Do you find killers interesting?

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I'm quite interested in serial killers... I love reading their biographies and personal accounts of their crimes.

Atomsk-- have you ever read American Psycho? That's extremely gory, and an interesting read.

My special interests include biological sciences and killers. I have 274 serial killer books at the moment

I find serial killers to be interesting. I have a book called "The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" and a few books about real life serial killers and there was a time when I was getting books out of the library about them.

Anybody ever wonder why gang members that commit multiple murders aren't usually referred to as "serial killers"?

Which ones do you recommend, please? The books I currently have are collections of various serial killers story.

Only been interested in my great, great, great, great grandad William Palmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pa ... urderer%29) an author wanted to do a book on him, and I got 'interested'. I logged on TS my friends stopped to explain what happened at batman as they assumed wouldn't know (correctly).

Even though it must have been on the news I just relegate it to not relevant and forget. If it was a mystery and they didn't know who did it I'd have noticed it more.

They have to kill for there own psychological gratification and not material reasons. Also there has to be a ritual element and a space between the killings. Otherwise there mass murderers or spree killers respectively.

Last edited by DrPenguin on 21 Jul 2012, 11:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

Can't say that I do.

Red Robin- I thought the same thing too. From the description they gave about James Holmes. Highly intelligent, a loner, shy, did not make eye contact with people when they passed him. No one really knew him. Socially off. I mean I am definitely not saying that everyone with AS would have the potential to kill like this. I definitely do not believe that. I am the mother of a 7 yr old boy with AS. But I have to admit, the first thing that crossed my mind when I read the description was AS. I wonder if more details about his life will come out. What he did was horrifying----I just wonder what his reasons were.

I find most killers to be oddly interesting... Albert Fish, Andrei Chikatilo, Fritz Haarmann, and Jürgen Bartsch are among the oddest, which adds to the curiosity factor. I don't think this is relegated to the realm of ASD special interests though; I know far too many NTs with the same morbid fascination (look at FBI profilers ).

Just read a little history: the holocaust, the wars in former Yugoslavia in the nineties, Rwanda, or about real serial killers.

Just try becoming an informed citizen who reads the papers and you get all the gore and horror you could ever want.

So i dont get folks like you who pay for books and videos of fictional horror.

Whats the emotional payoff?

A "mass murder" is where 4+ people are killed at about the same time in a single incident. Gang members often murder for the psychological gratification of killing their enemies which also has a ritual element to it.

Gang drive-by shootings aren't usually referred to as mass murders though even if 4+ people are killed.

Nah. It has no draw for me.

I've seen death and dismemberment up close and personal, and I find no intellectual curiosity in it.

Clearly, there are people who find it neato to examine one of these broken people and figure out what makes them tick. I'm just not one of them.

I really was pretty obsessed with this subject when I was in college. Not so much anymore, though I will check out any book in the New section of the Library if I happen to see it. Mostly Serial killer studies. The last one was about the first famous/infamous american Serial Killer ( He pretended to be a doctor) who was also called a real-life Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde.

Sincerely,
Matthew

I do find killers interesting, but I don't have an "interest" in them as you do OP. I quite enjoy watching the TV shows on killers and stuff.

Fiction brings out fictional elements - things that are impossible to see and that you will never find in any nonfiction account. Things like zombies, alien parasites making people do gruesome things, etc. I certainly wouldn't want to read any nonfiction accounts of those things. You also don't even need to pay for them in many cases - Scott Sigler's audiobooks are free.

I've read much more than just 'a little history' - I have a degree in History. I've read a lot about the holocaust, and written pretty large papers on it, as well as on other horrifying or brutal things. These accounts are nothing like horror fiction, at all. Even holocaust survivor accounts - they're brutal, but it's not the same. Horror stories are about things that never happen (usually) - but in this case it's all real and it all happened, which makes it even more brutal than it already is. I like having fantasy, though, and I also just don't feel right reading real things like this for enjoyment, even though it doesn't really stir emotions in me. It's more a logical sort of "I shouldn't be reading this for enjoyment because it's a bad thing that actually happened" type thing.

My sister also has a degree in History - her focus was naziism and fascism - between us we have 25-30 books on the holocaust.

I do like reading accounts of soldiers, though, such as John Lucy's There's a Devil in the Drum, which was about his time fighting for the English as an Irish person in the English army, in WWI. I could tell you about a bunch of different great books like this - I like WWI accounts a lot. Another good one is George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

Furthermore, things like the news don't have all the details - and they in general are not as brutal as horror fiction can be - they also don't have any extensive descriptions of the horrifying things going on.