Why do we fetishize serial killers?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Why do we fetishize serial killers?
Position1 of 3›: Serial killers are human
Argument‹2 of 2: Serial killers live like regular people

People can’t spot a serial killer off the street. Serial killers often live normal lives among people.

The argument

Part of the reason serial killers hold public attention is that they do not look like what they are. Serial killers don't look like criminals; there is no visible mark separating them from anyone else, so the ordinary expectation that dangerous people can be recognised fails in precisely the cases where it would matter most. Ted Bundy is the standard illustration — a good example of a serial killer who tricked people by having a normal life rather than by hiding from one. He received a psychology degree and had a family of his own, the kind of biography that functions in ordinary life as a guarantee of respectability. Because he was so popular, people never suspected he was a killer: the popularity itself worked as a defence, since any suspicion would have had to survive the testimony of everyone who knew him and had noticed nothing wrong. What this does to public perception is the point of the argument. A killer who lived a regular life before being caught has already been established in the public mind as a regular person, and the arrest does not simply overwrite that impression. The image formed beforehand — the degree, the family, the charm — stays attached to him afterwards, so if serial killers live regular lives like Bundy before they're caught, they are still seen as regular people after they're caught. And because they are still seen that way, they continue to be seen as typical people in society rather than as something outside it. That is where the fascination comes from. A monster identifiable on sight would be frightening but comprehensible; a person indistinguishable from a neighbour is neither, and the public keeps returning to such figures because they cannot be filed away as a separate kind of creature. Serial killers are human, and their humanness is what makes them impossible to stop looking at.

Premises

[P1]Many serial killers, like Ted Bundy, lead outwardly normal lives with families, education, and social standing before they are caught. [P2] When someone has lived a recognizably ordinary human life, people continue to perceive them as a regular person even after their crimes are exposed. [C] Therefore, serial killers are still human beings, not a separate category apart from the rest of society.

Counter-arguments

Although a serial killer might live like a normal person, there are a lot of internal issues that people don’t see. Dr. Al Carlisle analyzed Ted Bundy’s psychological process and realized that there were three reasons why Bundy was able to function normally and kill at the same time. The main reason was fantasy, the ability to keep his inmost desires away from his public persona.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Serial killers aren’t accepted by the victim’s families. Serial killers shouldn’t be praised by the public.