ME - My Love of True Crime, Mysteries and Scary Movies

How did I get to be me?  What influenced me?  Who influenced me?  I'm looking for specifics here ... not the generality of my Catholic school education nor my belief in a Higher Power.  This won't be an ongoing treatise on religious or political leanings.  Well, maybe you'll hear about them at some point.  Of course you will, who am I kidding?  I'm going to explore  ~ go on an archeological dig, so to speak ~ let's see what I excavate.   

I think I'll take it slow and choose a different facet of myself every week or two.

My love of true crime, mysteries, and scary movies. 

The seed was probably planted by the second movie I ever saw, "House on a Haunted Hill," 1959.   (I'll tell you about the first movie another day).

Quick synopsis:  a rich guy and his wife invite a handful of people to their home on Haunted Hill for a haunted house party.  Whoever stays all night will earn $10,000 (seems like a paltry sum today).   Turns out they can't actually leave.  The movie provides every flavor of fright:  skeletons, murder, dead people, mayhem and that staple of the scary movie: blood-curdling screams.

I was nine years old and loved every minute of it.   I remember the skeleton that was suspended from a wire in the theater and was released to fly over our heads ~ at the scene in the film where it was calculated to cause the most fear.  I remember the exact moment when one of the female stars opened her overnight bag to find the severed head of one of the House's other guests.  I remember the music building to a crescendo every time something frightening was about to happen.  I remember the smooth but oh-so-sinister tone of Vincent Price's voice.  Yes, still today, I can conjure it up and remember how it was to be nine and scared silly.

Then I discovered Edgar Allen Poe.  I couldn't get enough of him.  The Tell Tale Heart.  The Pendulum.  The Gold Bug.  The Purloined Letter.  The Masque of the Red Death.   Cask of Amontillado.  The Black Cat.  The Murders in the Rue Morgue.  Those are just the titles that come to mind in an instant.  For sure, The Raven. 

The rumors surrounding his life, lifestyle and death left me aghast, but they served to heighten the intrigue.  He had married his 14-year old cousin.  He was a derelict.  He died in a drunken stupor.  Oh, I should have mentioned that I was 13 years old.  So impressionable.  And impress me he did. 

This man will figure again in the unfolding of ME.  Nope, no hints. 

By the time I read this book, probably in 1967 or 1968 (age 17 or 18), I was already a voracious reader. 

In eighth grade I decided to read every non-fiction author (alphabetically) that my small public library branch had to offer.  I had read through Thomas B. Costain's The Black Robe and The Silver Chalice before I got distracted and started haphazardly choosing titles from all over that building. 

Somehow I got my hands on In Cold Blood.  Mr. Capote allowed me to be the fly on the wall.  I was in on the planning, the execution (no pun intended) and the aftermath of the crime: the home invasion, burglary and murder of a family of four in Kansas.  I was in the mind of the criminal; I was the innocent victim; I was law enforcement, judge and jury. 

With Helter Skelter (read in 1976 or 1977), my fascination ~ um, obsession ~ with true crime came into full bloom.  On occasion, I still "google" Charles Manson, Patricia Kernwinkel, Squeaky Fromme, Charles Watson.

Yes, I watched "live" as O. J. Simpson drove the Golden State Freeway in his white Bronco.  I lunched at Mezzaluna and drove by Nicole Brown Simpson's condo and peeked over O. J.'s back fence.  I've cheered as countless murderers have been found "guilty" and second-guessed the jury when they weren't (Scott Peterson on death row; Casey Anthony scott-free). 

Travis Alexander Home, Mesa, AZ
March 31, 2013



You guessed it ... today I'm fixated with the Jodi Arias case.