Shannon Stettner
As a baby, on Friday nights simply earlier than 9:00 pm, I’d tuck myself underneath a front room finish desk. If I used to be quiet and hidden, I might normally get away with watching not less than a part of Dallas. I used to be equal elements enthralled and scandalized. The epic “Who shot JR?” storyline was my first memorable introduction to crime and, like hundreds of thousands watching, I used to be captivated. A couple of years later, I made the leap to true crime as a considerably under-supervised, voracious reader with prepared entry to a bookshelf filled with not fairly age-appropriate content material.
Lately, true crime tales have develop into a ubiquitous a part of the general public conscience. There isn’t a scarcity of docuseries, books, or social media accounts devoted to homicide and mayhem. Analyses recommend ladies are drawn to true crime for a wide range of causes starting from a way of management over patriarchal/existential violence to extra philosophical issues about evil, retribution, and the way nicely we are able to know one other particular person.[i] For me, as a baby, I recall being drawn to the unfinished tales. The concept that somebody’s life could possibly be interrupted in the course of dwelling, each horrified and fascinated me. As historians we attempt to piece collectively fragments of individuals’s lives in significant methods. I feel this is the reason the true crime narratives have all the time held such an enchantment to me. However the place historical past tries to complicate its topics, a lot true crime overly simplifies them.
For a while, I contemplated writing a real crime e-book. Trying by native unsolved circumstances, I encountered Geraldine Pickford. Not a whole lot of data is publicly out there about her loss of life.
Many of the materials is obtainable through the York Regional Police chilly case web site. Pickford was killed on the night of September 18, 1965. She had labored a shift as a waitress within the eating corridor at St. Andrews Faculty in Aurora, Ontario. Her belongings have been discovered on a path, and a search workforce discovered her physique some hours later.
“The Lady No person Knew: The Story Behind a Homicide Sufferer,” Toronto Telegram, September 20, 1965, p. 1.
However when you Google Pickford, you’ll discover a latest uptake in curiosity, which incorporates podcasts, message board entries, and a strolling tour. Why? My guess is that the curiosity stems from one of many few publicly out there sources: a Toronto Telegram article about her case titled “Story Behind a Homicide Sufferer The WOMAN NOBODY KNEW.” The article incorporates commentary from folks in Pickford’s life, sufficient of it salacious to be intriguing, and a good bit of conjecture. For me, the writing underscores the concept that how the story is advised is necessary for sustaining public curiosity. This level was clearly illustrated in Kristen Gilchrist’s work “Newsworthy” Victims? whereby she in contrast the newspaper area given to Indigenous and white ladies victims of crime. In distinction to the private tales and intimate pictures of white victims, Gilchrist observes how the shorter, much less private articles dedicated to Indigenous ladies contributed to invisibilizing them as victims of crime.
Throughout the proliferation of true crime narratives, historians could make significant contributions. Utilizing the Pickford case, I replicate on three interpretive strains to discover what true crime would appear to be if extra historians helped produce it. To take action, I discover the next matters:
- voices which are in and lacking from the historic file;
- the concept that proximity presents reality in proof; and
- the significance of understanding victims as full human beings with difficult lives.
I’ve chosen to concentrate on Pickford right here as a result of the proof is biased and incomplete; nonetheless, many are fascinated by the story.
Within the Toronto Telegram article about Pickford’s loss of life, a number of voices are included: her brother, employer, estranged husband, and a long-term “buddy” who can be a someday landlord, Margo Iula. The buddy’s feedback to the reporter recall to mind the adage, “with mates like this, who wants enemies.” Nevertheless, the colorful narrative that Iula supplies can be possible what has stored Pickford’s case alive. The depiction of Pickford is vivid.
From her brother we study their mom died when Pickford was 9, she give up faculty in grade 8, she was quiet, a reader with no different hobbies, and that even he didn’t know the way she acquired the numerous scar on her shoulder blade. From her estranged husband, we study that Pickford was “very moody. If firm got here she would possibly speak to them or she may not.” Through the course of their six-month marriage, Pickford turned “an increasing number of distant,” then give up her job and left. The buddy’s feedback appear to be criticisms, however they make Pickford right into a compelling topic. She confirmed Pickford was an avid reader, but in addition a choosy one: “she seldom learn all a e-book. She would skip pages if she was bored or got here to a piece she didn’t like.” Iula continued, disparaging Pickford: “When she did say one thing, she would typically lie. You by no means knew when to imagine her.” And inadvertently enticed with this commentary: “She could possibly be aggravating to a different girl. She could possibly be significantly aggravating to a person.”
