The Pull of True Crime: Storytelling, Morality, and Reader Fascination
by Jeremy Tavares
True crime has become one of the most popular narrative forms in contemporary storytelling. Podcasts, documentaries, online communities, and bestselling nonfiction books routinely reconstruct acts of violence for mass audiences. The genre’s popularity is often explained as morbid curiosity, a fascination with killers or sensational details of murder. Yet most contemporary true crime spends surprisingly little time on the actual killer. Instead, these narratives linger on investigation, testimony, and aftermath. The focus is not simply on what happened but on how people attempt to understand events that seem senseless. Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Courtney Lund O’Neil’s Postmortem, and Kristine S. Ervin’s Rabbit Heart demonstrate that modern true crime is less interested in spectacle than in interpretation. These works suggest that audiences are drawn to the genre not because they enjoy violence, but because true crime offers a way to confront fear, impose narrative order on chaos, and reflect on the ethical implications of telling stories about real suffering.
Recent psychological research helps clarify why these narratives resonate so strongly with readers. Studies of negative-content consumption indicate that people engage with disturbing material for cognitive, emotional, and social reasons rather than simple sensationalism. When considered alongside contemporary true-crime literature, this research suggests that the genre performs several overlapping cultural functions. True crime allows readers to rehearse detection and safety strategies, to interpret the moral meaning of violence, and to participate in a communal process of witnessing (also known as gossip). The popularity of true crime therefore reflects not merely curiosity about crime itself but a broader effort to overcome uncertainty and fear.
One of the most immediate appeals of true crime lies in participation. Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark demonstrates how investigative narratives invite readers to think alongside the writer. The book documents McNamara’s search for the unidentified offender later known as the Golden State Killer, responsible for numerous assaults and murders in California during the 1970s and 1980s. Rather than presenting a completed case, McNamara structures the narrative around the process of investigation. She studies police files, interviews survivors, compares geographic patterns, searches graveyards, and collaborates with amateur investigators online. The reader is drawn into this process of exploration and interpretation. Violence, which initially appears random and uncontrollable, gradually becomes a puzzle that can be studied and understood.
This transformation of fear into analysis explains much of the genre’s appeal. Random violence produces helplessness; patterns suggest explanation and prevention. McNamara’s narrative repeatedly emphasizes the importance of noticing details (like routines, geography, and behavioral patterns) that might otherwise appear insignificant. In doing so, the book encourages readers to imagine themselves as detectives rather than victims. The story therefore offers a sense of empowerment in the face of danger.
Psychological research supports this interpretation. Melissa McDonald, Rachel James, and Domenic Roberto argue that true crime consumption often functions as a form of defensive vigilance. According to their research, many readers—particularly women—engage with crime narratives in order to learn warning signs and mentally rehearse strategies for avoiding danger (McDonald, James, and Roberto). Rather than voyeuristic fascination, the motivation resembles preparation. Individuals use true crime to simulate threatening situations in a controlled environment, allowing them to feel more capable of recognizing and responding to risk.
At the same time, McNamara’s narrative acknowledges the cost of this engagement. Her investigation becomes obsessive, reshaping her daily life and attention. The book suggests that prolonged exposure to violence—even indirectly—can alter how a person perceives the world. This tension reveals a paradox at the center of the genre. True crime promises control over fear, yet it requires sustained attention to disturbing material. Readers experience a moderated version of this process. They confront danger indirectly while maintaining distance from it. The genre therefore provides both anxiety and reassurance at the same time.
Curiosity research further explains why audiences willingly engage with difficult material. Esther Niehoff and Suzanne Oosterwijk argue that people are drawn to negative content for multiple reasons, including the desire for knowledge, emotional stimulation, and social interaction. Disturbing information can satisfy intellectual curiosity while also creating opportunities for discussion and shared interpretation. True crime narratives frequently encourage these conversations, particularly through podcasts and online communities where audiences analyze cases together. The genre therefore becomes not only an individual experience but a collective one. Readers do not simply consume the story; they participate in interpreting it.
The communal dimension of true crime has become especially visible in the past decade as digital media has expanded the ways audiences interact with these narratives. Readers and listeners increasingly encounter crime stories not as isolated texts but as ongoing conversations. Podcasts invite audience speculation, online forums catalog evidence and theories, and social media allows users to share interpretations in real time. The story no longer ends with the publication of a book or the broadcast of a documentary; instead, it circulates through networks of discussion that extend the narrative indefinitely. In this environment, true crime becomes less a finished account than a collaborative process of interpretation.
