It’s truly bizarre how we’re all so obsessed with true crime / gruesome murders / serial killers, but here we are: at peak true crime content.
Anyone who’s blitzed through Netflix‘s new series Mindhunter will understand the problematic fascination with serial killers. Why do they do the things they do? Why are we so obsessed with why they do the things they do?
Well, here’s something to feed into your obsession: Mindhunter season two is going to explore the gruesome Atlanta child murders.
Creator David Fincher revealed as much in an interview with Billboard, when chatting about the season’s incredibly dope soundtrack.
“Next year, we’re looking at the Atlanta child murders, so we’ll have a lot more African-American music which will be nice,” he said. “The music will evolve. It’s intended to support what’s happening with the show and for the show to evolve radically between seasons.”
The Atlanta child murders refers to the 29 Black children, teenagers and young adults were were killed in the Atlanta area between 1979-81. The man on whom FBI agent Holden Ford is based on, John E. Douglas, was a profiler on that case. (Fun fact: writing that sentence is the first time I realised that ‘Holden Ford’ wasn’t actually his real name, furthering the theory that there’s an Aussie lurking in the writer’s room.)
ok who is the australian jokester writing mindhunter pic.twitter.com/v9byDFLy77
— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) October 21, 2017
[IRL spoiler warning] A man by the name of Wayne Williams was eventually convicted for two of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment, after which the Atlanta Police Department announced he was responsible for at least 23 of other murders. Williams, on the other hand, has always maintained his innocence, claiming that Atlanta officers covered up KKK involvement in the killings to avoid a race war.
This new plot doesn’t mean we won’t see a storyline around the infamous BTK killer Dennis Rader, as has been widely speculated thanks to the unexplained opening scenes in season one that feature an ADT Security employee, also named Dennis.
Maybe we’ll get both – or maybe the creators are playing the super long game here and we’ll find out more about Dennis in the hundredth episode or something.
Just an entire year of waiting to find out. Joy.
