Serial Killer Art. Julian Hobbs, "Collectors" (2000)

Because I have interests in both stories of true crime and outsider art, it's natural that I would seek a way to merge the two. It's not difficult to find the connection, as artwork by incarcerated criminals has certainly found its market niche over the last twenty or so years. This shouldn't be too surprising, as "cults of personality" have grown up around the most prominent of society's lawbreakers. A truly heinous class of "evildoer" has been comprehensively studied since the 70's- that of the serial killer. Around these extreme men (for they are mostly male) have gathered "groupies", as if they were rock stars instead of murderers. These fanatics try to establish correspondence with their heroes, and many of them have persuaded their favorites to create and send them poems and artwork.

Truth be told, much of the artistic product of serial killers is outright garbage. One might make the mistake of assuming that such personalities would have vivid imaginations capable of depicting dark fantasies characterized by gore and fright. The reality is much more mundane. John Wayne Gacy (who tortured, murdered, and buried 33 young men in the basement of his home) liked to draw Disney's Seven Dwarfs. Elmer Wayne Henley, who was involved with crimes that inspired Gacy, has focused his moderate gifts on sunflowers and landscapes. Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker") may have been responsible for some intricately grisly crime scenes, but his drawings consist of little more than juvenile scribblings.

Some of the art produced by serial killers is genuinely inspired. If you think about it, it makes sense- many are on death row, locked in their cells for 23 hours per day. There's not a whole lot for them to do. That's likely why it's so easy to convince them to begin making art. No doubt there are a few killers who would engage in such activities regardless of whether or not anyone cared about the product. Add in the prospect of raising a few dollars for luxuries like candy and soda, and it becomes a no-brainer. Gacy, a successful entrepreneur in his everyday life, was probably among the first famous criminals to realize the potential of artistic enterprise. If nothing else, Gacy had good luck with his timing. As I noted in a previous post, his inclinations coincided with a growing fascination with "outsider art".

While the artwork of serial killers is often less than compelling, the motivations of the collectors of such memorabilia are complex. Why would someone want a piece of art of questionable quality, just because it was created by a man who has taken multiple lives? I understand the acute curiosity that is stimulated by extreme behavior, but insights are not often found in the amateurish articulation of the inane subjects chosen by the typical "prison artist". Would perpetrating intensely destructive acts lead to some deeply mysterious and refined artistic aesthetic? The amount of proportional talent within this self-selecting subgroup probably mirrors that of society in general. Why would we expect to find more value in the paintings, sculptures and drawings of killers? Why would the association between the object and the man's deeds be meaningful at all?

For a worthy study of the topic, I suggest tracking down Julian's Hobbs' obscure documentary "Collectors". The director focuses on the activities of two of the more notable serial killer art aficionados. Rick Staton is a mortician from Louisiana, and a recognized expert within this little world. He has encouraged numerous serial killers to create art by organizing exhibitions of their work. Hobbs followed Staton and his partner Tobias Allen on several of their quests to gather materials from actual crime sites. Along the way, the pair ruminated on their motivations for their peculiar predilection. It could be seen as a hobby like anything else, or a quixotic search for totemic symbols of life and death. But Hobbs has taken pains to present a balanced portrayal.

Staton and Allen have been accused of exploitation, and contributing to a perversion of justice in the promotion of their obsessions. They have become lightning rods for controversy. Victims' rights organizations have decried the insensitivity they perceive in the veneration of serial killer artists. Without the voices of the family members of serial killer victims, the viewer could easily characterize these collectors as harmless (if eccentric) ghouls. But the overall picture is more complicated than anyone could summarize in the space of five paragraphs. Collectors brings up a lot of questions about our society, and it even attempts a few answers. However Hobbs has ultimately provided plenty of space for the viewer to come to his/her own conclusions.

Part Three- Helen Morrison, "My Life Among the Serial Killers" (2004)

This is the third in a series of posts presenting a point-by-point rebuttal of Helen Morrison's My Life Among the Serial Killers (2004).

15. "Then I heard that the lawyers and Bobby Joe had spoken to some other psychiatrists for his trial, and I felt that was not a good sign. As I found with Gacy, too many cooks spoil the broth" (p. 160)

Evidently, after Morrison had served as a defense witness for Gacy, her services were sought after by attorneys and defense teams representing other serial killer clients. Given her failure in the Gacy trial, one wonders why that was so. Perhaps it's because it's difficult to find a psychiatrist willing to work towards a lesser punishment for the most spectacularly dangerous members of society. However, we might be tempted to assume the type of legal fees such experts command are convincing. It's clear from her description of the situation that not only does Morrison see herself as more competent than attorneys, but she also resents having her sole authority challenged on a case.

