Post by Joanna on Mar 2, 2016 3:38:51 GMT -5
The Dallas Morning News
Tours of Infamous Crime Locations
Thanks to Serial, The Jinx and Making a Murderer, true crime stories are back in a big way. A couple years ago, everyone was watching Mad Men. Now, we’re much more interested in actual mad men. For most of us, binge-watching these is enough to satisfy our morbid appetites. Others feel a deeper curiosity, though. Just as some history buffs feel the urge to visit the site of major battles, there are people out there who plan vacations around famous crime scenes. Hey, some of us like Walt Disney World. Some prefer Charles Manson’s hangouts. No judgment. If you find the idea of a tour through the darker side of history appealing, check out these spots, where you can indulge your inner crime buff.
The Sixth Floor Museum (Dallas, Texas). While the endless barrage of conspiracy-minded movies and books will forever cloud the tragic events of November 22, 1963, in our collective memory, the official story is that President John F. Kennedy was killed when lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald shot him from his sniper’s nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. These days, the building features a museum (above). While you can’t actually access the infamous window where Oswald allegedly took aim, you can learn a lot about Kennedy, his assassin and Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald before he could go to trial. For those of you swayed more by Oliver Stone’s arguments than the findings of the Warren Commission, a short walk will take you to the grassy knoll.
‘Devil in the White City’ Tours (Chicago, Illinois). H. Holmes was the sort of character that shouldn’t exist other than in cheap horror movies. (In fact, he’s about to be the subject of a probably critically-acclaimed Scorsese-Dicaprio joint venture.) After opening a hotel close to the site of the Chicago’s World’s Fair, he lured victims to his “Murder Castle,” taking their lives in various, unspeakable ways. (Hanging them. Locking their rooms and gassing them. Locking them in a vault to suffocate. Locking them in their rooms to starve to death ....) Holmes would eventually confess to 27 murders, though some estimates put the number closer to 200. His reign of terror was famously chronicled in Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, which took the true crime genre to new levels by serving as an informative historical narrative as well as a shocking thriller. This tour mimics this approach, giving visitors a bus ride through Chicago and regaling them with tales of the World's Fair and the notorious Mr. Holmes.
Lizzie Borden House (Fall River, Massachusetts). “Lizzie Borden took an axe ….” The gruesome murders of Andrew and Abby Borden have inspired everything from popular songs to Lifetime movies. Though Andrew’s daughter Lizzie is generally believed to be responsible for killing her parents, she was acquitted at trial. No other suspect was ever charged. Nowadays, the house where the crimes took place has been converted into a bed-and-breakfast, because nothing says hospitality like “This was the site of an axe murder.” For those who aren’t crazy about the idea of spending the night at a notorious crime scene, but are still curious , tours of the house are also available.
Jeffrey Dahmer Tour (Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious serial killer responsible for the murders of 17 men and boys, took our nightmares to a new level by engaging in cannibalism and necrophilia with the bodies of his victims. But serial killers often become quasi-celebrities in our culture, inspiring in some the sort of fascination usually reserved for rock stars and royalty. Perhaps this explains why true crime buffs love taking a walking tour of the Milwaukee streets where Dahmer picked up seven of his victims while learning more about the chilling details behind his crimes.
Mob Tour (Las Vegas, Nevada). If the small-time vices offered by casinos leave you yearning for the good old days when gangsters ruled Vegas, a tour focusing on the Mafia’s role in the city ought to do the trick. Leaving the familiar tourist traps behind, this excursion into Sin City visits the sites of robberies, murders and the popular hangouts of infamous underworld figures such as Bugsy Siegel. The tour ends with a pizza dinner at a restaurant that was once a gangster meeting place. It’s not clear from the website if you’ll take a bullet to the kneecaps if you fail to pay for your ticket.
Helter Skelter Tour (Los Angeles, California). In American history, few names are more synonymous with evil than Charles Manson. Because of his charismatic personality, he was able to convince members of his “family” to commit nine murders during the summer of 1969. For those with a certain morbid curiosity, an epic, 3½-hour tour will shuttle you to the site where Manson’s followers took the life of Sharon Tate. Married to filmmaker Roman Polanski (a man with his own criminal tendencies), Tate had a successful acting career and was weeks away from giving birth when she was murdered. Another location on the tour is the home (above) of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The tour includes details of the lives of the killers and isn’t recommended for children.
Clinton Road (West Milford, New Jersey). This 10-mile stretch of pavement through the woods of northern New Jersey has given birth to numerous urban legends. Ghost children haunting a bridge. Demon dogs roaming the forest. Phantom trucks pursuing motorists. As a very, very bored adolescent, I made frequent late-night trips to Clinton Road with my friends. I never saw any ghosts, but I did see people having sex in their cars. This isn’t to say the location isn’t frightening. Although the supernatural stories probably aren’t based in reality, the place does have a dark past. In 1983, cyclists traveling along Clinton Road spotted a body that had been dumped in the woods. Investigators determined the victim was involved in mob activity and had been killed by Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, a feared Mafia hitman who would later take credit for hundreds of murders. Sometimes, real life is scarier than ghost stories.
‘Crimes of the Gold Coast’ Tour (New York). If recent history is any indication, murder and scandal are common among the rich. This tour, headed by an NYU instructor, looks into the financial subterfuge and violence that lay beneath the veneer of New York’s Fifth Avenue during the late 19th century. After all, sometimes the most terrifying criminals of all are the those rich enough to get away with their crimes.
Serial Locations (Baltimore, Maryland). While the case of Adnan Syed, convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, hasn’t resulted in any official tours (yet), Serial addicts have already made pilgrimages to the major locations featured in the podcast, eager to relate real-life images to the story. With the help of a custom Google Map, you can visit the Best Buy where an important phone call was made, or take a trip to Leakin Park, where Hae’s body was discovered. Plenty of Serial fans felt the urge to “solve” the case after listening and likely used maps to assist them in attaining their goals. This is one of the side effects of the true-crime explosion: Everyone’s a detective.
The Dakota (New York, New York). It was the celebrity death that shocked the world. While returning to his apartment on the evening of Monday, December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot in the back by Mark David Chapman. The building where the murder took place, The Dakota, still stands. You probably can’t afford to live there, but you can walk by on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West, and see the spot where the life of one of our greatest popular musicians ended forever. The Dakota (which is rumored to be haunted) also showed up in Rosemary’s Baby, if that movie wasn’t creepy enough already.
Now, if you recoil at the idea of a tourism industry devoted to tragic crimes, no worries: that’s merely proof you’re still a decent human being. Snapping selfies at the site of a mass murder isn’t exactly classy. This said, war is just as troubling as homicide, if not more so. But we don’t judge people who visit Gettysburg, because we know they’re driven by genuine curiosity. The same can be said for crime spots. If you’re drawn to such locations out of a desire to gain an even deeper understanding of the darker side of American history, then you’re no worse than the audiences that have driven the true crime renaissance. You’re just interested in going that extra mile.
Sources: Joe Oliveto, Elite Daily, February 17, 2016; Weird Tours; and "The Dakota Apartments: Where the Dead Walk," WhatLiesBeyond, October 22, 2016.