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The Chamber of Horrors

 

Yes, Virginia, there really are monsters.

Serial killers are very real, and have become cult figures for many people today. The reasons for this elevation to cult status are complex, but certainly have something to do with the tendency of people to mythologize what they cannot understand. Actually, supernaturalizing the serial murderer is nothing new. Just follow some of the links below to a good Jack the Ripper site, and you'll see that the Victorians portrayed the unknown Whitechapel murderer in the same irrationally hyperbolic fashion that television's The Profiler uses today.

Although this process attributes demonic powers to serial killers, thereby making them appear far more formidable than they really are, it actually provides a sense of pseudo-security to consumers of such material. They can happily relegate the serial killer to the domain of the vampire and werewolf and write him off as just another insubstantial bogeyman. Sadly, this aids and abets the real killers among us, who are usually pretty ordinary-looking folks with the ability to conceal their nasty habits from the neighbors. Who ever dreamed that a friendly neighborhood party clown named John Wayne Gacy had a crawlspace full of decomposing corpses? Who could have read the murderous intent hiding behind the smiling face of Ted Bundy as he dispensed compassionate advice to distraught college students over the local crisis hotline? Neither of these men wore black capes or slept in coffins, so no one took the time to watch for some subtle warning signs.

Serial killers are so adroit at appearing normal and harmless that one could be in the very same room with you now and you would never know it. Don't let the attractive facades of your friends and neighbors fool you. Anyone could be a potential killer, artfully concealing a seething turbulence which drives them to commit unspeakable acts.

If you traverse the links on this page, you will encounter many different approaches to the subject of serial homicide, some of which I cannot personally endorse. You may even stumble into a few sites with photos so horrifying they should be classified as pornographic (I supply no direct links to these.) Before clicking on any of them, you may want to ask yourself if you really want to go there. Remember this: the web is a vast territory with many unpatrolled areas, and you are contemplating exploring some of its darkest places. You are now hovering at the brink of a very literal abyss, about to plunge into a maelstrom of sites and images devoted to the very worst that human nature has to offer. This is not TV evil. This is not movie evil. This is the real thing.


Serial Killer Information and
Individual Case Studies

For a good introduction to the subject, go here
Internet Crime Archives
Serial Killer Central
Serial Killer Info Site
Serial Killer Info and Links
Joe's Serial Killer Links
Serial Killer Case of the Day
Keep up with late breaking news on serial killers here


Jack The Ripper Links

Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper from Crime Library
Jack the Ripper from Worldwide Serial Killers
Jack the Ripper--Who Was He?
Jack the Ripper's Diary?
Sociological Analysis of Ripper Phenomenon

Return to The House of Wax
Return to The Inner Sanctum

Animations on this page are courtesy of
Joe Propst's Serial Killer Links Site