Listener Warning:

This episode contains discussions of violence, serial murder, mental illness, and true crime. Listener discretion is advised. These stories are told to educate, not to glorify.

In this episode, Jess Faulkner explores the darkness beneath our fascination with true crime and serial killers. From Bundy and Dahmer to the dramatizations of Ryan Murphy and the performances of actors like Evan Peters and Charlie Hunnam, Jess looks at how killers become cultural myths—and why our obsession with them reveals something unsettling about human nature.

Through the lens of psychology, sociology, and systemic failure, she dissects how untreated mental illness, childhood trauma, and social neglect can turn pain into pathology. But this isn’t about fear—it’s about understanding the systems that breed violence and the lives that are lost in its shadow. Because monsters aren’t born in nightmares—they’re built in plain sight.

Resources & Further Reading:

• FBI Behavioral Science Unit – FBI.gov/BSU

• Center for Homicide Research – homicideresearch.org

• Murder Accountability Project – murderdata.org

• Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database (Aamodt, 2023) – radford.edu/serialkillerdatabase

• “Drowning the Smiley Face Murder Theory” – Center for Homicide Research

• Newsweek: States Ranked by Serial Killers (2024)

• Interviews and archival footage from Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (Netflix), Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Ryan Murphy Productions, 2025), and FBI archives on Bundy, Dahmer, and Gacy.