16. "Like other serial killers I had profiled and interviewed, [Bobby Joe] Long had never matured emotionally beyond infancy." (p.180)

Morrison has a disturbing tendency to infantilize serial killers. This is the crux of her unique approach and perspective. She is making the claim that these criminals kill because they are "emotionally immature". Throughout the book, she systematically dismisses other common factors attributed to serial killers- head trauma, childhood abuse, prior criminal behavior, etc. In this she proves to be irredeemably reductionist. She believes she is revolutionary in finding the unifying theory behind serial killing.

17. "There's a kind of profiler who has studied behavioral science who believes that serial killers torture and kill dogs and cats in addition to humans and that torturing animals is a precursor to killing human beings. But I have not seen this to be true." (p. 191)

Here's an example of what I mentioned above. Her attempt to flout conventional wisdom makes sense because (if there is any truth to it) then her own pet theory crumbles. Unfortunately for Morrison, there are many reports of killers first initiating their cruelty upon animals. Jeffrey Dahmer is just one well known example of this. As conflicting "evidence" we have Morrison's contention that she just hasn't "seen this to be true".

18. "Many [serial killers] have IQs that are above average, though none are geniuses." (p.194)

Here's another incident of the author making a completely unsubstantiated claim. How does she know that no serial killers are geniuses? Has she tested each and every one of them? It seems that Morrison believes that by stating something with absolute authority, her words become reality. Maybe a psychiatrist of like mind would suggest that this itself is an indication of "emotional immaturity".

19. "In one swift moment, Pearson bit [Robert] Berdella so hard, he nearly severed his penis. (..) Berdella then injected him with acepromazine, an animal tranquilizer, and began thrashing Pearson with part of a tree limb. It was thick, splitting Pearson's lip and knocking him out. Then Berdella, oozing a lot of blood from Pearson's bite, drove himself to the hospital." (p.191)

"Most people might immediately react to the pain by wanting to get back at the person who hurt them, a reaction that might lead to killing someone who did such a thing. Berdella did nothing to Pearson right away, he just left the house and went to the hospital." (p. 196)

Nothing of course... besides thrashing him unconscious, and leaving him in that state. Morrison doesn't even seem capable of following her own narrative. She wants to make the case that Robert Berdella (a known sadist) was like a "baby playing with a ball" who did not know the actual reality of torture. She says that he didn't know what pain was, and therefore failed to kill his intended victim when, in the course of that victim's attempted resistance, he almost had his penis severed. In the process of trying to make the facts conform to her theory, she descends into complete and utter nonsense.

20. "He was sleeping like a baby." (p.206)

In an account of the crimes of Michael Lee Lockhart, Morrison describes how Lockhart killed a cop, fled the scene in a sports car, lost control of the getaway vehicle, crashed, escaped on foot, cleaned up at a nearby restaurant, and hailed a cab to Houston. When the cab was pulled over by a the Texas Highway Patrol, Lockhart was discovered sleeping on the backseat. Maybe he was exhausted by the day's activities? No... not in Morrison's esteemed judgment. Her guess is "that he was lulled by the movement of the car, which can have a soothing, soporific effect, especially for someone like Lockhart, who wasn't emotionally developed." (p.206) By now we know exactly where Morrison is going with this.

21. "To me it means they all have this kind of free-flowing identity that is sometimes male and sometimes female and sometimes something in between, pointing to the fact that they have a very fluid sexuality, which means they can function as heterosexuals or homosexuals." (p.208)

This is another absolute gem. Now we are told that all serial killers are bisexual. Are you feeling enlightened yet?

22. "It wasn't that he didn't like his mother or that his father had abused him, and that led him to kill. There was something deeper at work here, something that had less to do with nurture and more to do with nature. To me, there was a consequential, scientifically logical connection to be made here, a connection that no one, absolutely no one, before had made." (p.212)

Morrison's talking about Michael Lee Lockhart here, but she could be talking about any serial killer. In her eyes, she has identified a pattern that applies to them all- They are simply immature babies! You have to appreciate the way she congratulates herself here for this amazingly unprecedented revelation. She's obviously forever altered the case of modern criminology.

