MURDERABILIA MANIA

While beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, art may very well be too. Obsession with serial killers and psychotic behavior seems to grow each year so it’s not entirely surprising when art collectors pay thousands for a painting or everyday Americans go out in droves to buy novels all because serial killers were the creators. Despite it being a controversial practice, the phenomena of serial killers in the art world seems to have a long life ahead of it. From Manson’s sock puppets to Charles Ng’s origami, murderabilia never lacks in contribution.
           
Where else to begin than with “the killer clown” himself: John Wayne Gacy? Perhaps the most successful serial killer turned artist, one of Gacy’s paintings depicting baseball playing dwarfs competing against the Chicago Cubs once went for an unbelievable $9,500, but what Gacy is most famous for are his clown drawings and paintings. The alter ego of the clown stayed with Gacy from his murders through his art and the face of red, white and blue clown makeup would be the one to make Gacy so integrated in popular culture. On his alter ego, Gacy once said, “A clown can get away with murder” and while that may not have been the case for him; a clown certainly can rake in dollars from art collectors and all around macabre individuals. Cult director John Waters himself owns a piece which hangs in his guestroom and lead singer of metal band Cradle of Filth, Dani Filth, owns another.  Not everyone is a fan of Gacy’s art, as would be expected. In June of 1994 a group purchased 25 of Gacy’s paintings for a bonfire they had planned. Nine victim’s family members attended to watch the blaze, along with 300 or so other spectators.  
           
Protests range in size from killer to killer, but are always present. A not so overjoyed 1998 crowd in Texas stood outside an exhibit of Elmer Wayne Henley’s work with signs that read, “"Hang Henley, not his art."  But when faced with the fact that so much backlash results from the sale of  killers’ artwork or literature, many wonder why the prison’s themselves allow it to occur at all, but the answer is simple: art therapy. Many officials believe it’s a form of mental rehabilitation for serial killers and at the very least, prison guards would rather see once violent criminals painting as supposed to harassing and causing trouble. But many serial killers haven’t helped instill faith in that idea and many a clever criminal have found ways to use their art to cheat the system.
           
Jack Unterweger of Australia is a prime example of a man who “wrote his way” out of prison. Unterweger harbored a deep hatred of prostitutes springing from his resentment of his mother for her being one and assaulted many local prostitutes in his younger years. In 1976 he killed Margaret Schäfer, an 18 year old woman, with her own bra and was sentenced to life in prison. But it was in prison that Unterweger, who was illiterate entering, learned to read and write and published many short stories, plays, poems and ultimately an autobiography. After only 14 years of his sentence was served, the prison was impressed with his works and signs of improvement, also many prominent Australians asked for him to be pardoned, including Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, so on May 30th of 1990, the prison released him.

A free man again, Unterweger went on to do television shows and in 1991, an Australian magazine hired him to write about crime and prostitution. He was also asked by the local police to comment on crime scenes and even go along on patrols with them through red light districts. During this time, Unterweger would go on to murder 11 more women, 6 being in his first year released alone, and managed to deter the police from sensing it was him. But despite his ability to cover up the new murders so long, his trademark killing style was something he couldn’t always resist and eventually caught up with him. When police noticed that three recent murders were of women hung with there own bras, they finally woke up to the fact that Unterweger was one of the many who never truly had recovered. Unterweger eventually killed himself to avoid being taken to trial again and due to his timing, is still innocent on the books. But the allure of serial killer bodies of work was ever present in Unterweger’s case because even though the evidence was insurmountable, many supporters and fans of his work were adamant he was innocent and was no serial killer.

Another man by the name of Gary Gilmore was granted freedom through his art, but also squandered it. Most notable for his not appealing to the death penalty and welcoming it for his killing of two young men, Gilmore was a sad case in that he showed true talent in art and was given an opportunity he didn’t take. At an early age, despite having an IQ of 130, he didn’t do well in school and was in and out of prison on numerous car theft charges. In 1964 at 21 years old, Gilmore was given a 15 year prison sentence for robbery and assault for being a repeat offender. In prison, Gilmore began to use his artistic talents and the prison itself was so impressed with him, they granted him an early release in 1972 to a halfway house in Eugene, Oregon with the understanding he would enroll in the local community college and study art. Unfortunately, whether it was his inner need to kill or nerves and lack of confidence to register, he never enrolled and within a month of his conditional release had committed armed robbery and was brought back to prison. Whatever Gilmore could have been died along with him in 1978 when he was executed by firing squad in Utah.

