October 18, 2021
My 8th grade Arts and Humanities teacher, an eccentric lady named Ms. Williams, was purely luminescent – that’s the best way to describe her. She lit up every room she was in with her energy and quirky expressive style. When I think back on the lessons from my school years that I remember most vividly – most of those memories come from her class. I can remember reciting Hamlet in front of my classmates, learning a pop dance number of “Everybody” by the Backstreet boys, receiving the “Stephen Meeks Award for Scholarly Achievement” during a unit on the Dead Poets Society, and participating in a week-long Holocaust demonstration where half of the class was treated differently than the other half for no reason at all – one kid ended up having an actual meltdown during this unit, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget Ms. Williams calmly walking the red-faced, tearful boy out of the room. We played improv acting games, and I even got to be a defense lawyer in the trial in which Scar was prosecuted for the murder of Mufasa in The Lion King. Ms. Williams had a poster of John Lennon in the back of her classroom.
I was always pretty sure that she didn’t like me very much. Not that I was a bad seed, or caused her any problems, or ever had any type of altercation with her. I was a very strait-laced, diligent bookworm in school (not unlike Stephen Meeks), and a good rule of thumb was that I was destined to have the most trouble in classes that didn’t have an assigned textbook. The only B I got in high school was in art class, ya know what I mean? I totally get how a creative person like Ms. Williams might have been taxed by a child like me. I spent much of my time in her class feeling really uncomfortable – feeling eyes on me while I made up a rap on the spot during an improv game, or getting frustrated while trying to get the kid who was playing Scar in our courtroom drama to pay enough attention to his defense to be convincing on the stand. Looking back, I learned so much from Ms. William about how art can make you feel – and how vulnerable you are when you share your art with the world. I felt nervous in her class because creative expression can be uncomfortable, especially when others are looking/listening/reading. I learned that creating art is not something reserved for the beautiful and talented – even self-conscious teens in sweatpants can create art, and everyone can appreciate it (duh, didn’t we all download the new Adele song at the exact same time last week?!) Maybe this blog and vulnerability I experience every time I hit that “Publish” button is a living, breathing tribute to Ms. Williams and the other great teachers that taught me to use this dusty, clumsy, non-math part of my brain (I’m looking at you, Mrs. Long and Mr. Graham). These excellent educators taught me how to love stories and the ways that good stories that can be told through all of the various art forms. I’m a sucker for a good story.
I always think of Ms. Williams this time of year because she loves (trying not to use the past tense too much here, because I am pretty sure she’s still alive!) scary movies. She had an entire unit on scary movies in our class, and would show us clips from her favorite horror films. We watched the Twilight Zone segment (I think it was from the Twilight Zone movie – starring Dan Aykroyd) where there was a monster on the wing of the airplane, and I still can’t take a flight without thinking about it. She used to turn out the lights in the classroom and hold a flashlight up to her face while she told us scary campfire stories. She told the story about the babysitter getting phone calls from the murderer inside the house, and a story about an old woman putting a puzzle together, and slowly learning that the picture in the puzzle shows her in her house putting together a puzzle – and the last piece reveals that there’s a man with a knife standing behind her. EEK! She once told me that in order to really watch a scary movie correctly, you should turn all the lights out in the house and open all of the doors and windows for full effect. I’m more of a watch-in-broad-daylight-with-a-friend-with-all-lights-on-and-doors-locked-and-SimpliSafe-armed kind of scary movie connoisseur, but I can understand where she’s coming from with this suggestion. In addition to all the other great things I learned in Ms. Williams’ class, I also learned that it’s really fun to be scared!
I have a long history of being a baby about scary movies. I watched Signs with my dad the year it came out, and it gave me nightmares for many days afterward. When fellow freshman girls at WKU asked me to go see Haunting in Connecticut, I ended up sleeping on the concrete floor in their dorm-room that night because my roommate wasn’t home and I couldn’t be alone. Huge baby. I also take these scary stories and carry them around with me. I remember the end of I Know What You Did Last Summer featured a scary guy with a hook thing grabbing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s feet while she was sitting on her bed. I only recently stopped checking under my bed before I go to sleep, and that’s because my bed is so low to the ground that Maudie can’t even get under there to tear up my carpet (much to her puppy dismay). I am also convinced that I think about The Fly more than anyone else on the planet – more than the writer, the actors, the director, everyone. I think about it way too much, and feel so much compassion for Jeff Goldblum and his grotesque fly body, and Geena Davis’ plight of having to shoot fly-man Jeff Goldblum in the face before having his maggot baby. The end of that movie might be the greatest contraception advertisement of all time.
As I get older, I’m noticing that scary movies are less scary than they used to be, and I think it has something to do with my true crime obsession. It seems like every day I’m listening to some sort of murder podcast. I like to think I was a fan of My Favorite Murder before it was cool, and I’ve seen Karen and Georgia perform live twice. If you aren’t familiar with the podcast, it is a comedy podcast about true crime where Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark each tell a true murder story each week. Comedy and murder is such an interesting combination, but it really works – they tell stories and laugh a lot, while still showing respect and compassion for victims. On Mondays, they release mini-episodes where they read the emails they receive from their fans about hometown murders. This is the part that is mind-boggling. It seems like everyone has their own story of a murder or creepy story that happened to someone they know. It’s as if every person is one or two degrees of separation from some violent tragedy.
