Why We’re Obsessed with Murder

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – "Why We’re Obsessed with Murder"

Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: Dr. Matt DeLisi, Criminologist and Professor at Iowa State University
Date: October 31, 2025
Theme: Exploring America's enduring fascination with true crime, the psychological and cultural drivers behind it, and the ethics of making real tragedies into entertainment.

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Episode Overview

On this Halloween edition, Alison Stewart welcomes criminologist Dr. Matt DeLisi to unpack the American appetite for true crime. Their discussion traverses the roots of the genre, its moral implications, the psychology of both creators and consumers, and how true crime shapes (and is shaped by) issues like gender, empathy, and sensationalism. The show also incorporates thoughtful questions from listeners, adding depth to the debate on why murder obsesses us, and where the genre sometimes goes astray.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Dr. Matt DeLisi’s Fascination with Criminology and True Crime

• DeLisi’s Early Interest:

  • Dr. DeLisi describes a lifelong attraction to crime stories, both academic and popular:

    "I've been interested in criminology and true crime and criminal justice since I was a child. Always gravitated towards criminal justice programs, even if they were comedies, and just naturally found the material to be very interesting." (02:26)

  • Writing his book on Ted Bundy brought an "exponentially higher" level of attention compared to his academic work, revealing true crime's unique pull on public imagination.

• Difference Between Academic and Popular Reception:

  • Academic criminology tends to remain inside the academy; true crime, when written for the public, “grabs the audience in a much different way... the content seemed to grab the audience in a much different way than it did even similar kinds of information from an academic perspective.” (03:14)

2. The Historical and Sociological Roots of True Crime

• True Crime: Bread and Butter Sociology:

  • DeLisi traces the genre back to Emile Durkheim’s idea of "conscience collective"—society’s shared moral code, which is reinforced when people confront and process serious crimes:

    "When you have a serious crime, it violates the moral order and it angers and arouses the public because they want to simultaneously affirm their own goodness and affirm the moral order, while also drawing a line in the sand..." (05:38)

  • Sensationalism’s Long History: For centuries, people have devoured stories about murder because they want to understand evil and protect themselves. True crime has always had an “elitist, populist split,” with academics sometimes sneering at it while the general public devours it.

    "There was this elitist, populist split about the popularity of true crime or sensationalism, that the general public love to hear about crime and read about it. And some segments of elitist quarters found it distasteful or beneath them." (07:05)

• Personal Reception in Academia and Beyond:

  • DeLisi notes being both subtly condescended to for his interest in true crime and met with enthusiasm by prospective students and parents who value his engagement with current culture.

3. Iconic Works and the Victim Focus

• The Greatness of 'In Cold Blood':
  • DeLisi calls Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood “probably the best true crime book ever written" (08:46), for its powerful juxtaposition between monstrous perpetrator and innocent victims.
• Victim-Centric Narratives:
  • Contrary to criticism, true crime often centers and honors victims and survivors:

    “The number one important part about the true crime genre... is that it sheds light and provides information about victims and survivors of crime... to understand and empathize with the victims and survivors and to celebrate, if they've survived, their ascendancy...” (09:42)

  • Ann Rule’s Green River book is held up as a model, dedicating chapters to victims rather than the perpetrator (11:23).

4. True Crime’s Investigative Power (and Its Limits)

• Role of Podcasts and Documentaries:
  • True crime can mobilize public interest to solve cold cases and spark new investigations:

    "True crime—that intellectual energy—can be the mobilizing energy that's used to either have citizens generate enough information that a case can move forward or to motivate the criminal justice system to examine a case with much more vigor than it did in the first place." (12:49)

• Caution Against Excess:
  • Sometimes, though, amateur sleuthing can waste time or become obsessive without results:

    "It's also probably true that there are some cases where... there really isn't any additional information to be had or anywhere else to go with it." (13:28)

