CREATIVE WRITING
Murderous thoughts
Author James McCreet (writing as Matt Stanley), provides insights into getting inside the minds of serial killers in the process of writing from their perspective in his latest novel
I
hadn’t written a crime book for around ten years and had no particular plans to return to the genre. Then I saw a YouTube video interview with an imprisoned serial killer. I was hooked. The guy was around seven feet tall and had been tested as having a ‘genius’ IQ. He had murdered his grandparents, his mother and a number of hitchhikers – all in quite horrible circumstances. Despite his homicidal tendencies, he spoke eloquently, compellingly and intelligently – almost like a writer. I kind of liked him, which worried me.
Not only that, but he spent a lot of time in the local police bar during his killing period and was known to his investigators. He admired the police and understood a lot about forensics. Ultimately, he was so successful in concealing his crimes that he was obliged to turn himself in, He felt that he’d made his point and that his final murder was the end of his story. A pure psychopath, he nevertheless recognised that he could go on killing forever, undiscovered, unless he confessed.
That was intriguing enough. However, I discovered something even more interesting when I started to investigate his murders. It turned out that two other serial killers (and possibly a fourth, never caught) were active in the same town at around the same time. They even met in prison later. Around 40 people were murdered within a year. This was a story I had to write.