23. "All the others before and all the others in the future: they all had this trigger moment prior to killing. They were addicted to killing." (p. 214)

Wait... what's that you say? Maybe they are not all babies? They are addicts? OK, that explains it. And it's a good thing too, because now all we have to do is get them into a 12-step program. Who wants to be a sponsor?

Tomorrow... the last installment of this sordid affair...

Part Two - Helen Morrison, "My Life Among the Serial Killers" (2004)

This is a continuation of yesterday's point-by-point rebuttal to Helen Morrison's My Life Among the Serial Killers (2004).



8. "It wasn't that the panties had sexual meaning to him. He just liked the feeling of them in his hand and on his body. To him, it was about simple comfort and quick release and not about fantasies or dreams ." (p.96)


In Chapter 6 ("The Gacy Interviews"), Morrison relates John Wayne Gacy's account of stealing his mother's panties as a kid. He also stole his neighbors' underwear off their clotheslines. And he even took panties from some of the boys he slept with. He admits that he "used to masturbate with them". Morrison's analysis of this habit is striking. Gacy clearly had issues with his gender identity. By sleeping with men, he confounded conventional expectations regarding sexuality. But to suggest that Gacy's sexual practices were not sexually meaningful seems to me to be the apex of denial. Obviously this extends to his masturbatory habits and methodology. Morrison's statements make me question whether she understands anything at all about male sexual behavior.


9. Dr. Morrison administered a "language test" in which she read a very simple and vague sentence, and asked John Wayne Gacy to interpret what was happening in the imagined scenario. He displayed what (to me) appears to be an understandable hesitancy to assume to know what had not been said. He explained that there were several unexplained variables, and outlined some possibilities. Instead of interpreting the answer as a cautious effort to avoid unwarranted assumptions, Morrison characterized it as the display of "a very primitive mode of thought" (p.98). She went on to say, "A normal person would come up with a structured beginning, a middle, and an end to the story", and then gave her own formulation of a correct answer. Apparently if a subject is unwilling to jump to conclusions based upon flimsy data, then they are abnormal. This explains much of the logic within Morrison's book.


10. Morrison has the unfortunate tendency of overgeneralization. I remarked on this in my last post. Chapter 7, in which the psychiatrist appears for her first time as an expert witness in a "high-profile criminal trial", and displays her habit of flawed simplification. She suggests that her study of Gacy led to extensive knowledge of serial killers in general. She goes on to say that seeing Gacy "is like seeing [Richard] Macek in a different body" (p.101). Macek was the very first serial killer Morrison was allowed to examine in depth and in person. Here she appears to have formed a template to superimpose on individuals, regardless of their differences. This strategy seems not only naive, buy also completely unproductive.


11. "After ten years of research and investigation, I felt I'd barely scratched the surface of what goes on inside the head of a serial killer. (...) I knew a little, and while that was more than anyone else, I still needed to know a lot more." (p.127)


The first part of the above quote is understandable, given Morrison's shoddy research techniques and obvious pattern of misconception. The second half (containing the portion I placed in boldface) is downright disturbing. Her self-assessment shows such an extreme narcissism and hubris that it raises the question of whether or not she should be allowed by law to claim any credibility or expertise on the subject of serial killers.


12. "Gacy could have gotten bored with his victim or he could have become tired physically. But it was not something Rignall did that made this occur. Rignall's passivity did not allow a distraction to occur; it couldn't have." (p.129)



Here Morrison is referring to a victim that was released by Gacy. There has been speculation that Rignall's demeanor helped influence Gacy's decision to let him go. How Morrison feels qualified to make her assertions is a mystery. She has no way of qualifying her claims. She couldn't know what happened between Rignall and Gacy. She wasn't there. Yet she voices her guess with total authority, as if she were omnipotent. Perhaps this too is attributable to her role as defense witness. She attempted to "prove" that Gacy's actions were beyond his control. If Gacy could choose to let a potential victim go free, then her position is necessarily disproven (as it ended up being judged at the trial).


