The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes: When does scarcity equal value?
Plus "murderabilia" and internet burnout
the true crime that's worth your time
The October 2022 bonus review topic is Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders. It dropped on Hulu earlier this year; here’s Hulu’s logline:
Award-winning actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth returns to her hometown to investigate Oklahoma’s most infamous murders. Keeper of the Ashes is the true story of three young Oklahoma girls, found murdered after their first night at sleep-away camp. The tragedy, as well as the manhunt and trial of their suspected killer, captivated the nation in the summer of 1977. But decades later, uncertainties surrounding the case continue to haunt the Tulsa community, local law enforcement, and the victims’ families.
You can watch, if you haven’t already, here — and thanks to everyone who voted, but only paid subscribers will get that write-up. That said, paid subscribers also get all the other write-ups behind the paywall (three-plus years’ worth!), so…
Thanks for considering it! — SDB
The crime
Your correspondent only has so many ways of summarizing the horrors perpetrated by Jeffrey Dahmer.
The story
One of the quirks of pricing secondhand true crime is what I call to myself the “bizarrity” — that occasional paperback, unprepossessing in levels and wear and design, that my pricing research reveals as a rarity. It looks like 70 percent of trade PBs in the genre (black cover; red title; “shocking photos!” that aren’t), it’s about an unremarkable “cheaty spouse thought murder > divorce, thought wrong” case…and the two copies you can find on eBay cost half a hundred bucks, at best.
At which time I price it at half a twenty, photograph it, and shelve it, because it’s a used paperback, for God’s sack. The value of a thing doesn’t always map onto the scarcity of that thing.
Conversations With A Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes put me in mind of the bizarrity. As with the Bundy iteration of the series, which is brought to us by ol’ Onionskin Joe Berlinger, The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes airs never-before-heard audio of a notorious serial killer, interspersing it with talking-head interviews to give context to both the content of that audio, and the collection of it. And as with the Bundy iteration, the exclusive nature of the materials is the primary point of the docuseries. But does that exclusivity translate to worthiness — to a good use of the viewer’s time? Without judging consumers who continue to find the Dahmer case riveting, and/or who return to it as a means of trying to understand the incomprehensible and to manage anxiety around horror, the particulars of the Dahmer story and of Dahmer’s victims demographically mean, in my opinion, that we need to set a higher bar vis-a-vis recommendations in the topic area. Also in my opinion, an access scoop alone doesn’t meet the necessary standard.
But TJDT isn’t only a rarity on the raw-materials level; it’s about a rarity as well. As many of the case-adjacent interviewees point out, Dahmer himself was unique among serial killers; he “lacked defensiveness” about his monstrous acts and didn’t try to justify them. He may not have wanted to confess, exactly, but he correctly gauged the evidence against him and elected to participate in/aid parts of the investigation. He didn’t deny responsibility, and he didn’t use information only he had about certain victims’ disappearances to manipulate law enforcement or forensic psychiatrists. If he agreed to talk, he got as much coffee and as many cigarettes as he wanted — so he agreed to talk. Not that the infrequency of that occurrence makes TJDT per se worthwhile either — Dahmer’s stated desire to try to figure out “why I am what I am,” in addition to the fundamental futility of trying to make a serial killer’s “why” legible to civilians, isn’t something we can call “admirable,” under the circs. Yes, he’s less about working the angles for his own gain than Bundy, probably, but…talk about needing a higher standard. The question is whether information only Dahmer had, in tapes only Berlinger got, can tell us anything we don’t already know.
Based on the one episode I’ve seen: maybe. TJDT makes a few missteps, like getting a little too hectically cute with the vintage b-roll, and not cutting a talking head’s overly careful explanation of necrophilia. And it does put the viewer in the position of “siding with” Dahmer because he’s presented as forthright and in search of insight about himself, and at times seems almost to want us to pity Dahmer, because he fought his homicidal urges for a while by going to church with his nana. The guy drugged, raped, kidnapped, and killed people; that he tried not to sometimes doesn’t make him a protagonist.