5. Sensationalism vs. Responsibility: Listener Leah’s Critique [14:08]

• Caller Leah (Canarsi): Raised concerns about TikTok and other short-form content removing nuance and humanity, treating cases as mere spectacle (14:08).
• DeLisi’s Response:
  • Shares the ethical consideration behind omitting graphic details from his book out of respect for victims’ families (16:00).
  • Warns that stories shouldn’t “capitalize on a person’s suffering, and shouldn’t try to romanticize an individual who is...reprehensible.”
  • He recounts being contacted by women who survived predatory encounters with Bundy, illustrating how victim-centered storytelling can be empowering:

    "Several of these women made the point to me that they often disbelieve their own experience...They felt empowered by my book because my thesis is that he was killing far earlier and in far more states than we generally know." (16:50)

6. The Diversity of Killers—and of Motivation

• Caller Daniel’s Question: Explores types of killers—from psychopathic serial killers to 'crimes of desperation' (24:29).
• DeLisi’s Response:
  • True crime's appeal lies partly in the diversity of offender profiles and motives:

    "Among those who will commit what criminologists might call normal homicides...sometimes you won't see any of these symptoms at all. And I think that also is fascinating to people...because they want to understand how can you have people who are... inclined to commit pathological criminal behavior...[or when] normal people do it?" (24:38)

  • Real-life interviews often subvert expectations, showing complexity and unexpected humanity or repulsiveness.

7. Women and the Genre

• Why Are Women the Biggest Fans? [Host/Producer, 26:51]:
  • Texts and callers highlight women’s centrality both in victimization stories and as primary consumers.
• DeLisi’s Take:
  • He devoted a chapter called “Girl Power” to this phenomenon:

    "Women have much more engagement, much more favorable opinions about the genre, even in crimes and cases that involve women victims...There's also a very personal and poignant sense of self protection and self help that I think true crime provides for women." (27:25)

  • Many female students report learning practical safety tips from cases, especially those involving attackers like Ted Bundy. Overconsumption, however, can “bog down” listeners, so he advocates balance (29:24).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Why People Love True Crime:

  “The content seemed to grab the audience in a much different way than it did even similar kinds of information from an academic perspective.” — Matt DeLisi (03:14)

• On Societal Functions of True Crime:

  “There was this elitist, populist split about the popularity of true crime or sensationalism. . .the general public love to hear about crime and read about it. And some segments of elitist quarters found it distasteful or beneath them.” — Matt DeLisi (07:05)

• On Empathy and Learning:

  "The number one important part about the true crime genre to [Americans] is that it sheds light and provides information about victims and survivors of crime..." — Matt DeLisi (09:42)

• On Real-Life Impact:

  "[My] book was empowering to some of these women who went through this...All of them mentioned...how predatory and almost surreal [Bundy’s] eye contact was..." — Matt DeLisi (16:50)

• On Women & True Crime:

  "There's also a very personal and poignant sense of self protection and self help that I think true crime provides for women." — Matt DeLisi (27:25)

• On Self-Care for True Crime Fans:

  "I think it's important for true crime aficionados to be able to compartmentalize their interest and balance it out with something that's a little more uplifting..." — Matt DeLisi (29:24)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:07–02:20: Intro and host welcomes Dr. Matt DeLisi
• 02:20–04:13: Dr. DeLisi describes his personal and professional attraction to true crime
• 05:23–08:41: Historical roots; Durkheim’s conscience collective; society’s fascination with crime
• 08:41–10:32: Discussion of In Cold Blood and the value of focusing on victims
• 11:23–12:58: True crime’s potential to mobilize investigations; citizen involvement
• 13:59–15:45: Caller Leah critiques sensationalism and poor taste in some true crime content
• 16:00–19:51: DeLisi elaborates on ethical storytelling, the impact on real survivors
• 20:50–24:29: Callers Rebecca and Daniel on representation and the diversity of murderers
• 24:38–26:51: DeLisi addresses various motivations for homicide and the potential for learning from true crime
• 27:25–29:44: Why women dominate the true crime audience; self-protective value
• 29:44–29:54: Wrap-up and thanks

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced, absorbing look at why Americans are enthralled by murder stories. Dr. DeLisi and Stewart probe the messy ethics, potential for empathy, and the genre’s strange power as both mirror and molder of society. Listeners and guests alike underscore that true crime’s appeal lies at the intersection of fear, curiosity, justice, and identity—and that handling tragedy with care is more important than ever in the era of content overload.