13. "Whenever he drank too much, Peter would indeed open up, only to collapse in fits of hooting laughter, incessant giggling, that often went on for up to ten minutes. Once he got started, he couldn't stop."(p.132)



Morrison included a chapter that presented a detailed profile of British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper). Apparently Peter both abused alcohol, and experienced decreased inhibitions when using it. These are both blatant contradictions of earlier statements made by the author (see Part 1). It's amazing that Morrison was able to get her doctorate, but is unable to identify her many academic inconsistencies. My Life Among the Serial Killers is a prime example of poor scholarship.


14. "Serial killers rarely can control the intensity of their impulses. When they go to do something, they don't modulate their reactions. It's all or nothing, broken wrist or not." (p.132)



This quote references an incident when the young Sutcliffe broke his own wrist while punching a bigger target. Any substantial exploration of the lives of serial killers will demonstrate that Morrison's conclusion here is mistaken. There are multiple incidences of serial killers fighting their instinct to take additional victims, and then succumbing slowly to their aggressive drives after a number of years. The author even gives several examples of serial killers deciding to release their victims after torturing them, but before killing them.



Stay tuned for Part 3...

Jason Moss "The Last Victim" (1999).

Yesterday I mentioned a book by Jason Moss called The Last Victim: A True Life Journey Into the Mind of a Serial Killer. After completing high school, the author decided that he wanted to make contact with serial killers. He wanted to write a college honors thesis about his experiences, and eventually work as a criminal profiler for the FBI. His first target was "The Clown Killer", John Wayne Gacy. For those of you who don't know the story- Gacy raped, tortured, killed, and buried in his basement 33 young men. The Chicago native had owned a construction business and was well known in his community. Moss decided to read all the available material on Gacy and send a letter to him on death row.

In order to get Gacy to "open up", the eighteen-year-old Moss developed an alter ego. He posed as an abused, lonely, sexually confused youth... just the kind of boy that the killer whould have chosen as a potential victim. As the letter exchange continued, Gacy became more controlling and eventually began to prod Moss to initiate an incestuos sexual relationship with his younger brother. Despite the growing concerns his family members had about his obsession, Moss proceeded to write a second set of letters under the assumed identity of his younger sibling. His letters were constructed in a way that would convince his pen pal that he had indeed started such experimentation. He justified this decision to himself with the idea that it would hook Gacy for the long haul, and lead him to make significant revelations.

As time went on the unlikely pair exhibited more intimacy in their respective letters, and soon Gacy was calling Moss' personal telephone line at home. Gacy sent checks for the calls, and several of his paintings, in order to seduce his final prey. When Spring Break came around, Moss was invited to visit the the death row cell block in Illinois at the prisoner's expense. While his family was suspicious of Gacy's motives, Moss considered this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and accepted the offer. He flew to the prison by himself, and was welcomed by Gacy's nephew. The agreement was that Moss would stay at a hotel for three days on Gacy's dime, and visit the inmate for several hours each day. The young investigator thought that he would get crucial insights into the the killler's methods, and indeed he got more than he bargained for. In fact he was lucky to get out of the visit intact.

Moss didn't limit his pursuit to Gacy. Simultaneous to his budding relationship with "The Killer Clown", he also established contact with Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Henry Lee Lucas. In each instance he varied his approach based upon his reading of each of their criminal profiles. Manson sent a series of enigmatic notes and poems, and actually forwarded a suggested reading list. Dahmer asked for photos of Moss in compromising positions. The interaction with Lucas was the result of an invitation Moss received to interview him in Texas before his execution. The prolific murderer graced the occasion with a list of tips for the would-be serial killer. But Ramirez was the most cooperative of the bunch. Moss told him that he was the head of a Black Magick cult in Las Vegas, and "The Night Stalker" bought it hook, line and sinker. It wasn't long before Moss was extended the invitation to join Ramirez' Satanic Friends Network.

It's quite clear from the book that this peculiar project caused the youthful Moss much psychic pain. In the beginning of his quest he had a hugely inflated assessment of his own ability to deceive and manipulate these sociopaths. Under "normal" conditions, this type of naive hubris usually elicits mild corrections that contribute to one's emotional growth. In the adventures of Jason Moss, the stakes were much higher. He wasn't dealing with anything conventional society would describe as normal. Moss had been sheltered by his family and surroundings, and he was armed mostly just with his innate curiosity and a nascent ability to bullshit others. He was challenging a subset of society that had resisted all efforts to control them. Although he escaped the clutches of John Wayne Gacy, his audacity had serious consequences. On 6/6/06 (a date with obvious occult implications), Moss shot and killed himself.