Kill Show

by Daniel Sweren-Becker

Sara died because I posted that video. I have these scars on my wrists because of that video. It ruined my life. It ruined all of our lives.

But only recently have we seen this frenzied, symbiotic relationship between

contemporaneous criminal events and the various products—books, movies, TV series, podcasts—that repackage them for our entertainment.

But Casey took this grotesque relationship one step further: a reality show that follows the search for a missing girl in real time, all from the perspective of the victim’s family. Remember, Casey didn’t know beforehand how it would end! Something like that had never been done. And for good reason. The moral hazard should have been abundantly clear.

Unhappiness plus shame is unbearable. But unhappiness plus blame is galvanizing. And then you have the truly insidious part: The deeper these people go, the crazier the

theories get, the harder it becomes to shake them back to reality. Because once they’ve invested so much time and emotional energy, to renounce these beliefs would assassinate their identity. In plain English, it would make them look like fools. So once they’re in, it’s very hard to bring them back.

And most importantly, Sara was doing great. I had just seen her the day before. She was safe and sound and up to speed on the new plan.

Some people chalk up every violent act against women to a boy who never got kissed in middle school. They think it’s really that simple. I hate that framework because it implies that it’s somehow every teenage girl’s responsibility to dole out just enough romantic attention to not get murdered. It’s lazy, misogynistic, and reductive. But I live in the real world. And goddamn if that doesn’t feel like the truth most of the time.