Death Scenes

A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook

Text by Katherine Dunn (Feral House)
by Mark Phinney

In the back of our American mind lies a perverse desire to see the surreal, the twisted, the entire freakish nature of a world that we fear in the dark. It all dates back to circus sideshows; fascinated housewives and children venturing out to stand witness to the oddities of this life that never invaded their backyard barbecues. I am an admitted crime freak, in love not with the childish pranks of a Jeffrey Dahmer or the amateur slashings of serial killers, but more with the criminal mind, the sneakiness, the masterminded schemes, and the soullessness of the players in these acts. Death Scenes is a brutal, unflinching browse through a homicidal potpourri of murder scenes, morgue shots, and all-out violent acts that were unleashed in the 1940s and ’50s and still chill today. Let me warn the mothers out there: this is not a gory little thriller, nor a “graphic description of a ravaging murder or suicide,” these are the ravaging murders and suicides, stark, naked, and in your face. Presented in eerie black and white with the original hand-scrawled descriptions beneath them, the majority of these photos are very terrifying, a full-frontal account of the brutality of murder, a raw look at death. I do find this book very interesting as a reference to crimes that are out there in this world every single day, and we don’t need to stray to far from the front porch to witness them. The only objection I have with the book is of the shots of children and newborns; I don’t care how cutting-edge your publishing house is, that goes beyond the ethics of good/bad taste. On the other hand, the Mafia murders, and 85-year-old women taking out their flirting husbands make for a great study into, not only the criminal psyche, but your grandmother’s as well.