FOR the last six months, the Oxygen Channel has been airing a TV show entitled It Takes a Killer. Yours truly is one of the co-hosts. I have filmed 30+ episodes, with more scheduled to be filmed in the future. This is interesting to me on several fronts.
First is that this is a show dealing with murderers, rapists, serial killers, cannibals, kidnappers, robbers, sexual deviants, grifters, scammers, cheats, murderous frauds, murdering and plotting spouses (important safety tip: never consume lime Jell-O made by your spouse), and even a rogue music producer who killed an actress after a failed seduction attempt.
In short, it’s a light-hearted, whimsical frolic through the chambers of the human heart!
The second front that interests me is that apparently women outnumber men by a large margin in viewing such TV fare. That’s the demographic. Women, not men, find these stories compelling.
I have two theories about this. The first is that women want to learn more about those who would do them harm. This is perfectly sensible, as it pre-loads them with information as to the methodologies available to circumvent such catastrophic events.
My second theory on this subject is that women might be gathering valuable intel on precisely how to do away with you if you don’t treat them as they should be treated.
This is a valid point to their side. Firearms are noisy and messy. Baseball bats are unwieldy. Chainsaws are out of the question. Tampering with hydraulic brake lines is a bit complicated. Explosives can be unpredictable. Hiring Vinnie the hit man, aka “The Cleaner,” from Jersey (pronounced Joyzee) is cost prohibitive, coupled with the fact that you’ll be indebted to the Mafia for life.
But … poison? That’s an entirely different and reasonable proposition.
Lime Jell-O is the preferred medium to deceptively introduce the ingestion of toxins into the targeted audience. The sweet taste of Lime Jell-O masks the sweet taste of anti-freeze, and coincidentally, Lime Jell-O possesses the same lime-green visible spectrum hue as, you guessed it—anti-freeze.
A couple of women used this technique to great effect. Here’s the kicker with one. The victim, gravely ill, clings to life by a hair. After a near-death experience while hospitalized, he makes it home, barely limping through the doorway. His despairing wife consoles and comforts him as she nurses him back from the dead with (can you guess?) more Lime Jell-O, and then it’s end of watch.
Not surprisingly, a previous husband of the same wife was unearthed and he also suffered from acute toxicity due to the ingestion of anti-freeze. We have filmed a couple of similar capers, and I intend to write to the Jell- O people. I have removed all Lime Jell- O packets from our home and drained my radiator.
The other fascinating aspect to the show is that, despite my years in law enforcement, I had not “seen it all.” Take the case of the husband who, while his wife works at a bank, picks up prostitutes, brings them home, abuses and murders them, eats portions of them, and then buries them in the backyard.
If I were a wife, I would be somewhat suspect of a husband who isn’t hungry when I make dinner for him after a long day at work. If such a gastronomic pattern of behavior continues for a period of time, it would raise my suspicions even further.
Note to wives: If husband is not hungry, check the backyard.
What never ceases to amaze me when I host the show is the number of people who perform dismemberments in a futile attempt to hide their victims.
Tupperware and plastic bags are the preferred methods of storage. But it’s where these items are stored that boggles the mind. Surprisingly, many store them in their garage and use copious amounts of duct tape to seal the edges. Some store them on the roof. Others prefer vehicle trunks.
None of this makes much sense to me, but it did to these folks at the time—which is why they were caught.
Then there are the preachers and religious zealots who cavort about town with mistresses whom they promptly dispatch when things get dicey. What is presented to the outside world may not be what it seems. When the female flock begins to thin out, I cast a critical eye toward the one leading them.
Bodybuilders on steroids entertaining multiple girlfriends is never a great mix. Strangers you meet in bars can prove to be fatal. Alcohol may be the great social lubricant, but it clouds judgment to the extreme.
Overly friendly strangers encountered in everyday life are another sector of the general population one may wish to avoid. More often than not, this turns tragic. If you have what they want, they might employ less-thanaltruistic methods to obtain it.
What strikes me the most, relative to all the cases I have filmed, is that some really, really scary people are out there. Some of the most depraved individuals are seemingly those quintessential upstanding citizens we take for granted.
Take the BTK Killer, who bound, tortured, and murdered his victims. He was an active church member, was involved in the Boy Scouts, and had the all-American family with a wife, house, job, and 2.5 kids. That was just his daytime persona. At night, things changed dramatically for the worse. It was years before he was captured.
Some women out there are your classic Black Widows … and you’ll never see them coming. These individuals employ sly tactics and subterfuge with deadly effect. I am highly suspect of any super-grade, high-end, longlegged, thick-lipped, well-endowed Italian fashion model who approaches me. Now to date this situation has not ever happened to me.
But if it does, I do not wish to be Lime Jello’ed, chain-sawed, dismembered, and Tupperwared in a garage.
I’ve got a great, sweet gal, and I fully intend to keep her that way!