In yet another failed attempt at recovery, Jack Abbott gained major celebrity after his best selling and popular book, In The Belly of The Beast, was released. The basis of the book had sprung from a relationship he had with author Norman Mailer throughout the 1970s. The letters he had written to Mailer and Mailer had written back served as inspiration and Mailer himself not only helped Abbott publish the novel, but stood before the parole board and got Abbott eventually released in 1981. Abbott had been in since 1965 for forgery when he stabbed an inmate to death and received a harsher sentence, which only increased with an additional 19 year sentence after he escaped and robbed a bank.

Once released, he did the local television circuit, including “Good Morning America.” But only 6 days after he had reclaimed freedom, he stabbed a waiter, Richard Adnan, to death. Obviously taken back to prison, he showed no remorse, but supporters who loved his novel were heartbroken. Abbott eventually published another book ridden with self pity entitled My Return, which was widely unsuccessful and in 2002, hung himself in his prison cell.

At this point one might ask if all hope is lost in art therapy, but successes have risen in ways prisons weren’t hoping for. Gerard Schaefer was able to vent, but in a troubling way. In his novel, Killer Fiction: Tales of an Accused Serial Killer, Schaefer writes of numerous gruesome murders in detail and while they all sound reminiscent of his killing style and possibly could be his own, he assures that they are only “the characters in my fiction.”  Schaefer himself was in prison for murdering, raping, and abducting Susan Place, 17, and Georgia Jessup, 16. He previously had kidnapped two young female hitchhikers and tied them to trees to rape and most likely kill them but was called away through his radio because he was a police officer. When the two girls escaped and reported him, Schaefer told the chief he only meant to do it as a lesson to the girls so they wouldn’t hitchhike, but the chief saw through him, fired him and charged him with false imprisonment and assault. Schaefer eventually pled guilty to the charges and received only one year, which he served and was released to commit the two murders that gained him his two life sentences. Most troubling about his “venting” in the novel is that police are near certain he committed murder numerous other times and the events described in the novel could be real. When searching his bedroom they found journals of violent and hateful rants about women, jewelry, and human teeth from at least 8 different women or young girls who had gone missing over the years. In many cases its clear that art imitating life can certainly be a disturbing event.

Another “recovered” killer is Elmer Wayne Henley who vowed art had saved him and brought him close to God. Henley, assisting Dean Corl with fellow murderer David Brooks, murdered and brutally raped 27 boys across Texas in the early 70s. Vowing to never murder again, his recovery is questionable in that he admits he must look at photographs of naked young boys every now and then to get by.

Another trend is visible in serial killer art aside from a one way ticket to fame or freedom, the material that makes the world go round: money. To try and obtain the riches fellow serial killers seemed to make, Keith Jesperson, who murdered 8 people across 6 states, decided he lacked any talent and to borrow someone else’s to turn a profit.  Jesperson used color pencils to trace and draw over photographs taken by a professional and wound up making $1,000 from a few in 2002. This naturally caught the eye of the original artist and also the prison superintendent who never gave him permission. Jesperson was then disciplined and is still in Oregon State Penitentiary today.

Not the only serial killer turned plagiarist, Donald Henry Gaskins has openly laughed at and admitted that he simply traced Disney characters he found in books or magazines, slightly changed them and had his lawyer see if they would sell, and they definitely did. The fact that Gaskins, once dubbed “The Meanest Man In America” for killing another inmate and reputedly 100 other people, drew Disney figures is, in itself, ironic.

But, perhaps the entire idea of collecting art by so-called monsters exposes the irony in its collectors. The things made from those we fear welcomed into our home. But does art therapy work for criminals? Did author R. A. Lafferty have it right when saying of literature and art that, “The monstrous and wonderful archetypes are not inside you, not inside your consciousness; you are inside them, trapped and howling to get out”  in that serial killers can release their inner demons through art, climb out of it, and be reborn? Or is it that narcissistic element present in most serial killers that clamors for the fame and subsequent fortune? The answer is infinitely debatable and so the debate continues along side the ever present fascination with the things that go bump the night and their art. Those intrigued by monsters will never disappear and as obvious with one sitting and watching of the local news, there is no shortage of monsters in the world to intrigue them, so the art front known as murderabilia isn’t dying anytime soon.