"A Jury ye young fools is nothing. What's to be done with Public Opinion!": True Crime, Individual Responsibility, and Two Averys on Trial

Abstract

Abstract: Articles from BBC, Times , and Rolling Stone have commented on the recent rise of the true crime genre in the United States; however, interest in crime and criminality is anything but new. Nineteenth-century public interest in crime drove the press, leading to an explosion of printed material. Textile operative Sarah Maria Cornell's 1832 murder by Methodist minister Ephraim K. Avery was a media sensation that brought together readers in industrial New England and led to journalistic investigations, broadsides, lithographs, a touring show of wax figures, and a threat on P. T. Barnum's life. Those following the case became invested in understanding the lives and motivations of both victim and perpetrator, as the genre's subjective interpretation of objective facts was used to influence consumers' responses. Today, the fascination with the murder of young white women is reproduced in the United States by binge consumption of both serialized and episodic investigations in podcasts and mini-series. The investigation and trial of Steven Avery for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach drew international interest after the release of Netflix's Making a Murderer in 2015. The popularity of true crime relies on a perennial fascination with violence, a desire to avoid a similar fate, and the sense of community created between fellow consumers. Connecting coverage of the nineteenth-century Ephraim K. Avery with that of today's Steven Avery reveals that true crime media's obsessive focus on white female victims perpetuates an emphasis on personal responsibility that hides systemic violence.