Serials

I generally never spend the cabbage on People Magazine anymore. Why not? I don’t watch a lot of TV so I’ve got NO fucking clue who most of the featured folks are. Yes, I do know who Meghan Markle is (only because, with monster hoopla, she married some famous Brit) but Kaitlyn Bristowe? Lauren Alaina? Margot Robbie? No idea and, unless they're working to cure cancer or Nf2, I don't care (yur shocked?).

BUT, I was stuck in a long line at Stop&Shop and this one jumped off the shelf at me: Raised by a Serial Killer. It’s the story of the daughter of the infamous BTK murderer of Wichita, Kansas. OK, People’s piece isn’t really a story. Basically it’s a teaser for Kerri Rawson’s memoir which hits the stands tomorrow.The online piece has the unfortunate, whiny title,  I'd Give Anything Not To Be a Serial Killer's Daughter. I'll bet, if they could, Jospeh and Julie Otera, Shirley Vian, Kathryn Bright, etc. wish they could've avoided knowing your father too.

Now then, I’d totes love to read the experiences and feelings of someone who’d been, unknowingly, raised by a monster (and hadn’t themselves become one) BUT, how she’s dealt with it comes off too damn neat and tidy. Ya see, she found strength in her "faith" and forgiveness for her father “washed over” her. Nice. For her anyway.

I don't get this forgiveness shtick. There ARE things that are so astronomically heinous as to NOT qualify for forgiveness. Being a serial killer. Kidnapping and caging the children of asylum seekers. Holding 800,000 people hostage in a hideously self obsessed GIVE ME WHAT I WANT tantrum. You know...shit like that there.

Unsurprisingly, Rawson's book is being published by one of the “Christian” imprints at Harper Collins.

The write up in The Wichita Eagle makes both Rawson and her memoir sound more interesting and full. Less like a Sunday School lesson for lightweights.

It details Rawson’s own panicked descent into denial and depression, and it also includes letters her father sent her from jail.

... She even share(s)...a couple lists of survivor’s tips, including “what not to say to a serial killer’s daughter.” (Did you know you’re on Google? Do you have a serial-killer gene?) (source)

Apparently People’s doing a whole series on daughters of serial killers. I missed this one: Edward Edwards' Daughter Shares Guilt and Shame After Turning Him In. I hadn’t actually heard of him before (not that I'm a fan or aficionado of serial killers).

Growing up, April Balascio says she always had suspicions about her dad, handyman Edward Wayne Edwards. He was obsessed with murder and detective stories and loved to ingratiate himself with the cops, inserting himself into local investigations wherever they lived. 

Stranger still, Edwards would often move his family in the middle of the night without warning — Balascio’s first clue that something wasn’t quite right.
…
But it wasn’t until 2009, as a 48-year-old mom of three grown children, that Balascio decided to look deeper, sure that she had to act on her nagging concerns. 

After searching online for “cold cases” and towns that they’d lived in when she was a child to see if anything stood out, one did: the story of two teens in Watertown, Wisconsin, who had disappeared after a wedding reception in 1980, only to turn up stabbed and strangled three months later. (source)

So, April dropped a dime on her dad. Good for her! I’d def spend the money for her memoir but, sadly, I don’t believe she’s written one. Will next week's rag feature yet another adult daughter of a serial killer?

Ted Bundy never had kids and his former crisis center co-worker, Ann Rule's book The Stranger Beside Me, has been out for eons.That won't be a hot sell. What about Harold Shipman – he had kids!
Seriously, how long can People keep this up?