It's true what they say about the little things making all the difference. Take Dennis Rader, or BTK as he's more widely known. While an active serial killer, Rader killed 10 people. When people try to buy bits and pieces of Rader's life -- and they often do -- they're accused of festishizing human misery, and their collections are derided as "murderabilia."
Now say there was someone whose exploits were responsible for at least a dozen homicides, and the victims included police officers. It must be really horrible to collect his murderabilia, right? Well, no. Not if Johnny Depp played him in a movie. Then it's interesting and historical.
This past weekend, a cast likeness of John Dillinger's corpse face -- a death mask, as it were -- went for $501 at auction here in KC. The lucky buyer was 50-year-old Brian Nickell of Independence, who told reporters that there was just something so intriguing about the plaster cast of the bank robber and murderer's lifeless head that he "couldn't resist a deal like this."
Dillinger has been referred to as the country's Robin Hood for his Depression-era bank robbing. The comparison is mostly apt, except he didn't give any money to poor people, and he left a long trail of widows and orphans.
Yes, I'll grant you there was a B.T.K. movie. But Rader was played by Kane Hodder, who is totally not dreamy, so it doesn't count.
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