The Nice Young Serial Killer Next Door @prospect_uk @evershedmegan

Megan Evershed discusses the psychology of serial killers as television presents them, here in "Sympathy for the Devil," an article for Prospect.

Have you ever wanted to peer inside the mind of a killer—even if just for a little while?
Admittedly, this question is a tease. It’s impossible to take a dip into anybody’s psyche—including that of a murderer. To get even close to doing so, we have to turn to fiction.

A very interesting read, even without fava beans and a nice Chianti.

The Serial Killer in Popular Culture @bucketorange

Bucket Orange magazine discusses how television portrays serial killers and criminal profiling. Here's the link.

More about serial killers and tv here, from Garin Pirnia at Complex, and here, some information about the serial killer trope, from TV Tropes.

Paste Magazine offers a list of memorial serial killers here. And here, a 2013 article from The Hollywood Reporter about our interest in the subject.

Here, a selected bibliography:

Jane Caputi, The New Founding Fathers: The Lore and Lure of the Serial Killer in Contemporary Culture, 13 Journal of American Culture 1 (1990).

Brian Jarvis, Monsters, Inc.: Serial Killers and Consumer Culture, Crime, Media, and Culture (2007).

David Schmid, Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture (Routledge, 1998).

Philip L. Simpson, Psycho Paths (Southern Illinois University Press, 2000).

"The Night Stalker" To Air On LMN June 12

On June 12 Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) will air made-for-tv movie The Night Stalker about an attorney seeking a confession from Richard Ramirez (the convicted serial killer known as "the Night Stalker"), whom she suspects to be the actual killer of a number of people, murders for which her client is going to be executed. Bellamy Young plays the attorney, Lou Diamond Phillips is Richard Ramirez, and others in the cast include Louis Herthum, Mark Kelly, and Annalisa Cochrane.

Another TV movie about Ramirez, Manhunt, starring A Martinez as a detective on the case, aired in 1989, and a film, Nightstalker, was released in 2002.

More here about the 2016 film from the Lifetime Movie Network website, IMDB, and moviepilot.com.

The "Dexter" Defense

Lewis Unglesby, the defense attorney for a seventeen year old Louisiana man accused of murder, says viewings of the Showtime series "Dexter" influenced his client. Police seized DVDs of the show at the defendant's home. Mr. Unglesby entered a "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea for his client in early July. More here from the Baton Rouge Advocate.

The problem? Dexter is a serial killer who eliminates other serial killers. Mr. Unglesby's client is accused of murdering an eight-year-old.