Aimee’s Comments (group member since Jun 02, 2020)

Aimee’s comments from the Obsessed with True Crime group.

I have read extensively on serial and other types of killers, including several of Colin Wilson's crime books. I am not sure whether or not he did invent Lucian Staniak (or was perhaps cleverly hoaxed?) but here's my thoughts:
I've been able to independently verify all the other cases he mentions in the books of his that I've read, even the less well-known ones like Carl Folk and Jeannace Freeman/Gertrude Jackson.
I have seen very little online about Lucian Staniak beyond a mention of him on Listverse. I love Listverse but I sure wouldn't call that a good sole source of info. Nothing is mentioned about Staniak on Wilson's Wikipedia page.
In communist countries, especially in that era, the government worked hard to suppress news of crime and other things that might look bad to western capitalists. This was the case with Andrei Chikatilo in Russia, for instance. I can't imagine how Wilson would have gotten any info on a serial killer roaming the streets of Poland in the 1960s.
Then again, if he did acquire such information somehow, how would anyone check?
But what would be his reason for inventing a Polish serial killer with a distinctive MO? To pad the text? I doubt it. And since all the other cases he described are real and documented, I really can't see him just making one up for the hell of it.
If he made it up, I wonder if he did so for the same reason that the very first edition of Trivial Pursuit included an incorrect answer in its cards: to foil copycatters too lazy to do their research.