There's something about famous murder court cases that hold a special fascination for a lot of people. Who can forget that O.J. Simpson murder trial and the scene of him fleeing down the road with police on his trail and helicopters filming the whole thing? Who can forget that famous line If the glove doesn't f, you must acqu? Serial killer cases are even more captivating and chilling. Crimes of passion like the O.J. Simpson trial are comprehensible, but the motives of a serial killer hold a peculiar morbid fascination that a lot of people have trouble getting over.
Some murder cases are so famous that they are remembered for hundreds of years after. The stories of Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper are old enough that they should have been forgotten, but they haven't. People still remember the evil and methodical butcheries carried out by Jack the Ripper, and the maniacal incomprehensible rage of the Beltway Sniper. Names like David Berkowz, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer are still on the lips of many people all over America. In an age when the great benefactors of humany are often forgotten, the worst killers are somehow remembered long past their time.
For me, the most interesting murder cases are the unsolved ones. I love any kind of unsolved murder show. Whether is true crime or fiction, absolutely fascinates me. I'm not interested in hearing the morbid details, but in speculating about what really happened. Sometimes, tantalizing clues seem just out of reach. The police have a strong suspicion but not enough to arrest, or someone seems to know something that they are not saying. Is not so much that the idea of cold-blooded killers escaping from justice is so repellent although is but that finding hidden truth is such an interesting occupation. Everyone wants to solve mysteries and find answers to things they don't know. Murder cases give us the chance to do just that eher as detectives, as spectators, or as amateur sleuths and members of the general public.
There are plenty of good crime libraries around, but sometimes they differ in details. It has taken me a long time to realize that the things I hear about murder cases are not necessarily the unvarnished truth. Often, biographers and chroniclers pick the most tantalizing details, giving you a skewed perspective of what actually happened. This means that finding out even the known facts can be self like solving a difficult detective case.
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