Why America’s So Obsessed With Alex Murdo’s Murder Trial: NPR

The five-week trial of Alex Murdo dominated headlines and cable news channels, and the murders were the subject of podcasts and even two documentaries.

This comes against the backdrop of a frenzy of interest in true crime media, which can be both incredibly popular and problematic.

Who is he? Murdo is a now disbarred South Carolina lawyer charged with the June 2021 murders of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul.

  • A death in a prominent family shocked their community and prompted an investigation into Alex Murdo’s financial and personal problems.
  • The trial lasted more than a month and included the testimony of more than 70 witnesses from both the prosecution and the defense.
  • Murdo denies that he killed his wife and son. If found guilty, he faces the prospect of decades in prison.

Do you think? The killings themselves have very real and very painful consequences. It also became a story that took people everywhere, in part because of the wide platform it got.

  • Testimony was broadcast live from the courtroom, and the trial was regularly shown on cable news.
  • Along with podcasts about the murders, two documentary series, on Netflix and HBO Max, have sparked interest in the case.
  • The history of the Murdo family plays a role in the spread of true crime in the media, a phenomenon that is claimed to be an exploitative form of entertainment that can harm all involved.

Want to know more? Listen Mind it episode on Why are people drawn to real crime?

Why is America so obsessed with this story? To explore this question, we asked Neil Baer, ​​a former longtime executive producer on the hugely successful crime series: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In this role, he consulted with experts and researchers to understand the issues people were concerned about and what they wanted to understand from the genre. This is his analysis.

On the appeal of the Murdo case:

We are drawn to it. And I think what’s really interesting is that we also want justice.

In this case, the victims are dead, but we still want some kind of justice. These are instances of human behavior that go to the nth degree that we don’t encounter in our own lives every day. We are attracted to such people and what drives them. What made them do it?

On whether the real obsession with crime is exclusively American:

Everywhere is interesting. And I think it’s because, as humans, we’re interested in other people’s behavior, and the more contrived it seems, the more grandiose or frightening, the more we’re drawn to it, because I think there are parts of us that can identify with these characters when we get enraged or feel betrayed, but hopefully we won’t go as far as these characters.

So there is some connection, there is a charm, because maybe we see ourselves in these characters … we can see ourselves so scared, so forced to make some decisions, so trapped that we don’t know , what do we do. And I hope most of us wouldn’t go so far as to kill our families if he really did. But we can identify with it because we’ve all been cornered.

On why the true crime genre exploded and whether it made us less sensitive to the human aspect of these cases:

I think people like the end and they like justice. I think it was a big, big advantage for Law & Order: Special Victims Unitthat we get the bad guys. And there aren’t too many podcasts where the bad guy gets away and we never find them. This is very rare.

I really think that when we see so many crimes, there’s a desensitization going on, maybe it makes us feel a little bit more secure that we can listen to it in the safety of our own homes. But, you know, on the other hand, we don’t know who carries guns in many places in the United States right now. So it’s a very scary place.

So it’s kind of a catch-22 that we’re getting more and more of, because I think there’s more and more fear, so we’re looking at these programs to give us some support and some hope, and yet ourselves by themselves they probably contribute more fear.

And now what?

  • The prosecution and defense made closing arguments in Murdo’s trial, and on Thursday the jury was tasked with reaching a verdict.
  • Murdo faces a life sentence if found guilty, but the death penalty will not be considered.
  • True crime media such as books, podcasts and TV shows continue to be a multi-million dollar industry.

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