It’s 5:15 AM. April 9, 2019. The headlights of my Honda CRV barely penetrate the fog as I turn out of my driveway. The sound system synchs with my iPhone and Katy Perry’s Roar comes on. Loud. What the hell?

Fumbling, I place my coffee on the dash. Its heat against the windshield further obscures my view and I slow the car to a crawl. It’s a few minutes later than I prefer to leave for work but I take the time to scroll and tap through the apps on my phone to find my podcasts, and the final episode of Bear Brook, a true crime story about four bodies found near the New Hampshire state park of the same name.

I find what I’m looking for and I’m on my way again, squinting through the fog searching for landmarks that signal curves in the road. Bear Brook State Park is only a handful of miles from my mother-in-law’s house and I think again of how I want to call her once I’ve finished the series. To see what she remembers.

I wouldn’t say that I am obsessed with True Crime. Yet, I’ve listened to more than my fair share of audiobooks and podcasts. I’ve read plenty, and I’ve lost entire nights to Netflix and Amazon Prime, binging true crime shows. No, not obsessed. But like so many people today, I have to admit that I am fascinated. And as with so many of these stories, this fascination has me asking: why?

Why do I and millions of others find ourselves consumed with the genre? Because, the truth is this could be any other morning and not much would change. My Honda and smartphone may conspire to start my day with a different random song that I haven’t requested and the darkness of the early morning may not be accompanied by fog. But there is a good chance I will be pondering another mystery. It might be another murder or a missing person; which mystery won’t matter. What matters now is why are we drawn to them again and again.

Beginning an Investigation

It is not hard to find a true crime story today. True crime, a genre of nonfiction literature and film examining the people and events surrounding an actual crime, has recently expanded to include podcasts. And with their success, in particular Serial, this expansion shows no sign of slowing. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are breathing new life into old cases and the genre, across media, is cultivating an almost fanatical following.

So, when I decided to investigate just why people find the true crime genre so fascinating, I was not surprised to find dozens of articles purportedly answering that very question. Excitedly, I began to click and scroll. What I found was a collection of theories rather than answers. Theories that were rooted in philosophy, psychology, and even evolution.

I should have been excited. I was, after all, hoping to find some scientific reason behind my fascination. Evolution, psychology – jackpot, right? But why was nothing definitive? I was going to have to dig deeper.

Dead Ends and Other Avenues of Investigation

If I’ve learned anything about the inner workings of investigations as they are laid out by true crime, it is to follow all leads. Ask a question and see where it goes. This can end with more questions that take the investigation in new directions or this can go nowhere. When it goes nowhere, you’ve reached a dead end.

Societal Necessity

There is a theory, an old one, that developed around crime itself, not the infotainment genre surrounding it. The theory comes from the philosopher and social scientist, Émile Durkheim who posited that crime was necessary to society. We need crime, he believed, to pave the way for change. To show us what to omit from future incarnations of society. In this scenario, the true-crime genre serves as a notification of what needs to change. Its popularity makes societal evolution possible.

Aside from smacking of chicken-or-the-egg, this idea strikes me as unlikely. If this were true, shouldn’t there be far less crime than there is? We have been evolving our notion of society for centuries and there is evidence of true-crime as a genre in the form of circulated pamphlets dating back to the 1500s. To no avail. I am declaring this a dead end.

The problem is, that many true crime stories are not violent in the telling. In fact, the first season of Serial, one of the most downloaded podcasts ever, while dealing with murder by strangulation, is more than eight and a half hours of testimony about car rides, cell phone technology, and the dating habits of a Baltimore, Maryland high school in 1999. It may have a violent premise, but there is no possibility of Serial fulfilling violent urges vicariously. I say, dead end.

Fire Drills and Dress Rehearsals

While trying to figure out why we are fascinated by true crime, I also looked into who is fascinated. Or, I tried to. Statistics have been hard to find. They are often alluded to rather than provided. Information is always just out of reach. Netflix notoriously guards its data. Apple tells you all about what is hot now but gets cryptic when you look for historical data.

One thing that is often alluded to is that women make up the majority of the true-crime audience. This leads to speculation that the genre is being used as a practical guide on how to react in the eventuality of a real event, or how to avoid the event entirely. Data would suggest that women are more commonly the victim of the types of crime the genre typically depicts, so this is certainly an understandable leap.

But what of the part of the audience that doesn’t identify with the victims? Be they women or men are we to think that, for them, true crime is a practical guide to murder? Or abduction? Or how to get away with it?

While I’m not buying the dress rehearsal or fire drill nature of true crime specifically, there is something here. An audience is always searching for themselves in a story. I think identification, in one way or another, plays a part in our fascination. I’m not willing to close the door on this theory.

