Serial Killers

The police in KS arrested someone today who is accused of several gruesome murders in the Witchita area back in the 1980s. I can't say that I know a lot about this or remember reading about it when it was happening, probably because I was in school and busy and living a long way from Kansas at the time. But it's good that they got this creep. Apparently he's now 60 years old, married with grown children.

So I think to myself, I wonder what's it like to find out you're married to a serial killer. Or that your dad is one. And how is it that you never suspected, not even once that something was maybe just a little off about this man, especially if you're the wife. How can you not know something was wrong? Is it possible to live with someone whose primary recreational activity is killing people and not have even a small inkling that something was wrong? Of course, I think this same thing about fathers who molest their children and the wife says she never had a clue. How can this be?

I wonder if we'll start hearing lots of news reports about how the neighbors and the people he worked with never really had any suspicions, that he was quiet and kept to himself or, even more bizarre, that he seemed normal, just another ordinary guy who went to church every Sunday, kept his lawn mowed, really enjoyed Wednesday night bowling with the guys.

Neighbors and co-workers can be excused, I think, from not really knowing someone. But I don't see how a wife just couldn't know something, somehow.

There are lots of studies that have been done on the "mind" of the serial killer. I wonder if there has been much done on the wives of serial killers (when they have one), analyzing what kind of person ends up in that sort of relationship.