Serial killer on TV:
- extremely smart
- also, cunning like an animal
- charismatic but cold
β troubled childhood
- operatic sensibilities
- can only be caught by the greatest detective
Serial killer IRL:
- just a cop
- a regular cop
- cops won't stop him because he is a cop
I used to be grimly fascinated with serial killers and true crime, like a lot of people, until I realised that just about every single real-life story of criminal genius was actually a story of police incompetence
I want to say the zodiac killer was an exception to the intelligence thing because of the cipher he created that no one in law enforcement could crack, but then I remembered that a high school teacher did it in a weekend.
There has been maybe 1 or 2 actual genius serial killers, most all of them got away with it for as long as they did due to cops being lazy fucking bastards when not violent fucking bastards
A lot of popular media tries to conflate the Hollywood idea of a serial killer to real-life autistic traits and itβs always sat really poorly with me
Stephen King's The Dead Zone
-sheriff: pls Johnny help me catch this serial rapist-killer
-Johnny: alright the perp is your deputy right in front of me with a badge and a gun
readers: OMG how can he imagine such complex stories
I once got arrested in the middle of the night, long story, but I was sick and took some cold meds. Was so confused from the meds and sleep I couldnβt even comprehend what was going on. I told the cops, they said everyone on the force drops cold pills nightly. He was dead serious.