What’s behind our mod­ern obses­sion with true crime stories?

Michael Sheen will mark his direc­to­r­i­al debut with an adap­tion of the acclaimed graph­ic nov­el ​‘Green Riv­er Killer: A True Detec­tive Sto­ry’. Con­sid­ered America’s most pro­lif­ic ser­i­al killer, Gary Ridg­way (aka the Green Riv­er Killer) was con­vict­ed of more than 49 mur­ders after his arrest in 2003, though it’s wide­ly believed that dozens more vic­tims were nev­er iden­ti­fied – Ridg­way him­self has revealed that he ​“lost count.” If Sheen’s film stays true to the source mate­r­i­al, lead detec­tive Tom Jensen and his decades-long search for the killer will be the pri­ma­ry focus; inter­est­ing­ly the graph­ic nov­el was writ­ten by the detective’s son, Jeff Jensen. As well as tak­ing on direct­ing duties, Sheen is set to play Ridgway.

News of this adap­ta­tion should come as no sur­prise giv­en the cur­rent fren­zy sur­round­ing true crime sto­ries. Recent mini-series like Mak­ing a Mur­der­er and The Jinx and the NPR pod­cast Ser­i­al found mil­lions of avid fol­low­ers, while fic­tion­alised projects con­tin­ue to draw inspi­ra­tion from noto­ri­ous court cas­es and inves­ti­ga­tions. In addi­tion to this, the Wein­stein Com­pa­ny has optioned the orig­i­nal true crime nov­el, ​‘In Cold Blood’, for a new tele­vi­sion series. The genre has always been pop­u­lar, but it is now res­onat­ing at a much high­er frequency.

Right now there is an under­ly­ing skep­ti­cism to true crime sto­ries that far sur­pass­es mere curios­i­ty. Cold cas­es are thawed out and the ​“facts” foren­si­cal­ly tooth­combed. Mak­ing a Mur­der­er, The Jinx and Ser­i­al all uncov­ered new evi­dence that com­pli­cat­ed their respec­tive cas­es. There is a clear trend away from closed-cir­cuit enter­tain­ment towards advo­ca­cy jour­nal­ism. Of course, this is noth­ing new – Errol Mor­ris’ 1988 film The Thin Blue Line ulti­mate­ly led to the release of a man sen­tenced to death for a mur­der he did not com­mit. But it is hap­pen­ing on an unprece­dent­ed scale. The Jinx even inad­ver­tent­ly caught a killer’s con­fes­sion on tape: ​“What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” Was this clar­i­ty enough to bring closure?

True crime sto­ries tend to offer a rather bleak world­view. They embrace ambi­gu­i­ty and cyn­i­cism, explore the human­i­ty of (pre­sumed) killers and the frus­trat­ing dys­func­tion of the courts. Res­o­lu­tion is often just out of reach. In the US, the #Black­Lives­Mat­ter move­ment has increased pub­lic aware­ness of cor­rup­tion, racial pro­fil­ing and police bru­tal­i­ty. And while Hol­ly­wood large­ly refus­es to tell the sto­ries of black peo­ple – true crime still tends to revolve around nuclear fam­i­lies and young white women – there may be a con­nec­tion between pub­lic dis­en­fran­chise­ment and the wave of skep­ti­cism the genre has engendered.

Per­haps the col­lec­tive grav­i­ta­tion towards true crime can be explained more sim­ply by what it has in com­mon with hor­ror. There is lit­tle cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal vari­a­tion in the hor­ror genre and oth­er­wise dis­parate audi­ences, watch­ing through their fin­gers, are unit­ed in a sin­gu­lar feel­ing: fear. Dopamine, a neu­ro­trans­mit­ter asso­ci­at­ed with the brain’s plea­sure and reward cen­tres, is released in thrilling sit­u­a­tions. So in a per­verse way, watch­ing some­thing shock­ing or ter­ri­fy­ing can actu­al­ly be quite pleasurable.

Both gen­res also rely heav­i­ly on sus­pense. When the ten­sion is even­tu­al­ly and nec­es­sar­i­ly bro­ken by a scare and/​or rev­e­la­tion, fear is fol­lowed by a sense of relief – the body still wide-awake with adren­a­line and endor­phins. This phys­i­o­log­i­cal response may not ful­ly account for the spike in pop­u­lar­i­ty true crime sto­ries are cur­rent­ly enjoy­ing, but it does pro­vide some insight into our dis­tinct­ly mod­ern obsession.