| By Emily Hudson - 5 Feb 2008 |
Infamous for his clean-cut appearance and his heinous murders, Ted Bundy is a man who is well known as one of the most diabolical serial killers in American history, having killed an estimated 30 young women. Bundy was executed by electric chair at Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla. His last words were, "I'd like you to give my love to my family and friends." Then, more than 2,000 volts of electricity were sent through his body. He was pronounced dead at 7:16 a.m. on Jan. 24, 1989. But that was not the end of Ted Bundy. Anyone willing to pay the price can keep him alive by owning one of his "fried hairs" found underneath his execution chair. Similar items, such as the poems, artwork and even fingernail clippings and bodily fluids of infamous serial killers, referred to as "murderabilia," sell for big bucks on various online markets and auction sites. The more common items on these sites are prison envelopes, self-portraits, pictures and various letters between the infamous killers and family, friends or legal counsel. Fans of the different murderers, named "serialphiles" by sociologists, will spend anything from pocket change to large sums of money, depending on the notoriety of the murderer. The gun Gary Gilmore used to kill his victims started out in auction at $1 million. Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Mayor's Crime Victims Office, is arguably the most vocal critic and active advocate against the sale of serial killer paraphernalia. He has been fighting for notoriety-for-profit legislation on the state level for years since he accidentally stumbled upon the phenomenon of selling what he has since nicknamed murderabilia. "I found it on a total fluke," Kahan said. "I was perusing a Rochester online newspaper and read that a serial killer's artwork was for sale on eBay." This was the beginning of a crusade of sorts for Kahan. "I became an active buyer for over a year," Kahan said. "I figured I should know more about it if I was going to be against it, and I am now the owner of hair samples from five different serial killers, fingernails, toenails, bodily fluids, pornographic artwork and letters." Passing Laws Kahan has since been pushing for individual state laws against the sale of murderabilia. Utah is one of the five states to have passed a "Son of Sam" or notoriety-for-profit law. This law, named after the infamous New York killer David Berkowitz, also known as "Son of Sam," sayswhen a criminal enters into a contract to make money off the recounting of his or her crime, the contractor (usually a corporation) must give the state all the money that would go to the offender under the contract. This basically prohibits criminals from making money off movies, books, television shows or other depictions of the crimes they have committed. Berkowitz has been Kahan's greatest resource in his movement to make the auctioning of these items illegal. "David Berkowitz has been a tremendous asset and has provided me with a lot of information," Kahan said. "Because of his high-profile nature he gets a lot of letters from these people trying to coerce him into writing them so they can sell it." When Kahan first started searching for this murderabilia, it was readily available on eBay. The online auction Web site initially told Kahan they weren't the morality police and if it was legal they weren't going to pull the items from the site. However, around the time murderabilia began to gain national attention, and 20/20 was preparing to do a segment on the macabre hobby, eBay banned such items from its shelves. Since eBay has begun refusing to sell such macabre items, buyers, dealers and traders have had to move elsewhere. "It's kind of like exterminating cockroaches. If you exterminate one room, then they move on to the next," Kahan said. Online Market New Web sites designed specifically to sell this murderabilia have become blooming market places. Serial Killer Central, DaisySeven.com and supernaught.com are all popular places for serialphiles. Tod Bohannon, a kindergarten teacher from Georgia, runs the most popular site, murderauction.com. This site has been a main target of Kahan's for years. "I don't begrudge Andy [Kahan] for what he does," Bohannon said. "He believes in his heart that he's doing a good thing. I just think he should focus on something else." The main concern with the sale of "murderabilia" is criminals are making money off of this stuff from behind bars. The auction site DaisySeven operates under the slogan "Who says crime doesn't pay? Daisy Seven, where crime pays every day." That is exactly what disgusts Kahan. "I'm as much of an advocate of free enterprise as anyone, but I just don't think you should be able to rob, rape, murder and turn around and make a buck off of it," Kahan said. However, Bohannon said the criminals are not making a killing off their crimes. "Andy says this is a quarter of a million dollar industry," Bohannon said. "But if it was, then I wouldn't