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For full interviews and more cultural conversations, listen to 'All Of It' with Alison Stewart on WNYC.

Transcript

[Caller]

Foreign.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We've had a lot of great stuff on the show this week, and if you didn't get to be with us each and every second, you can go back and listen. Nothing goes better with a candy coma than, say, hearing the new cast of Broadway's Hadestown perform live in our green space. That happened on yesterday's show. It was Chef's Kiss or other. Other highlights included Warren Zanes, the author of the book Deliver Me From Nowhere, which is what the new Bruce Springsteen biopic is based on. And we talked with the filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman about their new documentary the Alabama Solution, which uses smuggled cell phone footage to expose brutal conditions in that state's penitentiary system. You can listen to all of our conversations on our show page at wnyc.org or wherever you you get your podcasts. Now let's get this hour started with a conversation about our obsession with true crime. This month alone, three new crime shows have launched based on very true events. Monster the Ed Gein Story on Netflix, Murdoch, Death in the Family on Hulu and Devil in John Wayne Gacy on Peacock. These are just the latest installments in the true crime craze that seems to have gripped American audiences. From documentaries to podcasts to fictionalized tellings of real events, true crime is one of the most popular genres in entertainment right now. But why do so many people enjoy watching super disturbing content? And what are the ethics involved in creating entertainment out of a real tragedy? Joining me now to discuss this is criminologist and Iowa State University Professor Matt DeLisi. He is also the author of the new book True Crime the Functions of Our Murder Obsession. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Are you a fan of true crime? Why do you like it? Or if you really don't like true crime, we want to know that why that is as well. Give us a call at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC Matt, welcome to the show.

[Matt DeLisi]

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

[Alison Stewart]

How did you first get interested in criminology?

[Matt DeLisi]

Been interested in criminology and true crime and criminal justice since I was a child. Always gravitated towards criminal justice programs, even if they were comedies, and just naturally found the material to be very interesting. So I go on to become an academic criminologist and about 25 years into my career I wrote a book called Ted Bundy and the Unsolved Murder Epidemic and the reaction to that book from my family, from my wife and kids, from their friends, from the community, was something that I have never seen before in my career. And then once the book published and I started doing some presentations on it, was a similar kind of almost feverish reaction to it.

[Alison Stewart]

What was interesting about the way that people engaged with you after you wrote this book about Ted Bundy?

[Matt DeLisi]

One, just the interest level was exponentially higher than the interest level in any of my other work. And I kind of, you know, I'm light hearted about that. You know, academic criminology is primarily limited to academia. Even though I do a lot of consulting in real world cases, I realize that I'm comfortable with true crime being a much larger, much more popular audience. And so it was just immediate that the content seemed to grab the audience in a much different way than it did even similar kinds of information from an academic perspective. And so it was really after going through some of those experiences with the Bundy book, and then I did another book about cold cases afterward, that I really wanted to organize my thoughts about. Why is it that true crime is such a popular genre in the United States? Why is it that so many Americans love it? Why is it that a significant amount of people dislike it? And exploring some of the sociological and cultural reasons for it.

[Host/Producer]

What's your own relationship with true crime?

[Matt DeLisi]

I'm a lifelong fan and lifelong consumer. I have always. Let me put you this way. I could give a lecture about the prison system and I have a lot of correctional experiences, but there's just something about a very well done documentary that takes the viewer to a place that they will never be. In the book I mentioned, you know, every many people who are true crime fans want to sit at a table and have a forensic interviewer with a multiple homicide offender, but they're really never going to have the that opportunity. True crime media and documentaries allow them to have that exposure and allow them to experience and understand some concept in a very personal way that is impossible otherwise. And so I've always known that and have always incorporated documentaries and true crime material into my teaching and my research. I find that students really enjoy when I talk about real cases that I've worked or am currently working, or some of the more fascinating interactions that I've had with people who are very, very, very antisocial.

[Host/Producer]

True crime is a genre that's been around for a long time. What did the early forms of true crime look like? What did it read like? How did it take people places?

