Type of site | True Crime Collectibles |
---|---|
Owner | Eric Holler |
Created by | Eric Holler |
URL | serialkillersink.net |
Registration | Optional |
Launched | December 1, 2008 |
Current status | Active |
Serial Killers Ink is a website dedicated to selling "murderabilia" (collectibles related to murders, murderers or other violent crimes) and serial killer art, interviewing convicted serial killers and also serves as a meeting place for those interested or involved in the murderabilia industry.
The website has been described by true crime author and Investigation Discovery personality David Lohr, who is currently a writer and journalist for AOL News, as "One of the top selling murderabilia outlets". [1]
Founder Eric Holler, who uses the pen name "Eric Gein" (an homage to Ed Gein according to a New York Times article [2] ) came up with the concept of Serial Killers Ink in the mid-1990s after he began writing to inmates and collecting their artwork and craft items. A friend of Holler's suggested he list items on eBay and offer them for sale. eBay banned the sale of murderabilia in 2001. In 2006, Holler began writing and corresponding with inmates once again in preparation of building a new website. In December 2008, the website launched and in February 2009, the website was redesigned to include a store to sell art, letters, hair and clothing obtained from infamous and news-worthy inmates.
Eric Holler and Serial Killers Ink were featured in the season 9 premier of the National Geographic Channel television series Taboo titled "Living with the Dead" which originally aired June 17, 2012. [3]
The large amount of media coverage sparked outrage and in June 2010, Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota teamed up to introduce a bill in the United States Congress that would outlaw the trade. The bill is called the "Stop the Sale of Murderabilia to Protect the Dignity of Crime Victims Act of 2010," and comes after several individual fights over the issue. [4] Holler is an opponent of the bill and has enlisted the help of the ACLU to help combat the bill as an anti-civil liberties bill. [5]
The Texas Tribune first reported that the proposed bill in early June 2010 included a statement in defense of the industry from Holler. [6]
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer, suspected serial killer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.
Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. Schechter's essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. His newest book, published in March 2021, is Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer.
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Dennis Lynn Rader, also known as BTK, is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although Rader occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, he typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature.
California State Prison, Corcoran (COR) is a male-only state prison located in the city of Corcoran, in Kings County, California. It is also known as Corcoran State Prison, CSP-C, CSP-COR, CSP-Corcoran, and Corcoran I. The facility is just north of the newer California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran.
His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category A men's prison in Thamesmead, southeast London, England. The prison is used in high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the prison grounds is the High Security Unit (HSU), which consists of 48 single cells. It is run by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Charles Frederick Albright also known as the Eyeball Killer, was an American murderer and suspected serial killer from Texas who was convicted of killing one woman and suspected of killing two others in 1991. He was incarcerated in the John Montford Psychiatric Unit in Lubbock, Texas.
Murderabilia, also known as murderbilia, is a term identifying collectibles related to murders, homicides, the perpetrators or other violent crimes. The term was coined by Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Police Department's Crime Victims Office.
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. Before his convictions for murder, Gaskins had a long history of criminal activities resulting in prison sentences for assault, burglary, and statutory rape. His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Ghelkins, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins's home in Prospect, South Carolina.
Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer. Though only convicted of one murder, for which he received the death penalty and was eventually executed, authorities believe he committed a total of 22 murders. Sells himself claimed on various occasions to have murdered over 70 people.
Diane Fanning is an American crime writer and author who writes nonfiction and mystery novels.
John Borowski is an American independent filmmaker and author. The focus of his work has been on late nineteenth and early twentieth century serial killers, initially in a trilogy of documentaries on American criminals, more recently on particular international criminals, on the commerce that has grown up around such crimes, and on other niche artists.
Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. is a convicted American murderer, rapist, and suspected serial killer. Conahan was convicted of one murder, but has been linked to a dozen murders, mostly of transients seeking employment and gay men in the Charlotte County, Florida area in what came to be known as the Hog Trail Murders. Conahan has also been named the prime suspect in the murders of eight men, collectively referred to as the Fort Myers Eight, who were discovered in a mass grave site in 2007.
Fictional portrayals of psychopaths, or sociopaths, are some of the most notorious in film and literature but may only vaguely or partly relate to the concept of psychopathy, which is itself used with varying definitions by mental health professionals, criminologists and others. The character may be identified as a diagnosed/assessed psychopath or sociopath within the fictional work itself, or by its creator when discussing their intentions with the work, which might be distinguished from opinions of audiences or critics based only on a character appearing to show traits or behaviors associated with an undefined popular stereotype of psychopathy.
Anthony Edward Sowell was an American serial killer and rapist known as The Cleveland Strangler or The Imperial Avenue Murderer. He was convicted in 2011 of murdering 11 women whose bodies were discovered at his Cleveland, Ohio, home in 2009. After being sentenced to death for the murders, Sowell died in prison from a terminal illness.
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons.
Alfred J. Gaynor is an American serial killer and rapist who committed a series of nine murders in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts from 1995 to 1998. For these crimes, Gaynor was subsequently given four sentences of life imprisonment without parole.