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Articles • Books
The Serial Killer
Letters: A Penetrating Look Inside the Minds of Murderers
This review written by
Amy Goldman
Author: Jennifer Furio
Publisher: Charles Publishing Press
No sensationalism, no gore…the motto for my site (this was the motto for
serialkillers.net). I kept recalling it as I read the book. I was
supposed to review this book some time ago, but kept finding myself putting
off. The reason? Quite frankly, I did not like the book. I
found Furio to be highly deceptive by not including her own letters to the
serial killers. One can draw inferences, though, that she used her
femininity to get her answers as well as to assure further correspondence
with the offenders. She played the lonely housewife routine (this is
indicated in a response from one of the killers). I realize the
dislike so far is of a personal nature, so I put that aside and wrote it off
as a method for research. I still did not like the book.
The thing that bothers me is that if the reader is unaware of the
manipulative ways of serial killers, he or she might not realize he or she
is being manipulated. Furio let’s the reader make up his or her own
mind about the serial killers, but she does not explain the behaviors of
serial killers. In fact, she kind of does the opposite going to the
point of saying that one could understand how the killers could end up that
way. She actually proves why people should not write to serial killers
if they do not have at least some knowledge of the way the killers think,
the types of things they will say, and the projection they throw out.
Furio did manage to get these men to open up, regardless of the manner that
she obtained the information. The question becomes how much of what the
killer wrote was true? All she had to do was show that she believed them.
Clearly, she was very good at that. As a human being herself, she went
through many emotional roller coasters and questioning. She seems to want to
see the goodness in all people and is obviously moved by the terrible lives
of some of her pen pals. We, society, need people like her to remind us that
serial killers are human…not monsters. On the other hand though, we also
need to understand that serial killers are different than we are in terms of
the way they think and act. We cannot simply apply the way that we might
think to them (killing is wrong, for example) and expect that they are sorry
for what they have done because they are incarcerated. The serial killer
would be sorry for himself, sorry that he got caught. I think that Furio's
attempt to let us make up our own minds is a concept that might apply had
there been more information in the book about serial killers, without that,
there is no penetrating look into the minds of the killers.
I realize I have been completely negative about Furio and her book so let me
say that the book is not entirely bad. The good part about it is that it
does allow the reader to see how these killers will blame everyone else,
minimize their behavior, or flat out lie to suit their own purposes. The
serial killers do use their own words and this does somewhat let us into
their minds. However, without knowing the complete history of the offenses
of the killers, to include the crime scene information, we have nothing to
compare the truthfulness of the offender. I think if Furio truly wanted to
educate us, she should have researched the case histories and included them
with the letters.
I think this is one that continues to cater to the killers. That's just my
opinion though based on what I believe about serial killers and the
attention that they get. You, my reader, might like the book. You might be
interested in reading what the killers have to say. I asked someone who is
an Investigative Criminal Profiler what she thinks of the book. She said,
"This is the best of books and the worst of books." (Pat Brown,
SHE-DC) I think her response is highly accurate and much more forgiving
than my own assessment. I have included my personal problems with the
author, but I think by doing this, you have a more informed decision before
you go spend your money. The crossover of personal opinion in this situation
does matter because her personal methods influenced the letters and
responses from the killers. The research she did is highly subjective to
emotionalism and therefore not real research. I hope that if you are
interested in the book and choose to either purchase or read it that you
remember the deceptiveness of serial killers. I hope that you don't simply
believe what is written without objectivity. The words of some of the
killers are very sad and as a human being the background of the killer might
move you. I ask that you keep in mind that you only have his side of the
story and it is most likely tainted.
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