[Matt DeLisi]

So a couple of big points One is the founding of sociology. A French sociologist named Emile Durkheim had this concept called the conscience collective. And what Durkheim suggested was that when you have a serious crime, it violates the moral order and it angers and arouses the public because they want to simultaneously affirm their own goodness and affirm the moral order, while also drawing a line in the sand and identifying where you can't step over it. So there was these interesting moral, community building, society building notions pertaining to serious crime and violence and the appropriate societal reaction to it and the appropriate punishment reaction to it. So in many respects, true crime is basically bread and butter sociology. But to take it back even further, going back several centuries, there was a thing called sensationalism. And what it was was basically what we understand today as true crime. It was writings about serious criminal offenses, primarily your. Your murders, kidnapping, rapes, those types of offenses. And the general public wanted to know information about the perpetrator. They in fact, demanded to know information about the. The perpetrator. And they wanted to consume this information so that they could help themselves, perhaps in terms of public safety or personal safety, but they wanted to intellectually understand why is it that some individuals commit conduct that most people would find reprehensible. And another very interesting thing about sensationalism that lasts to the present day and that I have experienced personally in academia, is there was this elitist, populist split about the popularity of true crime or sensationalism, that the general public love to hear about crime and read about it. And some segments of elitist quarters found it distasteful or beneath them. And sure enough, that same trend exists today, where, although it's very, very popular, there are those who find it to be perhaps an inappropriate form of entertainment or. Or a form of entertainment when it really, I don't think is. And even in my academic career, I have sometimes surprised colleagues by expressing an interest in this material or talking about documentaries, like you did to start the show. And they were sort of shocked that someone who has published a lot and achieved a lot in an academic criminology context could also be a true crime fan. And so I've experienced a little bit of that subtle condescension myself. And in the other direction, when I meet with. I just met with prospective students and their parents, and I've often had a number of people who are pleased and kind of surprised that I like this material as well, and that I'm conversant in talking about whatever the documentary on Netflix is at that moment.

[Alison Stewart]

What is your take on In Cold Blood.

[Matt DeLisi]

So I'm a big Truman Capote fan and I tell students, usually to me, In Cold Blood is probably the best true crime book ever written. And I was, I'm not an English literature major, but I, I really did enjoy reading all of his work. And so for me, it's a great question because that case is one of the really nice ways to understand the genre and what's going on with it, and that you have these two chronic offenders who have significant psychopathic and antisocial personality features. And you have the Clutter family, this very wholesome, wonderful family who are slaughtered because the perpetrators thought that they had money in the house, which turned out to not be true. And ultimately those individuals were found, they were prosecuted, they were convicted, and they were sentenced to death and executed. And so the contrast between those perpetrators and the innocence of the victims is that lingering moral contrast that makes true crime so compelling. Survey data show that among Americans, the, the number one important part about the true crime genre to them is that it sheds light and provides information about victims and survivors of crime. So although it's often criticized for being pro offender or glamorizing offenders, and sometimes it does do that, I acknowledge really what the heart of the discipline of the heart of the genre is to understand and empathize with the victims and survivors and to celebrate, if they've survived, to celebrate their ascendancy from being a victim and then progressing to moving on with their life.

[Alison Stewart]

We're discussing America's obsession with true crime.

[Host/Producer]

Our guest is criminologist and Iowa State University Professor Matt DeLisi. He is the author of a new book, True Crime the Functions of Our Murder Obsession. Listeners, we'd like to hear from you. Are you a fan of true crime? Why or why not? 212433, WNYC 212-433-9692. We've got a couple interesting texts you might be interested in. This is Allison. I was lucky enough to work on Devil in Disguise, John Wayne Gacy, and was thrilled to find out that this particular show came at the story from a new angle, focusing largely on the families of the victims and events affected them, the detectives and the community. As a result. It is a very different, very moving take on the true crime convention.

