It’s easy to see the still-unfolding case of Lindsay Clancy as unique.
asserted
It → ’ → Clancy
It’s horribly unusual for a mother to admit to murdering her own children and novel to use “postpartum psychosis” as a rationale for acquittal.
asserted
novel → ’ → acquittal
But the national attention bordering on fixation
both their horror and their novelty.
asserted
attention → border → horror
Their attention can be dismissed as press sensationalism, but they serve an important purpose as revealing snapshots of a changing society.
asserted
they → dismiss → society
The “crime of the century tradition” can be dated at least to the 1932 “Lindbergh baby” kidnapping: the abduction of the son of the celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
asserted
tradition → date → pilot
The combination of a ransom and its payment, the discovery of the boy’s body, and the ultimate capture and execution of the kidnapper played out over four years, but it was a “crime of the century” because it told a novel story: Even the rich and famous were not insulated from terrible crime.
asserted
rich → play → crime
Subsequent “crimes of the century” each has its own version of novelty.
asserted
crimes → have → novelty
There were Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose magnetic novelty was their unlikely pairing: a small-town Texas waitress drawn to an outlaw, immortalized in photos, including one in which Bonnie has a cigar in her mouth and a pistol in her hand.
asserted
Bonnie → be → hand
The story was powered by its involving both a man and a woman, underscoring for the public that women could be violent criminals.
uncertain
women → power → public
The crimes that captivate us always involve a counter-to-type dimension.
asserted
that → captivate → dimension
The bank robber Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd became an enduring legend for supposedly destroying mortgage documents in the course of his crimes, thus providing debt relief during the Depression.
asserted
robber → become → Depression
He became a Robin Hood figure, celebrated by folksinger Woody Guthrie, who sang of “many a starving farmer; The same old story told; how the outlaw paid their mortgage; And saved their little homes.
asserted
outlaw → become → homes
That Floyd escaped from an Ohio prison and was tracked down and killed by the FBI did not deter some 20,000 to 40,000 people from attending his Oklahoma funeral.
asserted
escaped → escape → funeral
The novelty of a bank robber helping the needy fueled the legend.
asserted
robber → help → legend
But the acclaim revealed, too, the desperation of the Depression in the Dust Bowl.
asserted
acclaim → reveal → Bowl
Later crimes of the century, including Clancy’s, have continued the counter-to-type tradition.
asserted
crimes → include → tradition
Capturing an evolving zeitgeist, Dr. Sam Sheppherd, a Cleveland osteopath, was accused of murdering his pregnant wife, Marilyn, in 1954.
asserted
Sheppherd → capture → 1954
The publicity attendant to a doctor doing harm was so intense that his conviction was ultimately overturned for the novel reason of prejudicial pretrial publicity.
asserted
conviction → do → publicity
His acquittal spotlighted another novel figure in American society: the celebrity lawyer, in his case, F. Lee Bailey.
asserted
acquittal → spotlight → case
Novelty, too, fueled the “crime of the century”-level attention to New York’s “Son of Sam” serial killer, whose 1975-77 murders of women were followed by taunting letters to the city’s police and sparked what remains one of the most intense manhunts in city history.
asserted
what → fuel → history
That David Berkowitz was clever enough to elude the New York Police Department added to the fear and horror his crimes engendered.
asserted
crimes → elude → fear
His potential capacity to write a memoir, though, led to the important “Son of Sam law,” precluding criminals from profiting from their crimes.
asserted
capacity → write → crimes
Tragically, the character of these crimes that captivate the public has, in some ways, become worse; it takes greater and greater horror to shock.
asserted
it → captivate → horror
It’s a version of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s observation about “defining deviancy down”; what was once perverse becomes unsurprising, and greater and greater horror and novelty are required to shock.
The murders of Rob and Michele Reiner make clear the non-protection of celebrity and the limits of the therapy meant to help their son.
asserted
protection → ’ → son
The murders of health care executive Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan and Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk reveal the evolving targets for politically-inspired assassins.
asserted
murders → reveal → assassins
And now a mother who admits to murdering her own children: a story both new and ancient (Medea).
asserted
who → admit → children
One can only wonder whether the attention “crimes of the century” attract serves to motivate more, as with our skein of mass shootings.
asserted
crimes → wonder → shootings
The press is not innocent of what was once called sensationalism.
asserted
what → call → ?
The novelty of “man bites dog” is hard to resist.
asserted
man → bite → dog
There is little chance that they will fail to fascinate or that we will be able to turn away.
asserted
we → be → ?
They serve both as morality plays and reports on our social ills, both timeless and evolving.
asserted
They → serve → ills
The Aporia
