52 Famous Murderers
and No Bubblegum
I left graduate school with a MA in Forensic Psychology and a notion I could pursue a career probing the depths the human mind can sink through while assisting a criminal justice system burdened by many factors beyond simple policing and meting out justice. It would be a lark, providing lots of fascinating party talk and dinner chat to titillate my listeners.
My notion was first tested when I was told to wear a clip-on tie while interning in the agitated ward of a correctional facility so I wouldn’t be strangled by any of my more rambunctious charges. It was vigorously challenged when sitting across the long, narrow, table from me, on one of those days you’ve missed the coffee cart when you really shouldn’t have, was an explosively violent young person wearing a straitjacket. He had been unruly during the night and so the restraint was deemed prudent. After a few minutes of chitchat he asked me what I would do if he suddenly jumped over that table and did his best to smother the life out of me, or maybe just break my neck instead, before the corrections officer, standing some feet across the room, could stop him. …