Exploring What Goes Bump in the Night

by Rothery Sullivan .

With the increase in True Crime popularity, “Dark Tourism” is on the rise; people have an intense fas cination with exploring death sites, crime sites and places where horrible events took place. It’s a weird reaction, isn’t it? When society hears about a horrific event, we are immediately inclined to see the aftermath; there’s a strong desire to understand what people’s last moments were like. Where does this come from? How does this obsession manifest?

A popular dark tourist destination is Chernobyl, which saw over 100,000 visitors in 2019; tours of Chernobyl start at hundreds of pounds, allowing many companies to profit off of the post-destruction rubble. People have also developed an obsession with visiting the sites of serial killers, such as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. True crime fanatics go as far as traveling to Utah to stand outside of Ted Bundy’s old home, a home that he lived in and speculatively may have killed some of his victims. Moreover, the Cecil Hotel, a hotel home to numerous murders and deaths over the last century, also has tourists eager to enter the hallways and rooms where people experienced their last moments. Of course, television series such as Chernobyl (2019), The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019), and the ‘Hotel’ season of American Horror Story (2015) have contributed to the growing fascination with horrific places. However, it’s still peculiar that people are willing to spend so much money and time visiting places that must be filled with sadness, trauma and discomfort.

A prime example of this is the Lizzie Borden house, a house in America that was the site of two gruesome homicides. Following the murder of Lizzie Borden’s father and mother, many believed that she was guilty of the crime despite not being convicted. The story of the event - in which her father and mother were both axed to death - spread quickly across the United States, and has inspired books, films and rhymes. Today, people can go tour the house and even stay there overnight, a choice that many people make due to the frightening idea of sleeping in a ‘murder house’.

Does this obsession stem from fear? Perhaps people enjoy the rush that comes from being in a horrific environment; knowing that before people died they stood in the same place, saw and maybe even smelled the same environment can create an interesting sense of anxiety. Perhaps dark tourism provides the same dopamine and serotonin rush that we get when watching a horror film.

Or, maybe people are interested in visiting these places for the sake of research; after all, authors such as Truman Capote visited murder sites in order to gain the right perspective for their writing. Otherwise, people may want to go to pay their respects. After hearing about how many women were killed at the hands of Bundy, it makes sense that people would want to pay respects to the victims. This is important to consider as our reasoning plays an important part in whether it’s ethical to visit these places at all.

What rights does a person have after they die?

This is a philosophical question that has been tossed around for centuries, but it’s one that applies here, too. Does a person have a right to protect their space - their home, their bedroom, their furniture, their death place - after they die?

I’d say yes. A home, a place where a person lived, is quite intimate - it’s where they laughed, they cried, they loved. Places like these should not be turned into tourist attractions so that those living can profit from a person’s terrible death. Take, for example, the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam; a place where a family is known to have spent some of their last happy moments together. It feels like a violation of privacy for tourists to visit such an attraction solely on the basis of wanting to be entertained or taking an Instagram photo. It doesn’t seem moral for people to reap enjoyment out of such horrific circumstances.

In other cases, such as sites where people were murdered, my argument still stands. These spaces are personal for different reasons: it’s the space where people experienced their worst moments, where they breathed their last breaths. It is disturbing to think of these sites turning a profit because of the horrible things that happened at them.

Again, I want to emphasize the importance of the reason why tourists are visiting. If it’s for ‘tourism’ purposes, it seems wrong to treat a death sight with the same respect as you would a historical building or monument. However, a visit motivated by education and the desire to pay respects could be an ethical way to travel to spots of horror and trauma. Finally, we should continue to question why we are so obsessed with picturing ourselves in circumstances of frightening trauma?