Murder by the Numbers: Harold Schechter’s 199 Chilling Tales of True Crime

Andrew Keen (0:00)

Hello, my name is Andrew Keen. Welcome to Keen On America, the daily interview show about the United States.

Hello, everybody. We are continuing our theme of Murder in America today. Yesterday, we did a show with the Alabama, the Birmingham, Alabama-based writer, Matt Kessler. His new book is called The Wireglass, not The Wireglass, The Wiregrass, A Tale of Murder and Retribution in the Deep South. It's a book about the tragic murders of two young American women, JB Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, a man called, a man called Coley Lewis McCraney is in jail for the murder, although my sense is that Matt Kessler isn't convinced he is the murderer. Anyway, speaking of murderers and murder, we're moving on to our guest today, Harold Schechter. He's one of America's leading crime historians, the author of many books about one kind of murder or another. His new book is called Murder by the Numbers, 199 Chilling Tales of True Crime. Many of you will be also familiar with his last book, 50 States of Murder, An Atlas of American Crime. So Harold knows American murder crime as well as anyone. He's joining us from Queens in New York where he lives. Harold, congratulations on the new book. I have to ask you, as this leading historian of American crime and murder, why, Harold, isn't it rather miserable to be endlessly writing and studying about such terrible things?

Harold Schechter (2:16)

Well, I've been doing it for so long that I wouldn't say that I'm inured to it because I am still capable of getting very upset when I read about certain crimes. But I've come to learn something about the outer limits of human behavior.

I've always been interested going back to my graduate school days a while ago in different kinds of aberrant psychology as well as why we're so fascinated by these kinds of stories. So yeah, I mean, when I first began doing this, especially my early books, it was often very difficult for me to read about some of the atrocities that I was describing. But again, I tell people it's probably very much like the experience of first-year medical students, who the first time they have to dissect a cadaver, will go running out of the room and be sick, and then after a while, they're eating lunch while they're doing it.

Andrew Keen (3:37)

Yeah, I'm not sure if I could ever eat lunch after watching or seeing a cadaver, but I've never gone to medical school.

Harold, your book covers a lot of different murders, including the first recorded murder in Colonial America by a man called John Billington. We'll get to Billington in a second and some of these early murders. But is there something unique about America and murder, the murder rate? Is the murder rate has historically, and you're the expert here, is the murder rate in the United States always been much higher than other countries? Or is that a delusion? Is that something that people just assume but isn't true?

Harold Schechter (4:29)

No, no, it's quite true. I mean, I just got back, for example, from a trip to Iceland, and the murder rate there is virtually non-existent.

Andrew Keen (4:39)

Yeah, you wouldn't get a job, Harold, in Iceland. You'd have to come up with another profession.

Harold Schechter (4:45)

Completely. You know, I met a retired policeman, a retired, I guess he was a homicide cop. Anyway, I asked him, do you have serial, have you ever had serial killers in Iceland?

And he said, oh yeah. And I asked when it was like 1325

Andrew Keen (5:05)

He probably killed two people.

Harold Schechter (5:07)

Yeah. Well, it was some kind of Viking guy. But yeah, no, I mean, compared to many, many other countries. And one of the obvious reasons, as many people have pointed out, is just the availability of firearms.

Andrew Keen (5:24)

Yeah, although in terms of this first recorded murder, I'm not sure we can blame it on the NRA, can we?

Harold Schechter (5:32)

No, we cannot. But, you know, first of all, our cut... We're not very far removed from the time when our country was a savage wilderness. You know, I grew up... I'm a baby boomer. I grew up in the 1950s, when American television was filled with Westerns. And the movie theaters were filled with Westerns. I once did a count. In 1957, there were 37 Westerns on primetime TV.

And that always seemed like the mythic past to me, you know, growing up in the 1950s. But it was only 70 years or 60 years before I was born. I mean, that's how close we are to that kind of frontier violence. Wyatt Earp was still alive when John Ford made a movie about him. So, and the, you know, with the Puritans as well, I mean, Worthington came over here on the Mayflower with the Mayflower Pilgrims. And they all had, you know, they all had weapons.