To think DS's obsession with serial killers is concerning?

[oxfordyvonne]

I know this is a strange title but recently DS has been displaying some behaviours and interests that are a little weird. We're a family of avid readers and are always recommending new reads to each other, and DS is old enough now to read more sophisticated novels so I suggested Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry which is a book about Charles Manson and his crimes. Fascinating read if you ever get the chance. Anyway, he finished reading a week ago and told me how much he loved it and how fascinating it was to him.

Since then he's gone absolutely serial killer mad. Every day he'll talk endlessly about killers he's researched like Ed Gein and John Wayne Gacy, and more obscure ones such as Aileen Wuornos (who I didn't even know myself, had to research her). He'll tell me statistics, how many people they killed and the circumstances, which prison they're currently in and how long their sentences are. I understand all kids have their obsessions but this is far more morbid than playing with LEGO or The Sims. I know it's my fault too for recommending the novel, didn't think it would lead to this though. AIBU? Deary me. I need a glass of wine!

Don't worry OP, I have been obsessed with serial killers, true crime and read Stephen King and Dean Koontz constantly since I was about 14. Im 40 now and been a police officer for 21 years (in ten days!!). It doesn't mean he's getting tips he's maybe just like me and totally fascinated as to how and why people commit these crimes

Oh, a great book for him would be the jigsaw man by Paul Britton. He's the psychologist who profiled a lot of our British killers and helped catch them. A very interesting read!!

Right, I do agree with the consensus here, and I get it, because I am subject to this particular morbid fascination too. I would just sound a (small!) note of caution because it is important to retain a degree of balance and perspective when spending time learning about the worst things humanity is capable of. I've read anything and everything about serial killers, cults, torture methods, disappearances and mysteries. It is endlessly fascinating, but it can have an effect on me if I dwell on it too long to the exclusion of other interests and activities.

I'm just saying. Because no, of course it doesn't mean one is a psycho-in-the-making, but some of this stuff is really fucking disturbing and will stay with me to the point I'll wish I didn't know about it. Albert Fish and Unit 731 would be two examples of this.

But that's me, I am a sensitive and obsessive sort of personality type, I guess.

I am very gentle, studied Ethics and am a bit obsessed with this kind of thing too. I don't like Horror movies (can't handle them) but I like the RL stuff. Oddly, particularly if I'm a bit rundown or poorly. At 16 I really wouldn't be worried.

Yep, joining in the chorus of "this sounds just like me"

An interesting recommendation for balance! Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker is a good, sad book about the victims of the Long Island Serial Killer.

This was me in my early teens. I was particularly fond of cannibals and female serial killers.

Murder count 0 (so far)

I really wouldn't worry OP. It's good that he's interested in a way. Like a pp said, it is history, and also (I hope I'm not alarming anyone by saying this) it is interesting.

My dd11 is rather into goulish things. She reads some fairly out there stuff. However, her teachers say her humor and imagination are amazing. I'm not worried.

I remember Mark Gatiss (actor, screen writer, author) saying in an interview once that his parents were incredibly worried about him as a teen as all he wanted to do was sit in the dark watching horror films. It seems to have made his career!

I reckon we all so fascinated by this because it's so far removed from what we are like ie normal. I can't imagine killing anyone unless they were trying to harm my family, so I'm interested in how these people tick. Nothing too dark mind you, but just the randomness of why one person is a killer and another isn't.

DP can't even watch a Hammer Horror!
He really just does not get the fascination at all. Oddly enough, he has very high levels of anxiety about just about everything you can think of, whereas I'm more sanguine.

Another one who was like this as a teenager - to the point I considered a career in Criminology. I was ever-so-slightly obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen (and I would absolutely live in the attic flat at 23, Cranley Gardens!)

My mum liked true crime too, and we got the Murder Casebook partwork and I spent HOURS looking through them.

One of my English Lit GCSE essays was on procedural/ethical problems in Silence Of the Lambs and my final school report has a comment from the then Head saying how he "looked forward to seeing me on Crimewatch" yeah, it was him on Crimewatch a few years later when he was on the run for having indecent images of children

Aged 16 I had devoured my local libraries true crime section, and would have been able to have "serial killers in English-speaking countries" as a special subject on Mastermind.

Now, nearly 50, it'snot that I haven't killed anyone, just they've not found the bodies yet .

We let dps friends use our Netflix they were a bit taken aback at all the true crime and serial killer stuff I watched. I have no murderous tendencies I wouldn't worry. My bookcase also has a true crime shelf

the sociology of deviants is a fascinating subject, maybe you could gentle push him into learning Sociology

I was the same with obsessively researchingserial killers etc. And me and friends used to look at a website called rotton which was disgusting and very gory. I turned out pretty norrmal

I was like this! I ended up writing my thesis on 18th century criminology. And I still get paid to lecture on the subject occasionally (although I'm well out of academia now). I reckon I was pretty normal too for the department of criminology where I worked - we could all talk serial killers at length.

Number of actual murderers in the department = 0.

Tell him to read/join websleuths

in my earlier years loved murder she wrote, diagnostic murder. When about 16 me and my mum watched a drama about Jack the Ripper together on the sofa under a blanket :)

I've aways been fascinated by these things, now love anything crime drama related criminal minds, real crime stories, the following (just finished the latest episode of 100 code which left me screaming at the telly) to name a few and I'm a very gentle, kind soul - possibly made me much more aware of my surroundings/people when I was a young woman living in London alone.

It scares the living daylights out of me on one hand but on the other find it fascinating. I would have loved to have studied criminal psychology!

Thank you for the recommendation of The Subject of Murder by Lisa Downing I can't remember the poster who suggested that, but will be off to Amazon now :)