What's With the New Obsession?

Ok -- so what's this with the new obsession of the killer...? Well, the truth be told, the science behind catching the killer has always greatly interested me. Ever since I can remember, I have loved the crime story. There's this thrill that I get -- even sitting at home -- trying to figure out the who-done-it. Granted, I don't have to worry about the pressures that LEOs face in the field -- I don't have to worry about the killer killing more people, I don't have to worry about the danger; instead I can sit on my nice couch and put the clues together. I can be the stay at home detective. And, quite frankly, that interests me. I love a good puzzle to solve. I like to figure things out. I like getting into people's minds and seeing what makes them tick. 

I think that the first killer that really interested me greatly was Hannibal the Cannibal. I remember, when I first saw the movie, I didn't care that he was crazy. I wanted to know what made him crazy because no one ever really got into that. (I was a little girl, and I sneaked watching the movie one night during the summer. It was just after I read my first Stephen King novel, as a matter of fact.) Even Thomas Harris, the author of the books involving the good Doctor, doesn't really get into the mind of Hannibal. Instead, it's more of a study of a) the serial killer in the novel that takes center stage, and b) the LEO who is trying to catch this killer. That is, until the last novel thus far -- which, if you haven't read it, I'm not going to ruin it for you. 

Does it make me crazy for wanting to know what makes men and women like this tick? Maybe a little. Is it crazy that people study these killers? No, not at all. 

I'm not sure if I believe that killers are different from "normal" people, because what, speaking, is "normal"? What constitutes as normality, and by whose standards? I don't want to go against what the experts say, but what are they basing normality off of -- people who don't kill others? Themselves? Their neighbors? People who take this test and got this result versus the killer who took the same test and got that result? Without being there and seeing their process, it's difficult to say, because normality is a concept -- not a set fact. (In fact, I just saw an adult woman walking around in a store dressed completely as Pikachu... and no, as far as I know, there are no cons or anything going on.) Does that make her a killer? No, that makes her first brave for dressing completely in costume, and second unique to go against what everyone else considered "normal" -- even though to her it may have been completely normal. Maybe she dresses up as a different character every single day of the year -- who knows! But just keep that in mind. (And no, I am not condoning the act of killing in any way, shape, or form. Just saying that normality is a concept, not a fact, therefore it would be difficult to say that one person is normal and another is not since there are so many different ideas of normal.)

So that being said, I'm in no way thinking about taking up a new profession -- and an illegal on at that -- nor am I going off on some new kick. This is just something that's interested me since I was a little girl, watching Hannibal late during one summer night years ago, enthralled by how he was always one step ahead of everyone else -- how he knew this, that, and the other.