My Favorite Murder ended up being a gateway drug to other sorts of true crime media – other podcasts such as Last Podcast on the Left, True Crime Garage, Crime Junkies, Sword and Scale; tv shows and documentaries galore, and books. Karen’s friend, Michelle McNamara passed away before she could complete her book about the Golden State Killer. McNamara was the author of a popular true crime blog, and devoted the last years of her life to finding the identity of California’s East Area Rapist (EAR), the Original Night Stalker – one person with a lengthy and varied crime portfolio. This man ransacked homes, peeped in the windows of young girls, raped women (sometimes making their husbands watch) and eventually murdered at least 13 people. McNamara dubbed him the Golden State Killer, and spent years interviewing victims, victims’ families, and investigators (current and former). When she died, her husband, Patton Oswald and her assistant, Billy Jensen worked to complete the book in her absence. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer was released in February of 2018. The Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo was arrested two months later. I was fascinated by the timing of these events, and felt so happy for Michelle and her family. She wasn’t able to find this guy on her own, but the timely release of a book filled with victim stories and the complex sentiments of survivors, as well as the horrifying details of the crimes was so appropriate and perfect. Her book is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever read, and I can’t fall asleep listening to the audio book because I will dream about the baby-faced killer hiding in the dark. If you haven’t read it, I really recommend it – the audiobook is narrated by my favorite narrator, Gabra Zackman.
My true crime obsession is not unique. It seems like crime has been popular for decades, even centuries (NYPD Blue, Law and Order, every movie on Lifetime, JonBenet Ramsey headlines, the OJ Simpson trial, In Cold Blood, Lizzie Borden). The triumphant return of radio in the form of podcasts created a new space where storytelling was once again limited to sound – no special effects, 3D, costumes, etc. When Sarah Koenig released Serial in 2014, she reminded us all how effective good storytelling can be when it is just that – someone using their own voice to tell a story from start to finish. It is such a simple concept, but over the years podcasters all over the world have tried to follow in Koenig’s footsteps to masterfully create audio-media that is as compelling and unique as any movie or tv show (across all genres, not just true crime) – and so many have succeeded.
I’ve lived alone (sans other humans) for much of my life, and I’m a small person with less upper body strength than most. It’s impossible to hear these true crime stories about women being raped and murdered and not map those events onto my own life. It’s too easy to turn scary true stories into possibilities. I guess that’s why the stories that scare me the most are the ones about women whose lives mirror mine in some way. When I first moved to the DC area, there was a news headline about a woman who was going for a run around 7 pm in Dupont Circle, who was stabbed in the street. She crawled into a Chinese restaurant, and died there – for no reason – she wasn’t robbed or raped, just stabbed and left to die. I know that the 7 pm thing seems like a strange detail for me to remember, but I will never forget the time because I always assumed she was just trying to squeeze in a run after a long day at work and was probably looking forward to grabbing some dinner afterward. Just like I have, thousands of times. That’s scary.
Karen on My Favorite Murder once told an I Survived story about a woman in Texas, who woke in her apartment in the middle of the night to a stranger on her bed who slit her throat with a knife. Her survival story is miraculous – she was saved by a 911 dispatcher who convinced her not to answer the door when the perpetrator returned to her apartment after fleeing once (she locked the door with deadbolt and chain lock after he left the first time). When he came back a second time, he claimed to be a security guard who heard her scream. In the end, the attempted-murderer was an employee of the apartment complex and HAD A KEY to this lady’s apartment. When I heard this story for the first time, I was living in an apartment where maintenance men and other employees had key entrance into my living space. That’s scary.
The Gabby Petito case we’ve all been hearing about lately really affected me. 22-year-old Gabby Petito was road tripping in a van with her boyfriend out west, and died of strangulation in Grand Teton National Park in August. Most speculation and common sense suggests that her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie is responsible for her death, and he is currently missing. A lot of information has come out about the days leading up to Gabby’s death, and the abusive, toxic relationship Petito and Laundrie shared. To me, that’s really scary. It’s really scary that a mother and father can watch their young daughter leave for a fun trip with a man they assumed would keep her safe, only to find that he was the opposite of safety. It’s scary that the toxic, mentally abusive relationship can turn into having your picture blasted all over CNN. I’ve been in that relationship, and never once felt like my physical safety was in question – I guess I just wonder if Gabby felt that way too. It’s scary.
I guess that’s why fictionalized scary movies about ghosts and monsters, and serial killers with super powers and ugly masks are not as scary to me as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I still squirm and squeal like a baby when I watch them- I just told you how much Haunting of Hill House scared me in a previous post. But the scary stories that really affect me the most are the ones that are true. The really haunting aspect of life is the torment and violence we inflict on each other. How do seemingly ordinary people with really wonderful lives become killers? How did Chris Watts go from loving, family man, to cold-blooded killer? Why are some people victims of random, senseless crimes? Will something like this happen to me tomorrow? Tonight after I close this laptop and put my put my puppy in bed? That’s scary. Yet I keep consuming the true crime media. Tomorrow I’ll listen to the new episode of Suspect, an excellent podcast about the murder of Arpina Jinaga after a Halloween party in 2008. Thursday, I’ll download the new episode of My Favorite Murder. I’ll just keep ingesting the stories, the same way I keep coming back to watch Michael Myers impale people, the same way I keep binging The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. The fear is fun, and even when it’s not fun – even when my heart is broken and my head is horrified after reading up on the Gabby Petito case – it’s still a story worth hearing. And everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good story.
Cluelessness is the Mother of Invention 