Cook: In love with a serial killer

David Cook

Some women loved Ted Bundy.

"Up until the day he died, he had bags of mail that arrived each week. He had a fan club," said Joy Krause, local filmmaker and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student. "At his trial, he had women who sat in the front row wearing their hair in a way he liked."

Or Charles Manson.

"Manson just turned 80 and has a 25-year-old girlfriend who is beautiful and just moved to California where he is," said Krause.

For the last few years, Krause has been studying the strangest of phenomenons: Why do American women fall in love with serial killers?

"Hundreds of women every year write to men on death row, in hopes of having a relationship with them," Krause said.

Not too long ago, Krause saw a documentary depicting a woman who fell in love with and later married a death row inmate. ("I didn't know men on death row could get married," Krause said.) It pricked her mind: How could women fall in love with such abhorrently violent men?

It was an academic's question: not to judge, but to simply understand. Her quest took her across the country, into prisons, talking with criminologists, psychologists, wardens, serial killers and the women who love them.

She corresponded with "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz. She visited a man imprisoned for killing his entire family. "I have never seen eyes that seemed so deep and dark," Krause said. "It was as though I was looking into an abyss and it was soulless."

Her main focus stayed on the women; at first, Krause expected them to be helpless and desperate.

"I found just the opposite," said Krause. "I found women with many options."

Their killer-love soon became sympathetically understandable.

"They want what the rest of us want. Connection. Commitment. Romance," said Krause. "It's just who they chose that is really hard to understand."

Krause, a documentarian, has made a film about this phenomenon. Called "Serial Killer Groupies: A Love Story," it screens today -- and today only -- at noon and 6 p.m. at UTC's University Center. It's free, but RSVP is requested at serialkillergroupies.com.

Krause found women who were attracted to serial killers because of their notoriety. One criminologist told Krause we make rock stars out of serial killers.

"If a woman wrote to a rock star, she's lucky to get a signed photo," Krause said. "If she writes to a serial killer, she may get a letter, an invitation to visit. She may even get a marriage proposal."

Other women are drawn to the badness-image of the killer.

"The danger is a turn-on," Krause said. "They often feel they can change the bad boy. They're the special one that can make it happen."

Many women she interviewed were victims of past abuse, and by loving a serial killer, may have subconsciously found a way to protect themselves from further abuse.

By loving a serial killer, they love someone who will never leave jail. They love someone who can only get ... so close.

"They retain control," Krause said. "It is as much intimacy as they are able to accept."

These women have lost careers, reputations and friends because of their choice, but remain fiercely independent, saying: "It's my decision. You may not understand it, but it's my life," Krause related.

They believe in the innocence of the one they love.

Krause, who said one warden told her trusting the serial killers was like trying to put lipstick on a pig, is now using her work to educate others about abusive relationships.

"We have an epidemic of loneliness," she said. "We are all searching for connections."

Making her documentary, Krause had her own meaningful connection, as her son Mark was the co-producer, along with the well-known Peter Spirer, an Academy Award nominee.

"It's a big thing in a mom's life," she said.

Krause, who left a career in real estate to return to college, has a goal for "Serial Killer Groupies." She wants to enter it in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in June 2015.

"To my knowledge there has never been a Chattanooga filmmaker accepted to Sundance," Krause said.

To help fund the Sundance entry, or to become a groupie for her film, visit serialkillergroupies.com.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook at DavidCookTFP.