Irish Examiner view: The booming business of murder
Twelve of the victims of 'the Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe: Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson, Irene Richardson, Patricia Atkinson, Jayne McDonald and Jean Jordan. Bottom row: Yvonne Pearson, Helen Rytka, Vera Millward, Josephine Whitaker, Barbara Leach and Jacqueline Hill.
Trends in public taste may come and go, but one shows no sign of diminishing — the obsession with true crime, unsolved mysteries, cold cases, dark tourism, mispers (missing person), and the grisly narratives that encourage citizens to play amateur detective, sometimes to the point of monomania.
Last night at Cork’s Everyman Theatre, patrons were invited to spend an evening with crime investigator, criminologist, and former detective Mark Williams-Thomas for a “unique insight into the lives of killers”. It promised to leave the audience “fascinated and enthralled.”
Mr Williams-Thomas is one of the leading exponents of the genre. He worked on an original BBC Newsnight investigation into the activities of child predator Jimmy Savile, which was shelved in December 2011. His documentary , nearly 12 months later, revealed the truth about the Yorkshire-born TV and radio personality.
Mr Williams-Thomas, who is a script advisor for several TV series, has also pursued inquiries into other notorious cases. But he is operating in a crowded and busy marketplace. ITV has recently broadcast a seven-part series about Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who committed the first of 13 murders 48 years ago.
Next week, RTÉ broadcasts , a two-part drama-doc on Kieran Kelly, the so-called London Underground Killer, from Co Laois. This case first garnered attention as a seven-part podcast. Almost upon us is from Sky Documentaries, which is the latest retelling and theorising about the disappearances of women in the eastern part of the Republic during the 1990s.
Another crime series on the way is a documentary about Bandon’s Graham Dwyer, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Elaine O’Hara, and who in March lost his appeal against his conviction.
Cork, of course, is familiar with such fare, its contribution to the oeuvre the 27-year-old mystery of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a murder that has generated a hugely successful 14-episode podcast, two TV series, and a host of speculative questions: Who was the man on the bridge; what happened to the gate; what about the horse?
Newspapers are primarily responsible for stoking interest in unsolved crime. It was old media that invented that dehumanising phrase ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. But streaming platforms, and the competition among them, have taken over with a vengeance. Both Netflix and Sky have dedicated channels to non-stop coverage from around the world.
And nor does it stop at viewing. What is known as dark tourism is also booming.
Whatever it is about our collective psyche that nurtures a preoccupation with violent death and the depravity of humanity is unlikely to be anything healthy. Some authors have drawn attention to the trait. Best-selling writer Gillian Flynn, in her novel , focuses on a kill club, a diverse group of people who meet to speculate about killings and their perpetrators.
One of her characters warns: “Worries find you easily enough without inviting them in.”
Sound advice. We should listen to it more frequently.
Those evangelists — and there are many — who are keen to dispatch the use of cash in our society, to the dustbin of history, might like to take a breath and contemplate the importance of two events this week.
