School of Thought

“SERIAL killer live talk – Stafford.” As emails go, it was certainly an eye-catching subject line.

Was I being invited to meet a real murderer? And why had they targeted me?

It turned out the event was being organised by Crime Viral, which has a following of 350,000 true crime fans online.

Serial killer expert Cheish Merryweather, who founded the company, is bringing her latest tour to Stafford’s Couture Event Venue on June 3. Expect references to Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and other notorious multiple murderers.

“Throughout this evening, we will explore how a child can grow into a cold-blooded killer,” Cheish said in the email, which landed in my inbox the other day. “The aim is hopefully to explain why they did what they did. There will also be live psychopath testing throughout this talk, to see just how alike we are to these notorious killers.”

Gulp. That’s my personality dissected. I already have one link to a notorious crime: Hollywood actress Sharon Tate was murdered by cult leader Charles Manson’s ‘family’ on my birthday (albeit I wasn’t born at the time).

It may help explain my fascination with the Manson murders as a teenager.

My reading tastes at that age also extended to studying the court martial transcripts relating to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam (I stumbled across them in Keele University’s library).

Many of us have an interest in true crime, especially the psychology behind it. In fact, it’s spawned a whole industry of books, TV documentaries and films.

And in recent years, we’ve also seen academia get in on the act. I regularly receive emails from universities promoting research into forensic science, policing and the criminal justice system. Some of their lecturers appear as experts on TV or in newspapers.

At Staffordshire University, academics even joined forces to create their own monthly podcast called the Crime Tapes. It shone a light on an array of topics, including social media stalking, whether video games have an influence on ‘real world’ violence, and how we police protests.

If you study a forensic-related degree at university, you may well be taught by somebody who has actually worked in the field.

A growing number of former police officers are now involved in degree programmes.

You’ll also find experts such as Staffordshire University’s associate professor Fiona Graham, whose background is in filmmaking, journalism and TV.

She used to work on BBC series Crimewatch and has also been involved in programmes about murderer Harold Shipman and the Great Train Robbery.

In an article in 2020, Fiona stressed the importance of giving victims a voice when researching crimes. “True crime storytelling shouldn’t all be about the killer, they shouldn’t always be our focus,” she said. “We must be the writer for the victims and families and the reasons why we write can be to push for justice or raise awareness.”

Yet often the public’s interest in cases is piqued by the gruesome nature of the crimes. Reading books on the subject feels a bit like placing ourselves at the scene, investigating what happened.

The true crime genre isn’t a new phenomenon. It has its roots in the 19th century when many people would devour ‘penny dreadfuls.’ They were cheap weekly publications devoted to meeting the demand for crime stories.

Nowadays, solving crimes is far more sophisticated. Convictions can hinge on a DNA sample, the trajectory of a bullet or the signature on a document.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the forensic side of casework, you can go along to a free public talk at Staffordshire University on Wednesday.

Guest speaker Professor Roger Robson, who has more than 40 years’ experience in forensics, will be at The Catalyst building in Leek Road, Stoke, at 5.15pm.

His talk is tantalisingly called ‘Is there such a thing as the perfect crime?.’ To register, visit www.staffs. ac.uk/events.