kills "evil people" so I feel somewhat less psychologically damaged watching the show.
7/19/08

serialbox

Well I think I got enough info to get my started on a post. Thanks for the input. Post is up if anyone would like to read it. Still looking for more opinions and thoughts

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7/20/08

harleyblues

Hey even Charles Manson has a cult following~

he used to make things and sell them in the prison store ... at San Quentin and Corcoran they are worth huge bucks!!! some people just have a facination, perhaps of the twisted nature of the deviants behavior and how one could commint such acts as such notmal people donot committ such haneous crimes~

here is a link to Manson stuff
www.supernaught.com/crimefiles/cmgallery.html

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