“If there’s a single book that has inspired more killers, it’s the Bible.” — Harold Schechter
Two straight days of murder in America. Yesterday we were in Ozark, Alabama with Matt Kessler investigating the gruesome murder of two young women. Today’s guest has spent four decades investigating homicidal crimes and continues to have the time of his life. Harold Schechter has written more than thirty true crime books, his latest being Murder by the Numbers, an account of 199 chilling tales of true crime.
When it comes to crime, I asked the Queens, NY–based Schechter, is America special? On the murder rate, yes. He was just in Iceland, where he asked a retired homicide detective whether the country had ever had a serial killer. Oh yes, the man said. Around 1325. Some Viking. The difference is firearms, Schechter argues, and a frontier that closed within living memory.
But, he says, the appetite for murder isn’t uniquely American. Martin Dumollard was guillotined in a French village in 1862 before a crowd three times the size of the town. During the Terror, tradesmen sold guillotine earrings to the women and toy guillotines to the children, who took them home and decapitated squirrels.
Schechter is unimpressed by our current media panic over violent videos. He reminds us that Jesse Pomeroy, the Boston Boy Fiend, was blamed on dime novels. The Great Train Robbery was blamed for juvenile crime. Then radio, then television, then Psycho, then American Psycho, then The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, after which there was no detectable surge in chainsaw massacres. Manson took his cue from the White Album, Lennon’s killer from Holden Caulfield, Hinckley from Taxi Driver. And if one book has inspired more killers than any other, he says, it is the Bible.
What about gender — are all serial killers male? Schechter’s argument is that we count female serial killers differently. They poison their victims, often enjoying the deaths in real time. And they tend to kill family and children rather than strangers. Women like watching too. The audience for a trial about a mother who killed her children is usually overwhelmingly female, he notes.
So what about gentle Harold Schechter? Could he kill, I asked. Or is he the kind of guy who only likes to watch?
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1. America is exceptional in its murder rate — guns, and a frontier that closed within living memory. It is not exceptional in its appetite for murder stories: Iceland has almost no homicide and a thriving market in gory crime fiction.
2. Watching people die was mass entertainment. Three times a village turned out for an 1862 guillotining; during the Terror, tradesmen sold guillotine earrings and toy guillotines. That we settle for the virtual version he reads as progress.
3. True crime has always sold titillation as moral instruction. The genre starts with the gallows sermon: the condemned man’s repentance, plus a very detailed account of the crime. Schechter draws no moral lessons himself.
4. No medium has been shown to raise the murder rate — dime novels, radio, TV, Psycho, and no chainsaw massacres after the film. Manson had the White Album. His candidate for the book that has inspired most killers is the Bible.
5. Female serial killers were never rare, only counted differently. The term was coined for sexual homicide, so women were missed. They poison, which can stretch a death over weeks, and kill family rather than strangers. Jane Toppan confessed to thirty-one.
THE BOOK
Murder by the Numbers: 199 Chilling Tales of True Crime (Workman, 2026) — https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/harold-schechter/murder-by-the-numbers/9781523528219/
ABOUT KEEN ON AMERICA
Keen On America is a daily conversation about the ideas, books and arguments shaping the United States, hosted by Andrew Keen, author of The Internet Is Not the Answer and How to Fix the Future. New episodes every day.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Intro
00:31 — Two days of murder, after The Wiregrass
02:18 — Why spend a life on this?
03:39 — Is the American murder rate really higher?
04:31 — Iceland’s last serial killer, around 1325
08:39 — The fascination is human, not American
12:02 — Dumollard, and a crowd three times the town
13:38 — Guillotine earrings
14:55 — The gallows sermon
18:33 — Dahmer, and who the police look for
20:42 — Is all of this entertainment?
24:50 — Dime novels and the first media panic
27:56 — Psycho, American Psycho, and no chainsaw surge
30:03 — The book that has inspired more killers
34:32 — Oswald, alone
39:07 — Christa Pike, and 276 botched executions
39:52 — The female serial killers nobody counted
47:15 — Folie à deux
50:25 — Jung, and the shadow
53:42 — Closing