5 Shocking Ways Pop Culture Inspired Horrible Crimes

5

CSI Taught People How to Destroy Forensic Evidence

The "CSI effect" is the supposed phenomenon whereby forensic dramas like CSI and NCIS have made jurors unwilling to find someone guilty unless there's a litany of forensic evidence to support the verdict. It now turns out that idea is crap. While there may be instances of individual jurors being jerks about the whole thing, it's not a widespread trend.

Denissimonov/Adobe Stock"We demand to see the semen results!"
"This is a purse-snatching case."
"Yes, we know."

While these shows might not be influencing jurors, however, they do tangibly affect how criminals behave -- specifically, they're teaching them how to manage and erase forensic evidence. Although CSI might seem about as realistic as Star Trek, much of the science has a solid basis in reality. You know how criminals on the show are always using bleach to erase their tracks? That's a real thing that bleach can do -- which didn't used to be common knowledge amongst criminals. These days, though, bleach is found at a startling majority of premeditated homicides, and the blame for that is being laid at the feet of Gil Grissom et al.

It's not all bad news, though. While these shows might serve as a how-to guide for Successful Crimin', that knowledge means nothing if the student is a careless dum-dum. As a real CSI once explained:

When they try to escape detection from what they see on CSI, they're actually leaving more evidence. A good example of that is instead of licking an envelope (for fear of providing DNA in their saliva) they'll use adhesive tape. Well, they'll probably leave fingerprints on the tape, and it'll pick up hairs and fibers from the surroundings. So the more effort you put into trying to evade detection, honestly, the more evidence you leave behind.

There's no better example of this than Jermaine McKinney, who used every trick from CSI (his favorite show) to destroy evidence of a brutal double murder. The brilliant plan fell apart not as a result of equally brilliant detective work, but because McKinney tried to dispose of the murder weapon by throwing it in a frozen lake.

4

The Military Had to Ask 24 to Stop Making Torture Look So Good

24 definitely glamorized torture, not just as a valid means of extracting information from bad guys, but as a surefire way of looking super tough. But even the military eventually asked the show to tone it down a little, on account of how it was starting to screw with their guys' heads.

Mother JonesAhem.

3

Jeffrey Dahmer Would Watch Star Wars And The Exorcist To Psych Himself Up

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who between 1978 and 1991 murdered, cannibalized, and dismembered 17 men and young boys. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity -- which necessitated an examination by Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist. Dahmer was eventually found to be sane, and thereafter sentenced to life imprisonment. But during the many, many hours he spent talking with him, Dietz discovered that Dahmer had a warm-up routine of sorts.

Before he'd go a'murdering, Dahmer would "set the right mood" by watching a double bill of The Exorcist III and Return Of The Jedi. Why these two movies? As Dietz explained, it's because Dahmer saw himself in the antagonists of both: Satan in The Exorcist and the Emperor in ROTJ.

[W]hat these characters have in common is that they are evil and corrupt and powerful, and both have the ability to use special powers to control others ... Each of the characters in the scenes that he repeatedly viewed actually torments someone else in a way that might be described as torture, but Mr. Dahmer said that was not what was appealing to him ... [H]e never enacted that and he's consistently told me that making others suffer was not his desire sexually, but that he did identify with the power of these characters.

In other words, Dahmer wasn't drawn to murder because he liked the killing, but because it gave him ultimate power over another person -- a motive reflected in his favorite films. Dahmer identified so strongly with these characters, in fact, that he bought a pair of yellow-tinted contact lenses so he could look like the Emperor while out cruising for victims.

20th Century FoxOK, fair point for the "Star Trek is better than Star Wars" people: no infamous serial killers.

2

John Wilkes Booth Timed His Shooting Of Lincoln To A Specific Line In Our American Cousin

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 might've been a mess from start to finish, but John Wilkes Booth did get something "right" (in the loosest sense of the term). Booth planned his killing blow to coincide with a line in the play Lincoln was seeing, Our American Cousin. Thanks to his experience as an actor, Booth knew this particular moment would generate enough raucous laughter to cover up the sound of gunfire. This is, frankly, the most theater kid thing we've ever heard.

Currier & Ives/Adam CuerdenDid the actors feel terrible or perversely proud of being so funny they helped kill the president?

That line, by the way?

Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal -- you sockdologizing old man-trap.

You had to be there.

1

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" Helped Inspire Modern Islamic Fundamentalism

Amidst all the endless arguing over whether "Baby, It's Cold Outside" deserves to be cancelled, we wound up missing something much bigger: In a roundabout way, the song wound up giving us 9/11.