Little Girls Lost - Love Letters to Murderers

I recently heard about the many letters that convicted killer Scott Peterson has received from different women. Many who offered to marry him. Charlie Manson has had proposals in the past as well. The famous Night-stalker (Richard Ramirez), who killed 13 people and raped 30 women, had lines of women outside his jail. Finally after courting many from behind bars, he married a freelance magazine editor by the name of Doreen Lioy in 1996.

What is it that attracts women to these kind of men? Are they desperate to find love? Have they failed so many times, that this is their only recourse? Is it because they will get some form of publicity?

Experts have struggled for years to figure out what attracts women to this type of man. Sheila Isenberg, who wrote the book, "Women Who Love Men Who Kill", says that they are driven by a celebrity obsessed society. They confuse fame with notoriety. They are so obsessed with what they see on television and read in the tabloids, that they don't picture the real world as it is. It is sort of a microcosm of American society.

Jack Levin is a criminologist and director for the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University. He feels that it is America's emphasis on stardom that is to blame, also. His thinking is that if a women corresponds with a star, they might get a signed picture at the most. However, if the correspond with a murderer, they might get gifts and even a marriage proposal.

Carol Ann Boone moved from the State of Washington to Florida so that she could marry Ted Bundy. Which she did in 1980. She even had a child by him. Once she was finally convinced that he was a true murderer, she took the child and moved away.

Many murderer groupies just want to be known for turning the bad boy into a good boy. Some women also believe that the killer was set up or that there were extenuating circumstances to the crime. They tend to shut their minds to the true reality of the crime. Some go as so far as to try to profit from the popularity of marriage, through movie and book contracts. This helps gives credit to the celebrity idea.