Watching the detectives
Murder, blood, gore as amateurs learn how the pros crack cases
In one room there is a seminar on killers who have bumped off their own families. Another has a mocked-up crime scene with amateur sleuths noting on their clipboards the blood spatter patterns.
Sam Tweedle thumbs through her phone’s camera roll, as if showing off her holiday snaps. The 43-year-old from Luton says: “This is the one where I was shot in the head. And that’s where I’d been stabbed and had my chest open, you can see my ribs.”
Welcome to CrimeCon – a Comic Con-style event for true crime obsessives such as Sam. You won’t be surprised to learn it is an American import and this one in a London hotel is the first of its kind to land here.
The blood in Sam’s photos is thankfully not real. It was a photoshoot five years ago with a make-up artist skilled at turning paying punters into zombies or beaten corpses.
Boyfriend James Hatton, 35, had bought her the experience. A clanger of a Christmas present? Not a bit of it. Retail manager Sam adds: “It was so much fun. I’ve always had a fascination with blood, guts and gore.”
Postman James went one better last yuletide and bought her CrimeCon tickets.
The pair are just two of the 436 true crime fans, dipping in and out of grisly lectures and wandering the stalls – a Ted Bundy Christmas card, anyone? – with all the wonder of kids in a sweetshop.
Sat in the second-from-front row in the main auditorium, keen as mustard for the coming Are Killers Born Evil? panel discussion, is Sally Hooker.
The 42-year-old says: “I’ve been into true crime since before it was cool.”
At the age of seven, Sally got hooked on a periodical called Murder Case Book that her dad used to leave in the living room.
She adds: “He told me ‘That’s not to be touched, it’s for grown-ups’, so of course I looked through it. It wasn’t gruesome at all, I became fascinated by the detective work.”
Communications manager Sally, from South East London, admits her love of true crime has dented her search for true love. “On first dates, a person would ask what I’m into and I’d say music, reading, cricket and true crime. Cue them finding an excuse to leave.
“I’ve had at least three guys saying they really liked me until I mentioned the ‘serial killer thing’.”
In the lobby of the Leonardo Royal hotel
I’ve had guys say they really liked me until I mentioned the ‘serial killer thing’
by St Paul’s cathedral in London, friends Kayleigh White and Katie Ward take selfies in front of a giant police line-up background.
Nail technician and mum-of-two Kayleigh is a speaker at the event, recounting the day she was stabbed in the back by a drugged stranger in 2015. She lifts her top to show the thick scar down her tummy where surgeons opened her up. But despite everything she’s been through, she’s still a die-hard true crimer. Kayleigh, 23, says: “I like to see how things are solved. It amazes me what they can do with so little evidence.” Katie, 24, adds: “We’re the classic fans, watching crime docs in bed together with sweet and salt popcorn, narrating every bit to each other.”
Crouching to look at a mocked-up crime scene with a dismembered shop window dummy lying on the floor draped in fake blood and a bin bag is Lisa Woodford.
The 44-year-old proofreader and transcriptionist from Bedworth, Warks, has left her husband Andrew at home.
She says: “He’s into sci-fi and just doesn’t get true crime at all. He joked that I’d get murdered here. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘think of all the detectives here, it’ll be solved in a minute.’”
Nearby, forensics experts are giving demonstrations on finger and footprints.
After pressing my brogues on to a ceramic tile there’s nothing to see. That is until crime scene investigator Helen Higgins brushes the surface with Magneta Flake, a metal powder.
Suddenly the tread of my shoe is clear as day. Helen’s face lights up as she says: “That’s a really good one, I wouldn’t go out committing murder in those shoes.”
In the hotel’s basement suite it is standing room only for the police sniffer dog demo.
Black labrador Stanley noses the bags of those sitting at the front for drugs. He sits obediently at one planted by ex-Army man Chris Bond and the room fills with applause.
That contrasts with the anguished looks at Deanna Thompson’s seminar on animal cruelty. She is true crime’s hottest new thing, having found murderer Luka Magnotta and global fame in Netflix’s Don’t F*** with Cats.
It was the videos Canadian porn star Magnotta posted online of him suffocating kittens that enraged Deanna to find him.
Sadly, it wasn’t in time to prevent the murder and dismemberment of 33-year-old Jun Lin, something he also posted.
Deanna, who founded the Animal Beta Project to try to prevent further animal suffering, says: “Cruelty to animals is one of the triad of warning signs for serial killers, along with arson and bed wetting.”
CrimeCon might not be the most obvious place for a family weekend away, unless you
SALLY HOOKER ON HOW CRIMECON HIT LOVE LIFE
My husband joked I’d be murdered here. I said, well it would be solved in a minute
LISA WOODFORD CRIME FAN ON VISITING THE CONVENTION
are the Hennesseys from upstate New York. Parents Jim and Kevyn combined the event with a trip to see daughter Rachel, 23, and her boyfriend Usman Shahid, 35.
Kevyn, 54, says: “He’d been begging me to go for years but I was like, what’s this CrimeCon thing? It sounds kinda weird.” Geordie Jim adds: “It’s brilliant.”
Mum and daughter Kerry, 47, and Promise, 23, from Poole, Dorset, feared they might be considered geeks by attending.
But Kerry says: “When we got here, we soon realised we weren’t the geekiest here.”
She could be referring to Mandy Hamer, whose chest is resplendent with safety pin badges, picked up from the podcast stalls.
Mandy, 53, says: “CrimeCon is just an extension of watching your Inspector Morses and Miss Marples. For me, it was a must-do.”