ENTERTAINING CRIME by Judy Fowler

  Why do we enjoy trials and stories about murder?

  Take South Carolina v. Murdaugh, as entertaining as a great           screenplay. 

 Murdaugh—a creep who never saw a vulnerable person he wouldn't     fleece—had us on the edge of our seats when he chose to take the           stand.  He cried in the jurors' direction and offered alternative facts to     them to escape accountability.  

 In a “fun and games” moment, his attorney pointed a rifle at the prosecutor. The possibility of reasonable doubt made my adrenaline kick in. The defense's hope of winning the day was alive right up to the last two minutes of the film—I mean trial. I bit my nails and hoped Alex hadn’t fooled any jurors. 

When they found him guilty, my dopamine kicked in. Shouldn't I have felt sad?

Why did I behave as if I'd been to a show? To understand my reaction, I went to acuriosityofcrime.com and re-read their June 2022 research on nineteenth-century inquest protocols in “Murder as Entertainment.” 

The English or Welsh coroner from the 1800's "who believed a death to be suspicious” sent warrants to collect twelve to twenty-four jurors for inquest duty. "It was to occur as soon as possible after notification of death." No need to ask the boss for time off next month. Duty began in two hours.  

And where did jurors do their service? "The morgue, or often where the body had been laid out on their bed." 

Talk about an adrenaline rush. You're home—adding a lump of coal to the fire. A knock at the door results in your immediate departure for a third-floor walk-up in a dodgy neighborhood. You trudge up several flights to a tawdry bedsit where a fresh corpse lies on the bed. 

The room is packed with other jurors. Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced comes to mind. 

I'm embellishing, but it might have happened like that. 

Inquest duty stories from older relatives may have inspired Christie to write And Then There Were None. In it, a letter from a stranger induces ten people to drop everything and travel to an isolated location where they play judge, jury, and defendant.

Back to our 1800's juror. He was required to “peruse the corpse for signs of poisoning or violence.” If a juror tried to turn away after just a "quick gander," "the inquest was voided and any investigation had to stop."

Not all jurors could take the pressure. In one case, “A drunken juryman took offense and became noisier and more difficult to control as the inquest went on.” In another “the details of a poisoning were too much for the foreman of the jury and he fainted. Everyone waited until he had recovered enough to rejoin the proceedings.”     

The body remained on public display while "the jury gathered to hear testimony from everyone who had something relevant to say." The suspects could question the witnesses without being "obliged to say anything to criminate" themselves.  

Jurors asked questions, too. Imagine the tension in the room as suspects gave their alibis in the room with their possible victim, the victim's friend and all those over-stimulated jurors. Maybe their adrenaline rush remains in our collective memory when we watch Dateline.                                                       

After completing that sort of jury duty I'd rush home for a strong cup of tea. But lots of jurors must have headed for their local pub to wind up their friends and receive free pints of ale for telling and re-telling their story. 

If high-octane story-telling lit the fire that continues to burn in us for true crime and crime fiction today, and if a spark from that fire landed on me... then I'm not to blame for staying up late reading a whodunnit or for perking up when I hear the jury is back.     

But should I forgive myself for writing murder mysteries? A journalist once asked crime fiction authors Jonathan and Faye Kellerman if they felt guilty using murder as a vehicle to amuse people. Faye said no and that their "readers find murder stories entertaining because—in the end—those who hurt us are held accountable, cases are resolved, and the law wins.”