Morse is Good. Moors are Bad.

I love a good fictional murder mystery. There's not much better than spending a sunday afternoon watching Agatha Christie's genius minds solve the most convoluted stories. Morse and Lewis are on the case and no criminal is too clever. It is important to establish, however, that said murder cases are fictional. I could never find real victims or real blood and gore entertaining. We may watch apocalyptic films predicting the end of the world, but that doesn't mean we would want it to occur in real life. Just as to see an actor pretending to be a distraught family member of a murdered character is neither here nor there, but to see an actual family member of a murdered victim is deeply upsetting. My point is, why do we glamourise murderers so much?

Forget these losers...

We all know the names... Harold Shipman, Fred and Rosemary West, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, the Kray Twins to list a few. One that many perhaps haven't heard of is Mary Ann Cotton, according to this Daily Mail article, she is worthy of 'rememberance'. The article, I believe, is a perfect example of the problem- that we study killers not to learn more about the complex human brain, but because it excites us. The title of the article itself: 

"She poisoned 21 people including her own mother, children and husbands. So why has no-one heard of Britain's FIRST serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton?"

Why should we have heard of her? Why is she worthy of rememberance? Because she brought pain and misery on many innocent people? Her old house is described thusly:

 "This is the home in which Britain’s first serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton, claimed her final victim."

It was also the house where her final victim lost their life. It would be bad enough to be murdered, but to think that the legacy of your murderer would overshadow that of your own would really put salt in the gushing, deadly wound. I fear for those who study criminology (Gemma I'm talking to you!), they have to read about atrocities daily and, through necessity, they probably become desensitized to the raw emotional facts in most murder cases. But for this article to write the following is absurd:

"Here is not just the first British serial killer – someone who has killed more than three people in  a period greater than 30 days – but the first to exploit and abuse the anonymity of a new industrial age."

Big up your fictional murder merry-go-rounds. What's in the box and all that jazz.

Oh what a great feat Mary Ann Cotton achieved for all murdering-kind. She really showed them how to use the industrial age to their advantage, whilst also demonstrating the skills of speed kills. Why is it significant that she was the first? (which, she most probably was not- man have been killing since before the police existed to report it). To remember their murders and to hail them as 'fascinating' rather than 'abominations' is surely the ultimate insult to the families of their victims. Although the cases are, no doubt, terrible and interesting, the victims are more than just vowels and consonants arranged on a page, they were real people and they were murdered horribly by bastards. I say less Fred West, more Patrick Bateman.