[Matt DeLisi]

That's great. And I have another example. The probably the most successful true crime author was Ann Rule and she has a book about Gary Ridgeway, who was the Green River Killer. But her book is entirely about his victims. And although she obviously does discuss Ridgeway, it's In minimalist terms. And each chapter is on each of the victims. There's a photo about them, there's their backstory in their life. It really is an affirmation of their lives and what they experience with almost begrudging discussion about the person who ended their lives with the Gacy case. Something that I think relates to, again, the broader appeal of true crime is he was convicted of 33 murders, but he at one point told a detective or a sheriff's deputy, who he got to know fairly well, that he is very confident that there are at least 45 victims and probably more. And to me, one of the big parts of true crime, especially in the podcast fear, is the investigative nature of it, that there are so many. There's over 300,000 unsolved murders in the United States and true crime that intellectual energy can be the mobilizing energy that's used to either have citizens generate enough information that a case can move forward or to motivate the criminal justice system to examine a case with much more vigor than it did in the first place.

[Alison Stewart]

Citizens didn't go too far, though, from time to time.

[Matt DeLisi]

Yeah, you know, it's funny with, with the true crime stuff. So I'm a, I'm a books person and a documentaries person and a stream content person. I do listen to podcasts occasionally, but just my schedule doesn't allow that. I'm just not really a podcast listener. But it's really Those podcasts, about 40% of true crime podcasts have that deep investigative approach. And, and so I think that's worthwhile in the sense that they produce genuine information and can contribute to leads that can help a case be successful. It's also probably true that there are some cases where an individual or a group is perseverating about a case where there really isn't any additional information to be had or anywhere else to go with it. And so I think, like all things, there's productive uses of your time and there's those that may be less productive. And podcasts would be kind of in a similar situation.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's talk to Leah, who is calling in from Canarsi. Leah, thank you for making the time to call all of it.

[Matt DeLisi]

Hi.

[Leah (Caller)]

So yeah, I'm calling from Canarsi. I was into true crime, especially like on the Internet, since I was in elementary school. And it was such like a long running interest that now that I'm in college, I'm majoring in forensic psychology because I just think, like, the whole thing is really fascinating. I'm one of the people who's like, on the fence about true crime. Because I consume a lot of true crime content, like podcasts, I read the books, I watch documentaries and stuff. And I feel like the real issue with true crime content and I feel like the issue a lot of people have with it is when it becomes super sensationalized. And it's not like, about, you know, conveying information. It's about creating like a kind of spectacle for everyone to like, gate that. Because, like, look at how crazy it is that this guy did this. Here's how, like, this happened and how they did this to this person. Think like TikToks and like short form content that talk about true crime. Because there really isn't a lot of tact with it. It's not a lot of actual information. There's no real, like, sense of humanity and how the case is portrayed. It's just here's this crazy thing that happened. And you see it with like the documentaries too. The new Ed Gein one is it's. It's like really out there with how it chooses to tell the story and the mode of storytelling they use and how they treat the real people involved. It doesn't feel like they're doing it to spread information. They're doing it because they want other people to think that this is crazy and watch their show. And I think that's where true crime content often falls short. I feel like that's where it fails.

[Host/Producer]

Leah, thank you so much. Your call.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah.

[Host/Producer]

What are some people. Things that people should keep in mind when they are engaging with true crime content to make sure that they're not buying into sensational coverage?

[Matt DeLisi]

