‘I love serial killers,’ explained Megan, 29, from Kent. ‘People think I’m weird; my sister thinks I’m going to kill someone.’ She travelled to London for the weekend for CrimeCon, a convention dedicated to true-crime lovers. Here, for the eye-watering price of £700 for the two days, strangers can come together to meet the survivors of the UK’s most disturbing crimes, delve into unsolved cases with psychologists, criminologists, police detectives, and speak to victims’ families.
At 9 a.m., within 30 seconds of arriving, I was in a talk on blood spatter analysis. People in hazmat suits stood in front of a 10 ft photographic banner depicting a kitchen covered in blood. A cup of tea was thrust into my hand as I was shown images of crime scenes dripping with blood on a large screen. The forensic team explained how each pattern of blood is analysed, giving us a whodunnit scenario about a woman who had been found attacked and left for dead inside her home. At the end of the scenario, most of us guessed the same person. The forensic team explained this was taken from a real case, where this man was also chosen, until it was revealed he was falsely imprisoned for years. The team were from a charity called Inside Justice; they specialise in conducting investigations on behalf of people who claim they had been wrongly convicted.
‘People think I’m weird, my sister thinks I’m going to kill someone’
‘We care about justice and want to make sure stories are told in the right way,’ explained the event organiser Nancy Baughen during the opening introduction speech. She was keen to emphasise that the event would handle conversations with respect, sensitivity, care, and compassion. ‘At the forefront, we must respect victims, law enforcement, and families,’ she said. She pointed at volunteers wearing T-shirts that said ‘crew’ and explained that if anyone felt overwhelmed at any point, they should come and chat to them.
Megan sat next to me during this speech. She was holding a notebook full of asterisks highlighting all the speeches she wanted to attend. She had attended on her own but was confident she’d make friends. For Megan, her fascination with the morbid came from trying to understand why people did what they did; in turn, she learned how to protect herself against it happening to her.
After getting a key ring made of my fingerprint, I headed into ‘Exhibit A’, a room set up for a talk by Diana Parkes and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton. In 2010, Parkes’s daughter, Joanna Simpson, was bludgeoned to death by her husband Robert Brown. Ever since, Parkes and Simpson’s best friend, Barkworth-Nanton, had campaigned for Brown’s manslaughter conviction to be upgraded to murder. Alongside criminal psychologist Laura Richards, they gave a harrowing account of the case and the steps they had taken since to try and get his sentence changed. ‘We are fighting for basic things to be done. While the story is distressing to hear, it’s important to hear as we are trying to make a change and protect future events from happening,’ said Parkes.
Was CrimeCon the right way to highlight crime-related news without glorification, or could there be such a thing? On 3 October, the BBC released a documentary about the disappearance of Nicola Bulley. True crime fans poured out their conspiracy theories online, making the investigation harder for the professionals and family. When the police finally pulled her body out of the river, a TikToker filmed it and put the video online. The rise in crime-related internet sleuths means that the demand for content remained high.
In contrast to the relative sensitivity of CrimeCon, the Serial Killer Exhibition also opened in the Vaults Waterloo the same weekend. It showcased some of the world’s most infamous killers and the ‘murderabilia’ that went with them. From Dennis Nilsen’s glasses, Armin Meiwes’s refrigerator, and artwork of prisoners – the exhibition had it all. It was also partly curated by the convicted killer, cannibal, satanist, necrophiliac, and memorabilia collector Nico Claux, who has since been released from prison. ‘We made sure of the facts as much as possible in this exhibition, so we weren’t glorifying the crimes or people,’ Claux explained. On walking into the first section of the exhibition, I was met by a life-sized, realistic replica of a mutilated corpse, surrounded by people taking photos.
Attendees didn’t seem to have got the memo about not glorifying these killings. Couples kissed as they walked around the show, holding hands and peering at love letters written to serial killers. I watched a man take photo after photo of a torture device used to mutilate a gagged woman, and I listened to people snigger over ‘pretty arty’ Ed Gein (a serial killer who kept skin and bone keepsakes of his victims). Despite this, nearly every attendee I tried to speak to scurried out of my way when I asked if they wanted to chat.
‘There is definitely a stigma associated with being interested in true crime,’ said Coltan Scrivner, a behavioural scientist specialising in fear and morbid curiosity. ‘I think most people do have conflicted feelings about being so interested in such a dark topic. These mixed feelings are typical of morbid curiosity. You feel intrigue and curiosity on the one hand, but disgust toward the killer on the other.’
Claux’s private collection made up the majority of the items in the exhibition. Two other collectors lent the rest. ‘I first started writing to famous killers in prison and collecting murderabilia because I received letters myself in prison,’ said Claux. For him, writing to other murderers was a way to connect with some of the few people out there who had shared his experiences. Unsurprisingly, he was a believer in rehabilitation, and said he had worked very hard to understand what he had done and used his artwork (which featured in the exhibition) to help process his past. ‘People will say I shouldn’t be allowed to run this exhibition, I’m a monster,’ he said. ‘But this has actually helped people struggling with dark thoughts too as they see I have changed and have even come up to me to ask my advice.’ Fans in search of more than his advice also queued behind red ropes to get their photo taken with him as he signed autographs.
Lianne was the only fan I met who was willing to speak to me. She had been into true crime for decades and particularly enjoyed understanding how the professionals capture killers. I asked her what she thought about the fact that the show and its creator. ‘Nico has given his time, effort, items, and expertise into creating an immersive experience for others, while also including himself within that and not brushing over his crimes. I may not understand or agree with his past, but you could tell this exhibition was created to be informative not glorifying.’
I exited through the gift shop, brushing past people fighting to buy stickers of Jeffrey Dahmer, mugs of John Wayne Gacy, and magnets of Aileen Wuornos. People shoved their purchases in their bags, concealing their passions for killers from the outside world.
Comments