In fact, the lacking voice is Pickford’s. Because the sufferer, she had no alternative to affirm or counter these characterizations. We see this quite a bit in true crime. Typically so little data is obtainable a few sufferer, that they’re lowered to one-dimensional characters depicted in methods that aren’t verifiable. Historians wouldn’t essentially have entry to data that different folks don’t. However, right here, context is vital. For instance, to flesh out our understanding of the sufferer, we would look extra intently at how Pickford–as she is described–conformed to or defied cultural norms and what can we propose from that data.
One of many moments that drove me to put in writing this piece, got here from informal viewing of true crime. Whereas we have been watching one present, my consideration was piqued as a result of the narrator on the display was labelled a “historian,” which isn’t a standard title utilized in these reveals (though I’ve began to see it used extra often). As I listened to the speaker speak, it turned clear that she was the daughter of the police officer who had led the preliminary investigation into the crime; the daughter commented on the case from her (now deceased) father’s perspective. There was no indication that she had any formal coaching as a historian. I’m not usually one to gatekeep titles, however utilizing “historian” on this case was clearly meant to confer authority on somebody who had no obvious authority. It speaks to the query about proximity too – are we to imagine this “historian” is dependable as a result of she’s the police investigator’s daughter? Her having experience would have required her father to reveal confidential data. And, whereas I’m not naïve sufficient to suppose such informal disclosures don’t happen, certainly such a dialogue wouldn’t have entailed a fulsome accounting of the proof. The supply (past, presumably, conversations together with her father) and the character of her data of the case was by no means defined.
Within the case of Pickford’s unsolved homicide, Iula’s voice dominates. What’s fascinating about her voice is that it’s given authority due to their friendship/dwelling scenario. We’ve no option to choose how Pickford perceived Iula or their relationship. It is a line that’s typically misplaced in true crime documentaries. Proximity will not be the identical as authority or reality, however it’s typically handled as such. That is the place historians usually shine. We already relentlessly consider our sources. We search for biases, we interrogate language. We perceive that such testimony will not be the identical as reality telling; generally it’s leisure, generally mythmaking, generally the motivation stays unclear.
What the articles suggests, is that Pickford was not an “supreme” sufferer.[ii] She was, nevertheless, an intriguing one. Along with the traits famous above, which earned Pickford a repute for having a ‘troublesome’ persona, the article additionally portrays her as mysterious — and never as a praise. For instance, it’s mentioned that Pickford would disappear for a month or two, and when she reappeared, “She normally mentioned she had been going out with someone. She would by no means say who.” Iula additionally indicated that Pickford by no means had any cash and noticed that the cash scarcity started 18 years in the past following a time when Pickford disappeared for a 12 months and a half. Iula speculated Pickford was being “blackmailed,” though she had no proof to assist this suspicion. Speculating additional, Iula urged Pickford had a baby throughout that interval whom she was quietly supporting. Is it any marvel readers are mesmerized by this text? It’s the main doc that retains on giving.[iii]
The road between storytelling and exploitation may be very skinny and is well missed. In our efforts to share hardships and struggles, we regularly depend on particular person tales as an instance harms. The dangers of this strategy embrace sensationalism, voyeurism, and narrowing folks to the worst moments of their lives.[iv] As historians, it’s value contemplating how we are able to contribute to those conversations in necessary methods. I don’t suggest that different historians be part of my true crime obsession. However I feel historians are well-positioned to have interaction with these narratives in significant methods.[v] We excel at interrogating sources (together with lacking voices), establishing context, scrutinizing authority, dwelling with ambiguity, and approaching topics ethically. In so doing, we might assist transfer the main target away from a sensationalized concentrate on crime, to extra fulsome recounting of fragmented, interrupted lives.
Shannon Stettner is a historian specializing in reproductive well being and activism, oral historical past, and lived expertise. She is an avid traveller, canine fanatic, world class putterer, and an everyday contributor to Lively Historical past.
[i] On this, see Laura Browder, “Dystopian romance: True crime and the feminine reader,” The Journal of Fashionable Tradition 39, no. 6 (2006): 928-953.
[ii] Nils Christie, “The perfect sufferer,” in From crime coverage to sufferer coverage: Reorienting the justice system, pp. 17-30 (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1986): 12-13.
[iii] The article additionally goes into some depth about Pickford’s suspicious comings and goings within the weeks main as much as her loss of life. I received’t recount these right here as a result of I’ve already outlined the methods Iula’s speculations have fueled curiosity within the case.
[iv] On this, see Christine Linke, and Lisa Brune, “Intimate But Exploitative: Representations of Gender-Primarily based Violence in Platformed True Crime Narratives,” Media and Communication 13 (2025), https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.8964.
[v] A latest wonderful instance of how historians can deal with these tales, is Ian Radforth, Lethal Swindle: An 1890 Homicide in Backwoods Ontario that Gripped the World (College of Toronto Press, 2024).
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