But it does have top-notch access to case figures, and to photos of Dahmer we haven’t already seen a squillion times; one nutty pic from Dahmer’s brief college career, of him passed out next to a 40-ouncer of Thunderbird with his pants unfastened, is striking in that I could list a dozen of my college classmates whom I know for a fact had pics just like it taken after one too many rounds of beer pong. And it includes interviews with, among others, a curator of a Milwaukee LGBTQ history project, and a guy who knew Dahmer and several of his victims from the gay-bar/baths scene in the ’80s. I think the property I really want to see is about that man, his life and times, and how his community was stalked, constantly — by Dahmer, by fear and loathing, by a disease few cared to fight. I think we’ll never know in any satisfying way why Dahmer was what he was; let’s keep looking past him, at why Dahmer could keep being what he was.
TJDT isn’t going for that, but it lands there a few times just the same in the first hour; if there’s enough of that context throughout, it’s worth your afternoon. Even still, it’s not essential. — SDB
The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes premieres Friday, October 7 on Netflix.
Monster, TJDT, the return of Serial to the center of the genre conversation, the veritable barrage of true-crime programming this month — it’s all generating more discussion than usual about the ethics of true crime, creating it and consuming it. Fine with me, of course; that meta angle is a big part of what we do here, is A, and B, I’ve had it top of mind while packing orders for the bookshop of late, because Dahmer content just will not stay on my shelves. I mean, it’s always top of mind, because as a retail concern, I…literally profit from horrible stories, so it’s a matter of trying to do it as reputably and unglibly as possible, and of just remaining aware.
All this by way of saying that I don’t look at an outfit like Cult Collectibles and think, “At least I’m not as gross as that guy,” because it’s really the same thing, different degree, but said outfit is taking fire — not for the first time — for selling a pair of Jeffrey Dahmer’s prison-worn aviator glasses. The site, which calls itself “Canada’s Largest Cult And True Crime Memorabilia Site,” has a bunch of other Dahmerabilia (ugh) for sale, and while we may have linked to it before, I think we actually noted a different site selling similar artifacts like locks of Charles Manson’s hair?
There are a bunch, and they’ve been offending people for ages, but I don’t know that pearl-clutching is a useful response, versus interrogating the market/need murderabilia dealers serve. Yes, charging five figures for a Bible touched by a mass murderer is…let’s say “remarkable,” but what’s remarkable really, to me, is that that’s apparently what the market will bear. You and I might not pay that price, or care about that Bible at any price, and it’s easier — and not incorrect, perhaps! — just to dismiss that slice of the retail sector as profiteering scumbaggery. But it’s maybe not answering the more important question, which is what anxieties get both aggravated and soothed by the sector’s existence.
Meanwhile, Amelia Tait has a piece at Wired about the effect of consuming true crime on “viewers — and victims.” After a quick review of the cases giving everyone ethical agita in recent weeks, Tait relates a few specific anecdotes from Serial obsessives who had to quit the podcast’s subreddit because it literally raised their blood pressure, or got them doxxed. But is this about the subject of the subreddit — or the medium? Because after years of running the Television Without Pity forums, I have to tell you, this sounds like pretty much any other online-community burnout:
Meghan, a 30-year-old nurse from Washington who asked that WIRED not use her last name, has spent seven years on the [Serial] sub out of “habit.” She enjoyed the early “exciting” days when people regularly posted new discoveries and says chatting with strangers over the years has been beneficial. “At this point some of the other long-term posters feel a bit like old friends, even the ones that I fight with the most,” she says. But personal attacks on the sub also heighten Meghan’s anxiety, and she has also come to reevaluate her attitude toward true crime.
“I am embarrassed and ashamed of how gleefully I came back to this sub to look at lividity documents, et cetera, without fully considering that the victim was a real person,” she says. “A teenager died; multiple other teenagers’ lives were completely upended … It’s just all sad. And I think that does affect my mental health.”
