Shane Stevens

“They’re just the little people. Unknown all their lives and forgotten as soon as they die. If anyone talks about them, they’re simply called the victim. But the killers, that’s something else! They don’t work or pay taxes or obey the law or live quiet lives of frustration. That’s not news. Instead they kill. That makes them special. Charles Manson will be remembered and written about a hundred years from now, just as Jack the Ripper is remembered a hundred years after his crimes. Everybody wants a little recognition. More things are done for sheer recognition than for money or sex, as far as I can see. But the only ones who get it are the killers. Who knows all the names of Manson’s victims? Or Jack the Ripper’s victims? Or Charles Starkweather’s victims? Or Caryl Chessman’s victims? Who cares? They were just people.”
― Shane Stevens, By Reason of Insanity

“You want recognition? I mean real recognition? Your life story in all the papers, your face on television all over the country. Books written about you; what you eat, what you feel, what you think, what you don’t think. Maybe even a movie about you. Why not? They made movies about all the killers and maniacs I’ve mentioned, including Chessman. If that’s what you want, it’s easy. Just go out and kill some people. They don’t have to be presidents, they don’t have to be big shots. Just kill enough to make a big splash in the papers. Or kill only one or two in a novel way or a crazy way, anything to get the news media interested. You too can be famous”
― Shane Stevens, By Reason of Insanity