WITH paintings of Rose West and Myra Hindley proudly hanging from her walls, murderer Shaye Groves made no secret of her obsession with deranged monsters.
The killer, 27, from Havant, Hampshire, was jailed for a minimum of 23 years this week for slitting boyfriend Frankie Fitzgerald's throat and then stabbing him 17 times.
Criminologist Professor David Wilson has been investigating the "dangerous obsession" of serial killer fans for years.
He believes that for those who go on to murder themselves, it not only fuels their sick fantasies, but also serves as a foil for their depraved desires.
He told The Sun: “The big question is what comes first - the interest in serial killers or the fantasy about committing a murder? I believe it’s the fantasy, which is dressed up in an obsessive interest in serial killers.”
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Here, David delves inside the minds of the cult of serial killer obsessives - and examines what really makes them tick.
Students of crime
A shudder ran down David's spine when he analysed crime scene photos from the killing of Julia Rawson.
Nathan Maynard-Ellis, 30, and boyfriend David Leesley, 25, bumped into the market trader, 42, in a pub in Dudley in May 2019.
They lured her back to their home in Tipton, West Mids, where she was battered with a rolling pin and her body cut into 12 parts.
They used saws to hack up Julia, a talented artist and musician, and in court it was suggested they kept her right kidney as a macabre trophy.
"I believe this could have been a nod to Jack the Ripper who was known to remove the same organ in his victims," says David.
It was this that piqued his interest in the case of Maynard Ellis, who was jailed for at least 30 years and his lover 19 years.
He examined pictures that showed their flat was littered with creepy dolls, gory homemade face masks of horror film characters and reptiles in tanks.
Another snap showed a workbench covered with dolls' heads and severed hands, along with tools including pliers, drills and an axe.
But looking at the pictures, David says there was one snap that "made me stop in my tracks".
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For among the masks, reptiles, weapons and terrifying Chucky-type dolls in Maynard-Ellis’ flat of horrors was a book David himself had written about serial killers.
The shelves were stuffed with true crime books, including David’s A History of British Serial Killing: The Shocking Account of Jack the Ripper, Harold Shipman and Beyond.
Maynard-Ellis had also signed up for a criminology course - which David says is far from unusual.
In Idaho, criminology student Bryan Kohberger, 28, who once had an interview for a police job, is accused of slaying four students as they slept in their beds in a shared university house.
TV show knowledge
Just last week heavily pierced Brit Shaye was jailed for slitting her boyfriend’s throat and stabbing him 17 times after becoming fascinated with crime.
She kept framed pictures of the West, Hindley, Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, among others, on the walls of her home.
A court heard how Groves, 27, of Havant, Hampshire, used tips from true crime documentaries to plan her alibi after slaughtering dad-of-two Frankie Fitzgerald, 25, in July last year.
Prosecutor Steven Perian told the jury that Groves, who indulged in bondage, used her knowledge from TV crime shows to portray herself as a victim of abuse by Frankie.
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While David admits he has toned down his own lectures on multiple murders, cutting out gratuitous details and leaving out minute information about modus operandi, he believes it’s too late to put the cult of crime “back in the box”
He said: “Shaye Groves and Maynard-Ellis are not the first people who have killed following an obsession with serial killers and they won’t be the last.
“These people already have fantasies and dress them up with an interest in killers like Jack the Ripper or Bundy or whoever.
"They can also develop interests in criminology, law enforcement or, in the case of Groves, sadomasochism.
“It feeds their fantasies but I think very little of their ‘research’ would have impacted the eventual outcome. They will have already had an interest in killing and death.”
Dark side of web
In America, murder accused Bryan Kohberger studied BTK serial killer Dennis Rader as part of his masters degree - and the murderer has since sent a message of sympathy to him.
Rader - who gave himself the title of BTK because he bound, tortured and killed his victims - said he knew how “lonely” it was for Kohberger while in solitary confinement awaiting a court hearing.
David says potential killers with twisted interests can easily find each other online.
The expert, who has hosted crime shows, said: “The reality is people with shared interests can find others with fascinations in the same subject and find each other online. You can’t put the internet back in a box - it exists.
“There are those who will watch crime shows and documentaries who have bad intentions but they are a small minority.
“Violence has sadly become a commodity, serial murder has become a commodity and that's why people buy murder memorabilia, why they are interested in buying Dennis Nilsen’s hair brush, eyeglasses or typewriter.
“At the other end of the scale, true crime podcasters and TV shows have uncovered miscarriages of justice, and worked to make cold cases go ‘hot’ again.
“For me, true crime is not about retelling the story of a murder with ever more grisly details. It’s about uncovering new lines or revealing something new.”