still be teaching school." Bohannon's main argument is criminals can't make a profit off of their letters and artwork. "A lot of these items are traded or sold cheap," Bohannon said. "Most of the items that sell for big bucks are from people who are dead, like Bundy, Gacy, etc." Bohannon also pointed out some states, like California, require inmates to pay restitution as part of their sentence. That means the state takes 55 percent of any amount of money deposited into criminal's accounts. Then the prison charges the inmate for the cost of envelopes and postage they supply every month. After the restitution and fees have been paid, if the inmate has any money left, he or she is required to pay for the next set of toiletries: toothpaste, shampoo and soap to name a few items. At this rate, Bohannon argues, even if someone did have a couple dollars left after all of that, no one is making a substantial amount of money through the sale of murderabilia. "If you call what they are doing business, then they suffer by far more than anyone," Bohannon said. Crusade of forgiveness For Bohannon, the interest in serial killers and murderabilia is not about the horror, or the blood. Bohannon said his crusade is one of forgiveness."More people are victimized in these situations than those who were killed and their families," Bohannon said. He used the example of Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK killer, a serial killer from Kansas. "For example, Rader has a daughter, and wherever she goes, people will look at her and have her dad in their minds. She's been victimized by Dennis's actions." Bohannon, a self-proclaimed agnostic was frustrated with the hypocrisy of some Christian attitudes. "Christians preach forgiveness, but they're the first to turn around and say 'we should just kill that man today, he doesn't deserve a trial that will waste our money,'" Bohannon said. "They don't think that a convicted killer deserves even $5 for chips and cigarettes. They're the first to hate when they're supposed to be the first to forgive." However, some people, like Andy Kahan, don't think forgiveness is the issue. "People have been trading and collecting this stuff since the dawn of time," Kahan said. "Collect all you want, draw and doodle all you want; just don't make money off of it. It's blood money, plain and simple." Kahan is slowly accomplishing his goal of drying up the murderabilia market. Some states are making it illegal to ship and sell these items. To speed up the process, Kahan is spearheading a national attack. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is working with Kahan to pass Senate bill 1528, which would make the sale of such items illegal nationwide and require federal monitoring of related Web sites. "It is with startling and increasing frequency that prisoners are turning to the Internet and seeking to profit from their deplorable crimes. This heinous activity hurts the victims and their families yet again," said Cornyn in his May 30, 2007, newsletter. Cornyn explained the legislation further in his newsletter. "This new legislation would cut off the source of these murderabilia Web sites-by simply prohibiting state or federal prisoners from placing almost any item into the mail for purposes of interstate commerce. Experts like Andy Kahan think this approach will shut down the industry, and I hope and pray they are right. I intend to push this legislation until this despicable industry is gone forever." The bill has been filed, and Kahan is planning to travel to Washington, D.C., in late February or early March to see how things are coming along. The next step is getting it into hearings. But Bohannon is not worried. Selling the Web site "I've offered to sell Kahan and the victims families my Web site for $10,000," Bohannon said. "I've even agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement to not open another site for five years. But if the sites don't exist anymore then Andy doesn't have anything to preach about." According to Bohannon, shutting down the sites and making it illegal for prisoners to ship things out from prison would not damage the murderabilia market. With more than 850 e-mail addresses in his possession, Bohannon was confident while the legislation might force the movement underground, it would also help his business. "Right now I've got hundreds of art pieces and Hadden [Clark, a murderer and cannibal serving a life sentence in Maryland] is sending out new pieces all the time," Bohannon said. "But if you shut me down, and dry up the market, these $12 pieces could turn into $100 pieces. Basically, you're increasing my market for what I already have times 10." Like many other topics people find distasteful on the Internet, Bohannon suggests if someone doesn't like the idea of murderabilia then they shouldn't go to his site. Referencing the First Amendment, he said people have to take the good with the bad in order to protect the freedom of speech and expression. |
No comments:
Post a Comment