The Dark Market Of 'Murderabilia'

Gross Sales

H.H. Holmes. Albert Fish. Leopold and Loeb. Richard Speck, Charlie Manson, Ted Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer. The Zodiac Killer, the Green River Killer, the Hillside Strangler(s). The BTK Killer.

There is a small subculture of people -- nobody really knows how many -- who are so fascinated by the actions of these and other notorious murderers that they want to buy, sell or trade things they have created. People have been into this ever since Jack the Ripper became a sensation in 1888 London. Landlords charged admission to murder sites. Vendors sold little sword sticks, like knives used in the slayings.

Pop culture, celebrity, violence, the young and tragically dead. The 20th century: Popular media goes from screening out bad behavior to sensationalizing it. Bad news about famous people becomes all the rage. The nihilistic serial killer becomes the symbol of postmodern American alienation at its most extreme.

See that there on the shelf? It's a postcard from Ed Gein. Ed Gein ? Man, he's the dude "Psycho" was based on, and that freak in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and that freak in "The Silence of the Lambs." Made himself a suit out of female skin, no lie.

In 1958, the year after Gein was arrested in his home town of Plainfield, Wis., someone bought his car and took it to county fairs around the state, touting it as "The Car That Hauled the Dead From Their Graves." People were knocking chips off his gravestone for souvenirs until it was stolen about seven years ago. It turned up in Seattle, where the promoter of a group called Angry White Males was selling rubbings from the stone for $50 a pop.

It was returned to Plainfield, and the Waushara County Sheriff's Department has kept it in its basement ever since.

"To put it back would put someone else in position to take it," said Ronald Thurley, the agency's chief deputy. "I don't think people would leave it alone."

A few weeks ago, on a site called Murderauction.com, there was a letter for sale purported to be from the BTK Killer, the Kansas man who once killed an 11-year-old girl after he'd killed her parents, then masturbated over her corpse.

"One of the sickest killers ever, thanks, good luck bidding," went the pitch.

Laws Without Teeth

Before we go any further, let's say right here that in real life murder is not very entertaining.

"My only memorabilia, unfortunately, is image after image of dead bodies."

This is U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) talking in his office on the Hill. It's not every member of Congress who can hold forth on pulling corpses from rivers, but for years Reichert was the lead detective in the hunt for the Green River Killer. The killer turned out to be a nondescript truck-painter by the name of Gary Ridgeway. He confessed to killing 48 prostitutes in the 1980s and 1990s in Washington state before his 2001 arrest and subsequent life sentence.