Fear is Its Own Addiction

Another theory centers on fear addiction. Fear, among other things, is a chemical reaction in the body. The chemical cocktail of adrenaline, endorphins and dopamine that is released in response to fear triggers rapid breathing, increased heart rate, and tighter muscles. Though it may not sound like fun, the surge of energy needed for your fight or flight, when you need neither to fight nor flee can be a rush. Combined with the relief you feel as these tensions ease when your brain and body realize there is no threat, this rush – and relief – is often sought by thrill seekers like skydivers.

You do not need to take your life into your hands to experience this. Harmless scares, like the ones provided by horror films, release the same chemicals, though usually in smaller doses. But true crime stories rarely rise to the fright factor of horror. If anything, they can be mildly creepy.

Creepiness can be thought of as a precursor to fear. It happens when we are uncertain if a threat exists. So, true crime really doesn’t provide the rush and relief of fear chemicals. It only brings us to that edge. Still, this theory may be on the right track. The way creepy is on the same track as frightful.

A New Direction, Seemingly Unrelated

So, this is where I’m at. Along with a few random thoughts about the 24-hour news cycle perpetuating a need for deeper-dive crime coverage and a depressing number of fans of schadenfreude, this is what the internet tells me about the nature of our fascination with true crime. We are violent Darwinians with a chemical addiction to fear and a pressing need to prepare for the worst.

Well, I have another theory, and it even has roots in psychology and evolution: story. It all comes down to good storytelling, our need for it, and true crimes’ natural tendency to fit that mold.

We, humans, are hard-wired for stories. Cave drawings in the Pyrenees prove we have been sharing information through stories for at least fifteen thousand years. Some anthropologists believe gossip, casually shared stories about other people, developed in early language as a way to promote survival. “Did you hear about Ted from the cave down the lane? He was eating some plants; you know the ones with those red berries. Then he died.” Perhaps this kind of lesson communication could fall under "dress rehearsals and fire drills.“

Stories are how we envision the future and make decisions that will impact it. We imagine episodic, if-then narratives that help us predict the consequences of our actions. We treat ourselves as protagonists. Others as minor characters or even antagonists. Humans learn and live through stories and try to explain the world around us through narrative.

True Crime Is Ready-Made Story

All of the things that make a story compelling are inherent in true crime. A good story feels like life and good fiction turns our reality sensor off, no matter how out-of-this-world it may be. True crime doesn’t have to worry about those sensors. We enter the narrative knowing that however strange things get, no matter what facts remain unexplained, this really happened.

For a story to be compelling a writer needs to make the audience ask questions and want to know what happens next. With true crime, the audience already knows what happened last and they are asking “why” before they begin. The need to know is built into the story at the outset.

This need to know amounts to a vested interest and relates to our desire to find ourselves in a story. It is not just the victim that can be identified with, it is also the investigator. Like us, the investigator is on the outside looking in and hoping to make sense of it all. They are asking questions on our behalf. And speaking of questions, do you remember when we talked about things being creepy?

Creepiness, that foreshadowing of fear, is designed to get you asking questions. Since the body is uncertain if something creepy is a threat or not, it is put on high alert. This puts you on a fact-finding mission so you can conduct an accurate threat assessment. Here a storyteller might enhance the natural creepiness of the crime with music, if it is a TV show or podcast, or with additional details of the crime or similar cases if it is written.

A key structural component of a successful story is an observable goal. Again here, true crime has a leg up. No need to manufacture a goal for an audience when you can count solving an actual crime as your primary objective. Even in the case of stories featuring a crime that has already been solved, there is the question of why it occurred.

The list goes on: pace of plot, twists and misdirections, cause and effect, insurmountable obstacles. All of the things a creative writing teacher strives to coax from her students, naturally occur in real crimes and their investigations. And this is all before a storyteller has even put pen to paper.

Storytelling is in a golden age, from the media technology used to record stories to the platforms used to disseminate them. Neuroscience uses brain imaging to teach writers the best techniques to enhance whole-brain engagement in their audience. There has never been a better time to tell a well-told story. And the true crime story comes nearly ready made.

Just Another Theory?

So, where does this leave me? Have I solved it? Can I say definitively why so many of us can’t get enough true crime? Or have I just another theory to toss on the pile?

Certainly, I can’t say I’ve solved it. There is no smoking gun here or DNA match. But I have learned that humans are drawn to stories. And true crime stories have all the elements that draw us in.

Maybe there is an element of dress rehearsal for survival to them. But, I wonder if the brunt of that exchange falls to the teller. Are they sounding the alarm and that is what we are hearing? I don’t think so. I think storytellers recognize a good story and feel compelled to share it. That is simply human nature.