Murderabilia

Blood money

Since the marketing world insists we pump up the jam on our holiday shopping, here’s my warped version.

Once I wrote about the women who love convicted serial killers, but now I want to explore the equally dubious realm of Murder Merch.

Episode 15 of the Unraveled podcast series about The Long Island Serial Killer explored the fascinating topic of Murderabilia, starting around minute 18, and inspired by the fact that Rex Heuermann has been corresponding from jail with “Happy Face Killer” Keith Jesperson.

How about a few things on your Amazon wishlist from your favorite murderers? You can find online (though on more obscure sites like this Cult Collectibles in Canada):

• Portrait of Jeffrey Dahmer by serial killer Phillip Jablonski, $100 (shown above)

• your very own John Wayne Gacy painting of a clown skull for $19,500

• a three-page Ted Bundy letter and envelope set, signed, for $4,200

• Charles Manson string dolls that he made, with his own hair woven in, $4,000-$8,000

• Rex Heuermann (the aforementioned LISK) as featured in his middle school yearbook, $1,000 (riding the ethical line between items manufactured vs. produced by the killer)

• On that manufactured front: serial killer coloring books, action figures, bobble heads, snow globes (not illegal just in bad taste)

• Jody Arias drawings and writings produced in court (which she was savvy enough to sell before she was convicted)

• Hand-drawn fill-in-the-blank Christmas card and envelopes from Dennis Rader, aka BTK, for $500, addressed to whomever you like “from BTK” with a cheerful “Season’s Greetings”

• And other countless oddities, photos and dubious memorabilia from the likes of Ted Kaczynski, Darlie Routier, and other killers from infamous to indie

Who buys, who sells, how big is this industry? And why oh why? Or why we should not buy it?

Andy Kahn, longtime victims advocate who is now the Director of Victim Services, Crime Stoppers of Houston, coined term the “murderabilia” after he came upon, in 1999, a blurb in a Rochester paper about Arthur Shawcross, a NY serial killer’s “art privileges” being rescinded after he was found to be selling his drawings on eBay. Kahn couldn’t believe this could be legal for criminals to profit like this from their bad acts, but eBay basically said “we’re not the morality police.” Kahn, in response, took on the industry, and gained attention for existing but insufficient anti-profit legislation that seemed to still effectively reward the most notorious criminals and further violate victims. eBay was pushed to stop peddling murderabilia after a 20/20 program aired inspired by Kahn’s campaign. But, these vendors only set up shops somewhere else, developing their own websites to further their trade between killers and buyers. Now, Kahn says, there are about five to seven dealers around the country on various sites, marketing the merch they obtain from school shooters, mass murderers, serial killers, you name it.

He had found and collected himself—I assume for the sake of his “research”— fingernail clippings from a California serial killer, clothing, artwork, letters, autographs, hair samples.

“You name it, anything that can attach with their name, can and will sell on the open market.”

Photo by Sarah Stierch, CC0

From the sign explaining John Wayne Gacy’s art kit displayed at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, DC:

Portrait of a Killer

This otherwise ordinary-looking artist’s paintbox was possessed by convicted serial murderer John Wayne Gacy during his incarceration on death row in Illinois.

Gacy, acquired this paint set in 1982 and with it created over two thousand canvases most of which were eagerly purchased by individuals who ‘befriended’ the killer prior to his execution by lethal injection in May of 1994.

Among his many subject matters, he particularly liked painting himself in such a way that he could succeed in rehabilitating his public image.

_Courtesy of the Arthur Nash collection

Part of Kahn’s work to stop these sort of shenanigans meant he reached out to 20 killers to see if they even knew their items were selling on these sites. David Berkowitz, Son of Sam, was shocked to find out this was happening under his name without his blessing. The same name that had inspired the original Son of Sam laws of the late 1970s in the first place.

“He’s been a tremendous help. And it doesn’t get any better when you have the Son of Sam, whom the profiting laws were named after, actually working on your behalf. You can’t script that.”

According to the Son of Sam laws drafted before there was the assumed threat (though not the actual intent) of the newly incarcerated serial killer possibly profiting from his story, it’s illegal for any convicted felons to sell only any book or movie rights. The problem with the law: not all states adopted a version of New York’s law, the law is limited to these two mediums, and it’s virtually unenforceable and always challenged. Restricting free speech is next to impossible in the courts. One case with Simon & Schuster went all the way to the Supreme Court who decried it unconstitutional, as have other similar cases in lesser courts. Despite Son of Sam laws being largely inconsequential, there’s the idea that they exist more than the reality itself, which may complicate if not further hinder the interest and sale of such dubious goods. Look at the interest in true crime in any form—murder sells.

This topic might resurface soon in Idaho, which has no such copycat version of the Son of Sam law the way many states do. They might wonder if they should draft something quickly in light of the popularity of recently incarcerated quadruple co-ed killer Bryan Kohlberger’s story, should he ever want to expose it for money. One podcaster suggested a loophole might be legislating against the chain of money leading back to a prisoner rather than trying to block the material itself. Freedom of speech is a content issue, but perhaps targeting who gets to profit might change the game. Federalizing such laws would help, but what are the chances.

If it’s so hard to stop the production of movies and books, imagine how much easier to slip through the minor materials of letters, hair, and creepy dolls? Victims find these ongoing sales to be “like a gut punch,” when they discover what may be happening online over their loved ones’ dead bodies.

Collector/broker William Harder runs Murderauction and calls himself a “dealer of death and damnation” on Facebook. He’s always been a collector but took a darker turn when he started, and succeeded, in visiting condemned killers like the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez and Manson. He wrote to them first, and then sold their letters that he didn’t want to keep for himself. Basically, he said, you can sell anything at all that relates to these dark dudes. The same way people collect baseball cards, others collect objects related to terrible crimes. But meeting the murderers in person?

“Kind of like seeing a bear in a cage that has mauled a bunch of people and has this heavy tendency for violence.”

His reaction to coming upon the caged bear? “It was just really neat.” Something that “I really enjoyed.”

Everyone’s in on the art of the deal. Harder describes how someone (like a guy posing as an attractive woman) can write to, say Heuermann, slowly gain trust, get him to sketch something, or at the least write back. Even the prison guards cash in when they start pilfering family photos in a prison cell and other personal items to sell in the open market. And the market is still very much open, supposed Son of Sam laws or not. He has no moral judgment about any of it, asking why Civil War era buffs get a pass but not someone with a penchant for the artifacts of a serial killer. “The grief doesn’t change. There’s just more of it to go around. You kill one person, you’re a murderer. You kill a thousand, you’re a conqueror.”

This is America. Unfortunately you don’t get to tell people they can’t sell stuff. Unfortunately we live in a society where the letter of the law is free enterprise. We have the right to pursue happiness. Because a segment of society is offended by something, doesn’t mean you can’t.

For Harder, it’s a lifestyle—though he doesn’t recommend it, with only about 200 “marketable” killers alive in prisons at any one time, compared to the millions no one cares about. Harder actually first met anti-profiting activist Kahn when he got arrested for taking grave dirt from a cemetery. At least if he ever did go to jail, he’d know what to do.