Great question. So when I wrote the Bundy book, I very intentionally left some information out regarding some of the injuries that his victims incurred and some of the forensic features of those crimes because I didn't want people to read the book who maybe had a connection to some of these victims or were relatives of them to have to reread some of that information. I like the caller's concerns and I share those concerns. Certainly true crime content shouldn't be grotesque and it shouldn't be trying to capitalize on a person's suffering, and it shouldn't try to romanticize an individual who is. Is reprehensible, who has. Who is a psychopath or sexually sadistic or whatever the offender is. And so I, I think that most people dislike that part of it. On the other hand, on the, with the Bundy book, one of the most fascinating things that's happened in my own Life is. I have been contacted by a number of women who were contacted by ted Bundy between 1965 and 1978. And they were contacted in places that he is not generally known to have been, ranging from California to Alabama to Iowa to Florida, and in other places where he did have murder convictions and known murder activity. And several of these women made the point to me that they often disbelieve their own experience because their contact with him happened either in a place where he wasn't known to have been active or during a year where he wasn't known to have been active. And they felt empowered by my book because my thesis is that he was killing far earlier and in far more states than we generally know. And Bundy himself acknowledged that in a number of different ways into a number of different parties over his life. And so in this example, someone to kind of piggyback on the caller's point, someone might suggest that maybe the Bundy book was being. Was glamorizing his life in some way. And just in my own experience, I can say it was empowering to some of these women who went through this. All of them were abduction attempts. All of them mentioned in their communication with me how predatory and almost surreal his eye contact was with the level of intent and the level of malevolence that he had in his eyes. And also all of them mentioned that they never forgot his eyes and the interactions. And it was years later when they would see a crime documentary or some news item about Ted Bundy that they realized that was the person that they had had contact with all those years ago. So. So yeah, you never know where you know a documentary is going to go with the Ed Gein one. I have a lot of my students have talked about it for whatever reason. Geen was a case that I just never. Not all cases are you going to get into or interested in equally. And Geen is one that I just never particularly found that fascinating, although he is. But the other part of it, and I think this is congruent with what the caller said, is because he is so pathological in his behavior and because of these forensic features that he exhibited, most people are never going to have contact with an individual who is like that, hopefully. And so that's one of the reasons why that material is being produced is to give them that intellectual content that otherwise they would never see. And of course they're capitalizing on the overall size and popularity of the true crime genre by making it a multi part series and things of that sort. So I think there's a lot of issues that are kind of interworking there.

[Alison Stewart]

We're discussing America's obsession with true crime. My guest is criminologist and Iowa State University professor Matt Del. He's the author of a new book, True Crime the Functions of Our Murder Obsession. We'll have more after a break. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're discussing America's obsession with true crime. My guest is criminologist and Iowa State University Professor Matt DeLisi. He's the author of a new book, True Crime the Functions of Our Murder Obsession. Listeners, we'd like to hear from you. Are you a fan of true crime? Why or why not? Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Let's talk to Rebecca from Farmingdale. Hi, Rebecca, thank you so much for making the time to call all of it.

[Rebecca (Caller)]

Yeah, thank you so much. I really love true crime. I am I've been interested in it since I was younger and I've had kind of an early ish exposure to it since both my parents are lawyers and one of my parents is actually a criminal defense lawyer. And sometimes, you know, he and I would chat a little bit about his cases, you know, obviously, you know, not discussing confidential information, but we would often discuss his cases and talk about, you know, the intricacies of it, what are they about, what happens. And that was something that had always really fascinated me and I eventually went into academia as well. I'm also a professor at a community college out here in Long Island. And my students often ask me about True Crime tv. How accurate is it? The most recent example that I can think of is the show Adolescence, which is a bit, you know, for people who have not heard it before, is about a young boy who.

[Leah (Caller)]

Killed his.

[Rebecca (Caller)]

Classmate and sort of talks about a lot of the socio political things that go on around crime and then also discussing, you know, his own mental state. And they actually have an interview with a psychologist in the show that, you know, the young boy is being interviewed by a forensic psychologist. And my students asked me, is that accurate? And as somebody who has received clinical training and is currently in the process of becoming a psychologist, I told them no, it's not really all that accurate, especially at the very end when she sort of blindsides him and says, all right, this was our last session. And he understandably becomes very upset and is like, you know, I thought you were I thought we were close. I thought that you cared about me. And you just seem to be another adult who just doesn't care. And to me, that was very poignant because I thought about, you know, the clients that I've worked with as a clinical psychology trainee and how you have to prepare them for termination. And you can't just blindside them like that, especially if you know that a client experiences emotional dysregulation.

[Host/Producer]

I'm going to dive in there. Thank you so much for calling us. Rebecca Daniel has a question for you. Matt Daniel's calling in from Wayne. Hey, Daniel, you are on the air with Matt Delisi.

[Caller]

Yeah, I just the distinction of, like, true crime, because I watch these shows a lot, and just like, the difference from someone like a Ted Bundy, a John Wayne Basie, this fellow who are just psychopaths and kill because they want to kill the true crime killers who are robbers and slaughter a family. And then you also have like, the Murdoch or the, the fellow that in New Jersey who killed his family back in the 70s who were just desperate people who kill out of just, you know, they, they're either they're financially in distress or their emotional issues and the distinction between them, because obviously they come there from different points of view. Some just kill because they want to, others kill because it was happenstance, and others kill because I have to be for myself.

