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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.”
