Daniel P. Coughlin
Scott Peterson, the 50-something aged man on death row for killing his pregnant wife in the early 2000’s, has resurfaced in the news cycle recently. A recent update to the case piqued my interest, as I remember the original case vividly. The sensationalism of it took America by storm and resonated with many people on different levels. Immediately after her disappearance, Laci Peterson—the wife—was listed as a missing person. Her perfect and handsome all-American husband initially seemed worried and eager to assist authorities. But then the media got hold of the news that Scott was having an affair, while his wife was pregnant. A few weeks later, when they found Laci and their unborn child weighted at the bottom of a San Francisco harbor, all eyes turned to Scott. How could he look so normal and handsome and yet commit a crime so evil? How could he kill his unborn daughter? And throughout all the police and media scrutiny, how could he look and act so smug?
Pop culture took control of the narrative. This case became so sensationalized that a brilliant writer and obsessed true crime fanatic named Gillian Flynn took these fears, psychological conditions, paranoias and cranked out an amazing book called Gone Girl, a personal favorite. She turned the story inward and onto itself in a brilliant manner. So much so that David Fincher—the insanely meticulous and perfectionist director of Fight Club, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Se7en—went on to direct the equally perfect film version starring Ben Affleck, who holds a strikingly similar physical appearance to Scott Peterson. The book, movie and crime culminated into a piece of art that still captivates audiences. No matter the genre, there is always something intriguing about fiction and its parallels to true crimes committed.
Horror fiction – both novels and movies – is no exception and the examples are endless. The Exorcist rightfully terrified the world on release in 1973. The idea that a foreign entity, evil incarnate, could possess and torment a small girl made the story impossible to ignore. The priest that this film (and the original book) was inspired by, Gabriele Amorth, was open about tackling these real-life horrors. And his stories are both fascinating and frightening. The First Power was based off the crimes of satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is the true story of Ted Bundy told from the perspective of his fiancé during his decades long crime spree.
Audiences love to examine these true crimes. These stories make us question our own tolerances and misconceptions. How could someone live with a serial killer and not know it? We tell ourselves that this could never happen to us, but guess what – these people never in their wildest imaginations knew that these experiences could have happened to them either.
Our appetite for horror fiction is growing. According to data 2023 was a record-breaking year for book sales in the genre, up 54% year on year by value, and 2024 up a massive 55% up on the same period in 2023. Horror writers and publishers suggest that the boom is partly due to the political nature of the genre. As a genre, horror tends to mirror what is going on in the world at large, exploring our own, very real horrors. Daily news streams expose a world of unsettling upheaval – wars, the pandemic, climate change. Horror helps us to confront whatever shadows we live in, allowing us to explore them cathartically.
And this is why horror books and films inspired by real life are so gripping. The fear of something that we can’t wrap our minds around is always going to elevate the experiences digesting artistic content. Explored through fiction, we are able to consume these ideas and our fears in a ‘removed’ space. And as far as confronting crime and terror, no one really knows how they would act in real life until they are in that very real situation.
For this reason I was compelled to write my novel Ted’s Score based on the historic murder of two high school sweethearts, Kelly Drew and Tim Hack from Watertown, WI—the Midwestern town which I grew up in. Edward Wayne Edwards was a serial killer who traveled the country with his family moving from state to state, city to city, taking odd jobs and never grounding himself. Along the way he enjoyed murdering people. When I was two and living in the small town of Watertown, Wisconsin—where nothing bad ever happens—Edward Wayne Edwards abducted this couple from a reception hall located in an adjacent and even more rural town. She was raped and strangled. He was stabbed repeatedly and then strangled. The couple remained missing for a few months until one day, a farmer was plowing his crops and stumbled upon the mangled bodies at the edge of his field where the woods met the corn. The location of the bodies was only a couple miles from the house that I was raised in. The crime terrified my town and became somewhat of an urban legend. They wouldn’t catch Edward Wayne Edwards until many years later. After experiencing the force of these crimes, I knew that my first novel was going to be a crime thriller/horror based off of the fears and anxieties I’d felt. My first attempt to tackle the story came in the form of a short story that I was able to get published in Macabre Cadaver magazine. I then spent several years re-drafting it into a full novel. As I was finishing the final draft, the state of Wisconsin received a cold case grant that finally led to the arrest of Edwards. He was a sick and twisted psychopath and the two murders that had terrified my town for many years had not been isolated incidents. Ultimately he was convicted of five murders, but the connections that this individual had to other unsolved murders was mind-churning. There is a documentary movie about him titled It Was Him: The Many Murders of Ed Edwards, and there is chilling footage of him as a contestant on a game show in the 1970s called To Tell the Truth.
There is always something more intriguing to a piece of fiction that is inspired by true-to-life incidents. So many successful horror novels and films would never have made it into existence and terrified so many audiences without the seed, the crime, the fear, the paranoia embedded in our day-to-day lives. Art reflects life. We want it to. It allows us to process our own fears and ‘be terrified’, without any real danger to our lives. Fear exorcises our perceptions of the world, builds our creativity and capacity to think critically. These types of stories resonate on a profoundly deep and psychological level and will continue to be popular with readers and viewers alike.
Ted’s Score by Daniel P. Coughlin (Hellbound Books Publishing, $16.99) is available from all good bookstores a.co/d/2v0hnts
