Unit 1012 Cover Photo

Unit 1012 Cover Photo

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The People Who Love Killers By Ashley Horsfall


“When I think of all the sweet, innocent people who suffer extreme pain and who die every day in this country, then the outpouring of sympathy for cold-blooded killers enrages me. Where is your (expletive deleted) sympathy for the good, the kind and the innocent? This fixation on murderers is a sickness, a putrefaction of the soul. It's the equivalent of someone spending all day mooning and cooing over a handful of human feces. Sick and abnormal.”
(Syndicated columnist Charley Reese made an interesting analogy while criticizing the way abolitionists typically behave)

Charley Reese



            In memory of Charley Reese, we will post this article by Ashley Horsfall on those people who suffer from hybristophilia.

The People Who Love Killers

Every day, murderers receive letters from people who admire them. Online communities on websites like Reddit bring together people with hybristophilia, essentially a sexual attraction to criminals.

In the case of one community, self-identified hybristophiles come together to discuss their mutual attraction to serial killers and other dangerous figures. Some users comment on how “hot” these people are, while some go as far as to discuss their satisfaction in the way the killers “had sex with” their victims. On the sidebar is a clear statement. “Some believe they can change a man as cruel and powerful as a serial killer, but we don’t want change, we find them attractive as they are.”

Some people embrace their affection for those who could never be called merely a “bad boy.” They share this philia as if it were not more controversial than discussing your favorite holiday frappucino. In between the excited statements (“Okay, but I literally have the same obsessions! OMG!”) and heart emojis are comments with a simple message. “Get therapy.”
Stumbling upon this community was probably not as startling as it should have been. I’d definitely heard about famous cases of people falling in love with murderers. But I didn’t expect to find people discussing the details of their affection in such a blasé manner. I realized I had a lot to learn.

What Is Hybristophilia?

Hybristophilia is a sexual attraction or arousal linked to individuals who have done something terrible. In some cases, the attraction is based on something small, like infidelity or fraud. A woman might get off knowing her husband had an affair. But in some cases, the attraction verges into murderous territory.

As you can see, hybristophilia does not always include a dramatic attraction to a serial killer. It would appear that serial killers simply garner more media attention. Those in the spotlight reap the largest, most vocal fan base.

If you spend time researching hybristophilia, you will find both men and women (though hybristophilia is often associated with women) describe having intense emotions, sometimes more romantic than sexual. For instance, one poster described Dylan Klebold as “husband material.” You know, if you don’t consider the only reason anybody knows his name.

I wonder how hybristophilia impacts the personal lives of the people living with it. I wonder if they typically associate intense arousal with love. I wonder who they date, who they marry. I wonder if they tell their loved ones about their feelings.

Famous Cases of Hybristophilia

Hybristophilia isn’t a new concept. If you’ve paid attention to any true crime news, you’ve probably seen it before.

When Ted Bundy was on trial for murder, vast swaths of women appeared outside the courthouse with the hope of catching a glimpse of the killer. In fact, some women who showed up at Bundy’s trial purposely changed their appearance so they looked more like his victims with middle-parted brown hair.

In 1980, Bundy actually married one of his admirers. Carole Anne Boone married Bundy after he’d confessed to 30 murders. The two initially met before the murders began, but apparently Boone stuck around. In 1977, she was caught helping him fund an escape from prison. In 1980, they married in the courtroom during his trial. Two years later, Boone gave birth to a child she claimed was Bundy’s. She divorced him a few years before his execution.

Richard Ramirez faced the same mobs of women desperate for his affection. He even married one of his groupies, Doreen Lioy, who had been writing to him after seeing his picture in the paper. They married in the prison waiting room in 1996, but they eventually separated before his death in 2013.

