The Case for Fictional Murder

I am reading a summary of eight actual murders that took place in New England between 1673 and 2008. The fourth in the listed murders occurred in Norton, MA in 2001. I normally read and write in murder fiction and not in rea life murder. I now know why. After reading about the fourth in the listed murders, I retired. At four in the morning I woke, soaked in sweat, with the certainty I was about to die from a murderer's uncontained anger. I rarely have interesting dreams let alone nightmares, but this experience was chilling. Suddenly I became a college student looking for a safe place.
I have it. I do not react to fictional murders. They are not real. No matter how horrific they may be described by authors, they are not real. But...but...real life murders wherein a perpetrator decides to snuff out a person's life so implants in my soul the experience of chaotic evil, that I cringe at the thought. Too much for me.
I believe I can examine motives, opportunities, and actions by writing fiction without experiencing a jaded view of the potentiality of a murder happening right next to me.
K. B. Pellegrino, Author