Serial Killers and Doggos
I’ve been watching a lot of serial killer stuff on Netflix.
Recently, there’s been some eye-opening discussion about people who watch violent or true crime documentaries as a way to “unwind”: Psychologists suggest that if someone finds trauma relaxing, there’s a lot to unpack from one’s childhood.
I don’t discredit the disturbing nature of this accusation—every time I open the closet to my skeletons there are always some moths fluttering about—but for those like me that have an interest in the psychology of others, or just simply can’t seem to look away from disturbing details, these shows are fascinating. Spending an evening relaxing in high contemplation, they are even more so.
I’ve binged through Mindhunter, the Conversations with a Killer tapes, Unsolved Mysteries, Dahmer, and have recently settled into Catching Killers. It explores high profile cases like Aileen Wuornos, the BTK Killer, and several others that at the time were national news, but are now lost to the annals of history because of humanity’s tendency to conveniently forget the past. Humanity has a morbid fascination with death and murder that comes honestly; what drives a person to KILL another person? The machinations behind the mind of a serial killer are heartbreakingly fascinating, and something I’ve really enjoyed exploring (sick fuck that I am), so I was particularly drawn to a case that hit close to home.
‘Missing Men’ parts one and two from season two, explores the police investigations around Toronto Ontario in the heart of the city known as “the gay village”. Eight men went missing surrounding talks of cannibalism. I remembered hearing something about this, passing by the battered news boxes in front of the subway stations as I travelled into the city’s core for nursing school. I never took an interest in it at the time, either as a result of stress distracting me, or the contained ignorance that keeps me sane in this cruel world of murder, injustice, and misery. I do remember seeing the killer’s face all over the media—an overweight, old white guy named Bruce McArthur—when they finally caught him, tracked down just before he claimed another victim handcuffed to a steel bedframe.
I revisited this case through Netflix from my couch, pulled in by nostalgic fascination and indica-induced relaxation, only to feel a sickening sense of horror by realizing how close to home these atrocities can happen . . . but tragedies are regrettably commonplace, and at the expense of coming across as insensitive, I’ve come to learn that to survive, you have to let them wash off you. (Not the greatest analogy—fictional serial killer Buffalo Bill threatened his victims this way—but I hope you get my point.)
Surprisingly, it was something wholesome that took my attention away from the sickness in my gut: Doggos.
In the Toronto investigation, police dogs were brought to MacArthur’s’ backyard to sniff around. Trained to communicate, they singled out a large planter in the garage and made eye contact with their handlers to tell them something was up. They were instrumental in finding the decomposing human remains in the planter, and also helped discover the other bodies buried throughout the property. Despite the morbidity, all I could focus on was that man and beast were working together for justice: with positive bonding, dogs just want to please us, and end up helping the world of man.
Not too long after, my brother sent me a video about a dog named ‘Haneul’ (erroneously misgendered in a popular tiktok video as Barney) that works in a Korean restaurant, bowing to customers, bringing them baskets with the menu, stocking the cups for the drink machine, and even helping her owner clean the restaurant at the end of the day. (As some people were quick to point out in the comments, many were disappointed to find that a *literal* dog was more competent than 90% of their coworkers.)
‘Restaurant Dog’ ^
Misgendering and dead-naming aside, Haneul is another example of the special bond between humans and dogs. As her owner says, “Haneul following me around and acting like this connects us together”, and it’s obvious her work is valued and appreciated.
We truly do not deserve dogs. Its sickening what we do to each other, and sometimes what we do to ourselves is even worse. From catching killers to running a business, suffice to say there is a lot of bad in the world, but at least we have dogs to keep life wholesome.
Weed also helps.
That is all.