We all get that inspecting and debating autopsy results is not the same as getting into it with people over “Spuffy,” but the intensity and the lack of perspective read the same to me, just with a more toxic focus. Not that Tait isn’t onto something in the piece, and this here true-crime newsletter is always talking about taking breaks from true crime, but whether the specific genre is what’s wearing on people, versus being too online, might be a matter for PhD-program-level study.
Definitely a matter for discussion from you fine commenters, I know that much. — SDB
I’d like to tell you the rest of the issue is a bit lighter; I cannot do so! As always, I remind you to read with care for yourselves as I post a couple of follow-ups to previous discussions…
“Angelina Jolie Details Abuse Allegations Against Brad Pitt in Countersuit” [New York Times] // We mentioned Jolie’s FOIA-adjacent suit against the FBI back in August. The matter detailed by the NYT earlier this week is a separate filing regarding a winery Jolie and Pitt used to co-own, and Jolie’s countersuit against Pitt in re: same. …Yeah, it’s a whole torturous chain of claims, stays, accusations of commercial extortion, etc. etc., but the reason the in-flight attack allegations have resurfaced is that [takes deep breath] “negotiations to sell her share of the business to Mr. Pitt had broken down over his demand that she sign ‘a nondisclosure agreement that would have contractually prohibited her from speaking outside of court about Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children.’” Why this version seems more detailed (read: “worse”) than in previous filings, I don’t know. My sense — again, knowing exactly shit-all about what happened — is that Jolie is content to allow Pitt’s disingenuous image-rehab tour as long as he doesn’t try her patience with a cover-up, but he keeps testing her and she keeps pulling an envelope of receipts out of her budge all “son, do not.”
Good news/bad news time. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP via Variety) “‘Rust’ Team Announces Settlement With Halyna Hutchins Estate, Will Resume Film Production in January” [Variety] // Also in August, we asked when true-crime ties should give a project “curséd” status and oblige it to shut down; the ill-starred Rust — whose cinematographer, Hutchins, was killed on set not quite a year ago when Alec Baldwin accidentally discharged a weapon — made our list. But the film is back to shooting in January “with all the original principal players on board,” and while terms weren’t made public, one of them is that Hutchins’s widower, Matthew, “will become an executive producer on the film.” Both of those choices feel icky to me, like, you don’t want to change anything or put this traumatic production in the rearview? And if Baldwin et al. hoped that this would have a mitigating effect on the prospect of criminal charges, well, the DA is saying it’s irrelevant. — SDB
Okay, here’s some better news: the third volume of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries hits the streamer October 19. You know how I love the original, but I also think the reboot understands its assignment very well, changing a few things to reflect a different way of consuming TV true crime but holding on to a handful of vintage elements.
Said elements haven’t included crap about aliens and ghosts in Revolutionary-era taverns, really, which is my preference, but per Jade Budowski’s write-up at Primetimer, it sounds like that stuff is back in the mix in UM: The New Class’s third go-round:
This season will explore "unexplained deaths, baffling disappearances, and bizarre paranormal activity", spotlighting cases including the death of an 18-year-old volleyball star, lights hovering over Lake Michigan, the murder of a beloved single father, a college student's unexplained disappearance, paranormal activity on a Navajo reservation, and more.
There will be nine episodes in total, each featuring a different mystery.
…
Unsolved Mysteries Volume 3 debuts on Netflix October 18 with three new episodes. Subsequent installments will premiere October 25 and November 1.
Just one way in which the new UM improves on the original: instead of mixing the who-careser segments in with the true-crime ones, this one silos them in their own episodes, which viewers can — and this viewer will — skip! The trailer for Vol. 3 is below. — SDB
Welp, I meant to review that Prince Andrew joint on Peacock but I ran out of room, so maybe Eve will get to it…Friday on Best Evidence: but maybe she’ll talk about the Kim K pod instead, or A Friend of the Family, or weird Airbnb bans. Let’s all find out tomorrow!
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