Searching a Serial Killer: Fact, Lies, Narcissism, and Concern

Greater than a decade has handed since ten our bodies have been found alongside Gilgo Seashore on the southern shoreline of Lengthy Island. This week, new video was launched by the Suffolk County Police Division that will assist to establish the killer.

The case might have been solved years in the past—or at the least, that’s the central thesis of Unraveled: Lengthy Island Serial Killer, a podcast collection and documentary by Billy Jensen and Alexis Linkletter. I sat down with Billy and Alexis at this yr’s CrimeCon, a mega-fan fest for all issues true crime. This is what they needed to say in regards to the Lengthy Island Serial Killer (LISK), corruption, narcissism, and motivation.

What feelings do you expertise as you’re employed by way of a narrative like this? Do you are feeling unhappiness, anger, pleasure, and so forth.?

Billy: The very first thing I really feel is curiosity. However as you begin speaking with individuals, significantly if you’re speaking with the victims’ households, then you definately begin entering into unhappiness. You begin entering into heartbreak and hopelessness, and then you definately notice what your function is.

Many of those individuals are powerless and also you have to be their voice. This may raise you up so you possibly can channel the power, the unhappiness, and the empathy. However what you actually need to have the ability to do is simply get offended, and that is often the place I’m going. I get offended at a sure level, after which that is what drives me to do issues like confront the individuals in energy and ask them questions that they may not need to hear.

Alexis: I believe Billy and I are so totally different in our emotional journeys by way of this. I begin with the analysis and the obsession and the intrigue, and I begin constructing that approach. After which as soon as we’re in it, I cry by way of nearly each interview I do.

These feelings are slightly below the floor for me on a regular basis. I take into account myself a deeply compassionate particular person and I’m attempting to know cruelty and the driving drive behind it. And like Billy mentioned, the curiosity, the tenacity, the anger is there; the frustration is there. Our emotional curler coasters for these tales are so totally different as a result of he is extra confrontational and I am extra therapeutic. I am undecided easy methods to clarify it, however I am just like the bleeding coronary heart, and he is type of just like the fist.

Are there particular photos or reminiscences that you simply draw upon to maintain your self going even on the robust days?

Billy: I believe that everytime you’re coping with an unsolved homicide sufferer, there’s all the time that one image you see of a sufferer that comes up time and again. And also you hear about sure detectives who may be actually devoted to a case, all the time having that image on their desk or of their folder. It reminds you that this isn’t only a quantity. This was an precise particular person; you possibly can think about what that particular person was pondering the day the image was taken, when clearly they have been so alive. And now we’re looking for out who did this to them and why the case hasn’t been solved.

Alexis: I image what it will really feel like if it occurred to me, or my sibling, or my mother and father. I am unable to think about the frustration and agony of not solely having the one you love murdered however not having anybody be accountable for it. That may drive me insane if it was me. And I believe that goes hand in hand with the emotional points that I really feel with it, too.

Do you see any patterns of narcissism or psychopathy within the Lengthy Island Serial Killer case?

Alexis: I believe each killer is a narcissist. To have entitlement to any person else’s life and the audacity to take it, I believe it is essentially the most narcissistic you might be. Your wants are extra necessary than this particular person’s life. So, whether or not it is a serial killer or a one-and-done predator, I believe feeling entitled to somebody’s life is about as narcissistic as you might be.

The case is now greater than a decade outdated. Why do you assume it has not been solved? Do you assume it should ever be solved?

Alexis: Nicely, that was actually the thesis of this present—not who did it, however why has it not been solved? Now we have ten victims on this tiny stretch of seaside close to a cluster of mansions, and you’d assume that it will be a high precedence for legislation enforcement to work on that. And it wasn’t. The whole lot fell by way of the cracks.

There was no transparency. I actually assume it wasn’t one piece of proof that has made it not solved, however the lack of time on this case. Twelve years later, it is simply a lot harder. And that gave the impression to be by design as a result of the police chief who was overseeing the majority of the investigation was hiding his personal indiscretions and sacrificed the integrity of the case to take action.

Billy: The truth that they did not make something public is problematic. The one factor that individuals knew in regards to the crime scene was that the our bodies have been present in burlap, and that bit of data was leaked out. And the truth that the police had a belt that was supposedly dealt with by the killer and had initials on it. They confirmed it to us ten years later! Throughout that point, individuals have died, and other people have moved away. They might have used the information media as a way to get it on the market and check out to determine who this was. And so they dropped the ball each step of the way in which.

What’s subsequent for you?

Billy: We positively need to return to Lengthy Island. We nonetheless have plenty of unanswered questions. We received so many suggestions. We received a lot new info that we wish to have the ability to comply with and share and return to Lengthy Island and attempt to get solutions and preserve holding this administration. Our present was in a position to push this administration and the brand new administration into releasing extra info, which is likely one of the issues that we wished, however we’ve nonetheless received to carry their ft to the fireplace.

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