This collective engagement helps explain why audiences remain invested in cases long after their immediate details are known. Sharing theories, debating motives, and revisiting evidence allows individuals to transform private curiosity into social participation. As Esther Niehoff and Suzanne Oosterwijk note, curiosity about negative information often includes a strong social dimension, as individuals seek opportunities to discuss and interpret disturbing events with others. Difficult material invites conversation precisely because it demands explanation. Violence resists easy interpretation, and discussing it with others becomes a way of networking to discover meaning. True crime therefore functions as a form of communal storytelling in which audiences help construct the narrative that explains the event.
Recent scholarship suggests that this participation extends beyond interpretation into forms of collaborative investigation. Sarah Witmer and David O. Dowling describe true crime podcast audiences as engaging in “participatory journalism,” in which listeners actively contribute to the reporting and investigation of cases rather than simply consuming them. Through digital platforms, audiences share information, generate leads, and sometimes assist families and law enforcement in developing new insights into unresolved crimes. Their study of podcast communities demonstrates that these groups often follow recognizable patterns of collaboration, involving producers, listeners, and those directly connected to the case in an ongoing process of information exchange and interpretation (Witmer and Dowling).
Rather than functioning as passive consumers, listeners become part of a network of inquiry that operates alongside formal institutions. Witmer and Dowling note that these communities can play a meaningful role in cases that have received limited attention from the criminal justice system, particularly for marginalized individuals whose cases might otherwise remain unresolved.
At the same time, this expanded role raises important ethical questions. When audiences participate directly in the interpretation and circulation of real cases, they sometimes generate new information and create the risk of misidentification, speculation, and intrusion into private lives.
The collaborative nature of contemporary true crime also complicates the relationship between audience and investigator. In traditional crime narratives, the detective held authority over interpretation. Modern true crime often dissolves that hierarchy. Amateur researchers, journalists, and readers frequently contribute insights, sometimes even assisting official investigations. Michelle McNamara’s work illustrates this shift clearly; her research depended not only on police files but also on networks of readers and amateur investigators who shared information and analyzed patterns related to the Golden State Killer case. The investigation becomes distributed across many participants, blurring the distinction between professional expertise and audience involvement.
At the same time, this collaborative energy raises questions about responsibility. When large groups of people speculate about real crimes, the line between investigation and intrusion can become unclear. Discussions intended to seek truth may unintentionally expose private individuals to suspicion or public scrutiny. Scholars of the genre therefore emphasize the importance of ethical awareness when engaging with real cases. Ian Cummins, Martin King, and Louise Watts argue that true crime narratives exist within a tension between public interest and the potential exploitation of victims and communities affected by violence. Participation can deepen understanding, but it can also amplify harm if curiosity overrides empathy.
Recognizing these tensions reveals that the appeal of true crime lies not simply in the events themselves but in the interpretive community that forms around them. Audiences do not encounter crime narratives alone; they encounter them as part of a collective attempt to understand what happened and why. As research on engagement with narratives of suffering suggests, individuals are motivated not only by curiosity but also by a desire for social connection and shared meaning-making (Vivanco Carlevari, Oosterwijk, and Van Kleef). True crime therefore becomes a shared cultural practice in which readers and viewers negotiate fear, responsibility, and interpretation together. This collaborative dimension helps explain why the genre continues to expand across media platforms even as its ethical complexities become more widely discussed.
The collaborative conversations surrounding true crime suggest that audiences are not only trying to determine what happened but also trying to understand what violence means once the immediate mystery has been resolved. Participation and speculation may draw readers into a narrative, but the discussion rarely ends when the perpetrator is identified. Instead, attention often shifts toward the people who must live with the consequences of the crime—families, witnesses, and communities whose lives remain shaped by the event long after the investigation concludes. In this way, the interpretive community that forms around true crime ultimately turns from detection to reflection.
Courtney Lund O’Neil’s Postmortem illustrates this shift by moving the genre’s focus away from the killer and toward the lasting psychological and social aftermath of violence. Rather than reconstructing the murders committed by John Wayne Gacy, O’Neil focuses on the lasting impact of the case on witnesses and families, particularly her mother, whose testimony helped authorities identify the killer. The narrative examines how a single event can shape memory, identity, and family history long after the legal case has ended.
By emphasizing these consequences, Postmortem demonstrates that true crime often functions as a way of interpreting violence rather than merely documenting it. Legal closure does not produce emotional closure. Survivors and witnesses must still integrate the event into their lives and stories. Memory becomes unstable, shifting as individuals attempt to explain what happened and why. The crime persists not only as an historical event but as a psychological and cultural presence.
This interpretive function reflects a broader human desire to impose meaning on suffering. Anastassia Vivanco Carlevari, Suzanne Oosterwijk, and Gerben Van Kleef describe engagement with narratives of suffering as motivated by several factors, including the search for understanding and the desire for meaningful emotional experiences. True crime satisfies these motives by transforming chaotic events into structured narratives. Even when explanations remain incomplete, the story provides a framework through which violence can be discussed and remembered.