In spite of the fact that Jeffrey Dahmer was a gay man, he received a slew of letters and gifts from smitten women. In this case, it seems like many of the women with a Dahmer obsession want to take care of him. They think a nurturing relationship would have changed everything for the cannibal.
Angelo Buono Jr., one half of the Hillside Stranglers, was linked to Christine Kizuka. Buono caught her eye when she was visiting her husband in jail. Buono lived in the cell next to him at the Los Angeles County Jail. Kizuka eventually married Buono in 1986 at Folsom Prison.

One Saturday Night Live skit poked fun at Erik and Lyle Menendez fans. In 1999, Erik married a woman named Tammi Saccoman at Folsom Prison before celebrating with a shared Twinkie. They’d been pen pals up to the point. Saccoman went on to write a book about the experience.
Charles Manson was quite popular behind bars, but surprisingly he was not the first member of The Family to make it to the altar. Tex Watson married Kristin Joan Svege in 1979 after converting to Christianity and becoming a minister. The couple had four children before California ended conjugal visits for lifers in 1996. In 2003, they divorced.

Susan Atkins also married a man who claimed to be a multi-millionaire. Alas, it was not meant to be. Donald Lee Laisure had been married 35 times and didn’t have quite the fortune he claimed to. They divorced, and Atkins married another man a few years later.

Not-So-Famous Cases of Hybristophilia

Of course, not everybody with hybristophilia is attracted to the idea of a handsome, high-profile serial killer. One German waitress, Dagmar Polzin, fell in love with a picture of a death row inmate, Bobby Lee Harris. Within one year of Polzin writing to Harris, the two were engaged. Harris was re-sentenced to life in prison in 2003. Polzin came to the United States to live with her fiance’s family.

A woman serving a life sentence for the murder and dismemberment of a 19-year-old man, Teresa Deion Smith Harris, began dating Timothy Bernard McDonald from behind bars. Apparently he’d watched her testify in the case and became smitten. McDonald and others remain convinced that Harris is innocent. In 2016, he wrote a book about her case.

Cases of Aggressive Hybristophilia

In most cases of hybristophilia, the admirer is passive. The admirer doesn’t necessarily have an interest in participating in the crimes of their beloved. This is not the case for those with aggressive hybristophilia.

Veronica Lynn Compton was obsessed with the Hillside Stranglers. After she got in contact with Kenneth Bianchi, Compton tried to kill a woman using Bianchi’s M.O. in the hopes it would show the investigators the “real killer” was still out there. Bianchi even gave Compton his semen so she could leave it at the scene of the crime. Fortunately for everybody else, Compton’s attempt to murder failed and the victim escaped. Compton was sent to prison. In the meantime, Bianchi found somebody else to marry — Shirlee Joyce Book, a woman who had previously tried to worm her way into the heart of Bundy years earlier.

Then, we have Karla Homolka. She actively participated in the drugging, rape, and murder of several victims — including her own sister — alongside her husband, Paul Bernardo.

Where Does Hybristophilia Come From?

It certainly does not help that movies, television, and the news sometimes give people a “bad boy” edit when they really deserve a “terrible person” edit. Media outlets don’t help when they slap Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the covers of their magazines. Zac Efron is going to play Ted Bundy in an upcoming film. Evan Peters is fun to watch every week on American Horror Story. But I wouldn’t say this is the main issue at play here. 

I’ve entertained many ideas based on my research. Maybe some women want to nurture bad men. Maybe some seek fame. Perhaps others like the idea of having a man close, but not too close. Behind bars is safe.

For these people, writing to somebody behind bars means they are the main relationship in this person’s life. A woman might receive weekly letters in which a man is conveying his innermost thoughts to her. It is so easy to fall in love with the words on paper or the voice on the other end of the phone line. Falling in love with somebody behind bars allows you to stay in a perpetual stage of courting, not dealing with the monotony of work and family.

That being said, I still don’t have an answer as to why so many people feel an attraction to murderers and otherwise terrible people. Why some people try so hard to give them attributes there is no evidence they ever possessed. I’m ultimately left with more questions than answers.

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