Murderous Monsters - Research Paper Example

The media’s extensive coverage of the atrocious crimes exacerbates the public’s preoccupation with the perpetrators, as the former struggles to understand the character deficiencies or motives that drove the latter to perpetrate such crimes. Consequentially, this alters people’s perception of perpetrators’ guilt before and after the court issues a verdict. Charles Sobhraj, infamously known as “the serpent” was a half-Vietnamese and half-Indian serial killer credited for allegedly killing Western tourists who he befriended while hiking along the Hippie trail in Asia.

Finally arrested after his plan to murder sixty French tourists backfired, Sobhraj was arrested and convicted to serve an eleven-year sentence in India. The short prison term was because authorities lacked sufficient evidence to tie him to the homicides. Sobhraj completed his prison term in 1997 and went on to sell the rights to his life story to a movie producing company in 2003. Excited to live out the rest of his life in luxury with his newly acquired fortune, Sobhraj’s murderous instincts got the better of him whereby, he was arrested in 2004 and convicted for the murder of two North-American tourists.

He continues to serve his life-long prison sentence in Nepal where he continually plans his escape. In all the cases, it is apparent that the media showed heightened interest in chasing the story despite the atrocious crimes perpetrated by the serial killers. The ultimate goal of the entertainment companies was to satiate the public’s exaggerated thirst for drama-filled television content. They do so at the expense of the victims who lost their lives to these inhumane criminals, and the family and friends of those victims.

The fancy pseudo-names given to these criminals by the media have also functioned to glamorize and sensationalize their actions while peaking the public’s interest. The cases featured in the essay are from different