Like any other tool who considered themselves "goth" back in high school /college, I had the prerequisite obsession with serial killers. It waned of course, being banal, but lately it has been coming back to mind. Why?

Because 9 out of 10 serial killers are white, middle class males aged 25-35... AND OHMYGOD SO AM I!!!

If you're a learned type, you know that a lot of cultural studies PhDers will tell you that World War 1 is considered the event in which the modern age was born. POSTmodernism, POSTanythingism for that matter, is usually considered to sort begin its ascent in this time period.

It has to due with a worldwide media machine, the concept of DEATH being so rampant without a plague, and generally just being the focal point for everything.

Because I am so inclined, I like giving that credit to Jack the Ripper. Serial killers started the modern age damn it.

But like I said, I grew out of it... but did they?

Son of Sam claims to have.



He says, in time, he's gotten better. At first I begin to wonder if he had actually done so. What he did was a long time ago. Is it possible that he was suffering from some mental disorder that is treatable now? He even wished not to be granted parole. That seems like case for somebody who has gotten better. So was it a miracle pill or therapy? No... it was Jesus.

He traded one form of crazy for another. He attributes what he did to DEMONS and Jesus saved him. An interesting note, he recently changed cells, and can hear the birds from his new cell window. Wouldn't it be funny if somebody down the way had a dog that liked to bark a lot...

Where Berkowitz found Jesus and happily continues to live under imagined influences, Ted Bundy did his best to recreate himself in the image of sanity. He defended himself in one of his trials, sure that he could prove his innocence. But it was kind of hard to disprove them pesky bitemarks. After he went to prison he even aided authorities in trying to hunt down the Green River Killer, but he wasn't fooling anybody. We has just mad some guy stole his schtick and was killing on his old stomping grounds. In the end, he matured a little. When it was clear he wasn't going to escape the chair he admitted to not only the crimes he was convicted of, but over 30 more.

Movies have showed us that serial killers are these mad genius types who allude authorities and just bad, brilliant people who have slipped along their journey. Sadly this isn't true. While Bundy was very well educated, most serial killers are "blathering retards" as my former teacher, and expert of the grotesque, Gordon Grice once said. He directed me towards a book called Lustmord, which contains a lot of text written by serial killers. It really is a bunch of psychoctic babbling. We secretly WANT John Doe or Hannible Lector. But you're just going to get Charles Manson crazies.

Speaking of Manson, perhaps one of the few real cases of serial growing up is Leslie Van Houtin.



Aged 19, Leslie took part in the lesser famous of the two Manson-instructed slayings. She maintains, that after being on acid for extended periods of times, she went along with group, and after he was already dead, she stabbed Leno LaBianca a handfull of times.



She was one of the infamous three Manson girls that shaved their heads, carved in X's, and created a ruckus during the trial. She was given the death penalty, which was later commuted to a life term when California abolished the death sentence. She has tried for, and been denied, parole 14 times.

Can a murderer change? What if she was just a kid that was high as a kite and enchanted by a chrasmatic hippie cult leader? That was one year of her life, compared to the 30+ she has spent in prison; in which time she has gotten 2 college degrees, completed several psychic evaluation courses, and done countless hours of community service. And although she is a member if a 12 step program, she didn't go totally Jesus. Times change, and so do people. Even the newer members of Marilyn Manson aren't using serial killer names anymore.

The other Manson girls have rotted away, tried to kill Presidents, or otherwise vanished. Susan Atkins- the most vocal, visibly crazy and bombastic of the famed trio that were tried with Manson, has also tried and been denied parole several times. She did however gain noteriety by developing a special diet that seems to be catching on.

Both Van Houten and Atkins are also kinda hot in a MILFy sort of way...