Yet the attempt to create meaning through narrative also introduces ethical complications. Kristine S. Ervin’s Rabbit Heart explores these tensions by recounting the murder of her mother and the author’s lifelong effort to understand the event. Like O’Neil, Ervin attempts to reconstruct a life through interviews, letters, and memories. However, the narrative repeatedly emphasizes the limitations of this reconstruction. Facts can be discovered, but grief remains unresolved. In other words, knowing how or why a tragic event was perpetrated doesn’t resolve the suffering of the survivors. In this way, the story resists the tidy structure that true crime narratives often promise.
By embracing this resistance, Rabbit Heart exposes the uneasy relationship between storytelling and suffering. The reader becomes aware of their own curiosity and its implications. Wanting to know the details of a crime may help preserve memory and understanding, but it also risks turning tragedy into a commodity to be consumed. The book therefore functions as both a true crime narrative and a critique of the genre itself.
Those who study the implications of true crime have increasingly emphasized these ethical concerns. Ian Cummins, Martin King, and Louise Watts argue that narratives of real violence exist within a tension between memorialization and exploitation. While true crime can promote empathy and awareness, it can also reduce victims to narrative devices if the focus shifts toward spectacle or entertainment. This tension is visible throughout contemporary true crime, particularly in works that deliberately avoid sensational description and instead emphasize memory, testimony, and reflection.
Taken together, these literary works and psychological studies suggest that true crime persists because it fulfills several overlapping cultural functions. First, the genre provides a sense of control by transforming unpredictable violence into a problem that can be analyzed. Second, it offers narrative order, allowing readers to interpret events that might otherwise appear meaningless. Finally, it creates a space for moral witnessing, where audiences acknowledge suffering and consider its implications.
In this sense, true crime operates as a cultural ritual. Modern media often presents violence as sudden and fragmented, appearing through headlines or brief reports that offer little explanation. True crime narratives slow these events down, examining them carefully and placing them within broader social and psychological contexts. Detectives analyze evidence, witnesses reconstruct memories, and the writer interprets the data. In this way, the story becomes a collaborative process of interpretation.
The popularity of true crime therefore reflects more than curiosity about crime itself. It reveals a broader human need to understand events that challenge ordinary explanations. McNamara’s investigative narrative, O’Neil’s exploration of aftermath, and Ervin’s critique of storytelling together illustrate how the genre has evolved from simple crime reporting into a form of cultural reflection. Readers return to these stories not merely to witness violence but to explore how people attempt to live with its consequences.
True crime endures because it transforms fear into narrative. By organizing chaotic events into stories of investigation, memory, and interpretation, the genre allows audiences to confront uncertainty without being overwhelmed by it. In doing so, it offers not only knowledge about crime but insight into how societies attempt to make meaning from violence that might otherwise seem incomprehensible.
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Cummins, Ian, Martin King, and Louise Watts. “Ethics and True Crime.” True Crime: Key Themes and Perspectives. Bristol University Press, 2025.
Ervin, Kristine S. Rabbit Heart: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Story. Counterpoint, 2024.
McDonald, Melissa M., Rachel M. James, and Domenic P. Roberto. “True Crime Consumption as Defensive Vigilance: Psychological Mechanisms of a Rape Avoidance System.” Archives of Sexual Behavior: The Official Publication of the InternationalAcademy of Sex Research, 1–24, Published online 23 June 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01990-1
McNamara, Michelle. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. HarperCollins, 2018.
Niehoff, Esther, and Suzanne Oosterwijk. “To Know, to Feel, to Share? Exploring the Motives That Drive Curiosity for Negative Content.” Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 35 (2020): 56–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.012
O’Neil, Courtney Lund. Postmortem: What Survives the John Wayne Gacy Murders. Citadel Press, 2024.
Vivanco Carlevari, Anastassia, Suzanne Oosterwijk, and Gerben A. Van Kleef. “Why Do People Engage with the Suffering of Strangers? Exploring Epistemic, Eudaimonic, Social, and Affective Motives.” Cognition and Emotion, 39, no. 3 (2025): 614–34.
Witmer, Sarah, and David O. Dowling. “True Crime Podcasting as Participatory Journalism: A Digital Ethnography of Collaborative Case Solving.” Journalism and Media 5, no. 4 (2024): 1702–22. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia5040104
Jeremy Tavares is a former firefighter and a nonfiction writer from Mississippi. He holds a BA in English literature from the University of Mississippi and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Kentucky. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, hiking, and collecting vintage vinyl records. He currently lives in Oklahoma with his wife and son.