[Host/Producer]

Let's get the professor in here. He's talking about the difference between psychopaths and people who may be kill for some reason. Yeah.

[Matt DeLisi]

So one of the interesting things when you're working in cases is just the diversity of the human personality among the offender population. And so to be sure, when you're dealing with those highly prolific serial sexual homicide offenders, in many respects, they're almost the same person. They're going to be significantly psychopathic. They're going to usually be sexually sadistic, and they usually have additional paraphilic disorders as well. Among those who will commit what criminologists might call normal homicides under more mundane circumstances, you'll also see some of these conditions, such as antisocial personality disorder, or at least symptoms of it. But also sometimes you won't see any of these symptoms at all. And I think that also is fascinating to people because they want to understand how can you have people who are. We get that pathological individuals might be inclined to commit pathological criminal behavior. What. But what about when normal people do it? And I think, you know, in the book, I mentioned a number of cases where some of the most fascinating interviews I have had, I have been with people who are on paper very, very severe individuals in their behavior, but they have that element of humanity that comes out in the forensic interview that I wasn't necessarily expecting. And the opposite is also true. I've done forensic interviews or just criminal justice interviews with people who have little to no criminal history. And they were very unpleasant individuals to talk with. And so I think again, that gets to that kind of broader intellectual. The why question of trying to understand why is it that people engage in these behaviors. I thought it was interesting that at least two of the callers have mentioned how they basically gathered a lot of intellectual energy from true crime and then it used it to inform their own educational pathway and occupational pathway. And I see that in my, my day to day life as a professor as well. And I tell students, if you have that intellectual fascination with true crime material, that's a tremendous asset to help you along your career because it's certainly easier to study something that you find intrinsically rewarding and engaging than something that you don't.

[Host/Producer]

Our last question, I'm just going to hit on a lot of different texts that we've gotten. A lot of people have brought up the issue of women. I can't handle watching more often white men abusing women and going undetected for years because of their privilege. Women are often at the center of this. Another caller said, said she likes true crime because sometimes there's justice for women. We've heard that women are the consumers of true crime more than men. I just wanted to get your take on it.

[Matt DeLisi]

I have a chapter called Girl Power and one of the things, you know, when I did the big lecture on the Bundy book, 75% of the audience was women. And across the true crime genre, women have much more engagement, much more favorable opinions about the genre, even in crimes and cases that involve women victims, especially domestic violence and sexual homicide. And they're also aware of some of the negative features of the genre. I know that in my classes that are more forensic based or more true crime based, they're overwhelmingly women. And my female students tend to be the ones who really generate and sustain the class conversation. There's also a very personal and poignant sense of self protection and self help that I think true crime provides for women. It's perhaps not the case for, for men. I've had students, for instance, who are in sororities who write about the house safety rules they have in their sororities. And some of them explicitly mention Ted Bundy by name because of the crimes he committed at Chi Omega at Florida state. And so they have, they have a very, they have both the combined intellectual interest in it and they also have this. I'm going to probably glean things from these cases that can help me in terms of understanding my own safety, my own environment, some of the forensic or psychological features of, of males who might be exhibiting some of these traits. And so. Absolutely. And I agree with the text. You know, sometimes, although I, I watch true crime and my wife, sometimes we don't. So sometimes it's just like it's very difficult to take the, the relentless violence that you're seeing with some of these cases and you, you don't want to consume it anymore. And so I think it's important for true crime aficionados to be able to compartmentalize their interest and balance it out with something that's a little more uplifting and there's, where there's more lightness to it, different kinds of literature or film or sports or music. I know I do that in my life. And so I tend to be an upbeat, optimistic person and I use humor when I'm working in a case. And so I think that is a very important thing to do because otherwise you could become bogged down by the darkness of the material.

[Host/Producer]

I've been speaking to Matt Delisi. He's the author of the new book True Crime the Functions of Our Murder Obsession. Thank you so much for the conversation.

[Matt DeLisi]

Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed it.

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[Matt DeLisi]

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