LAS VEGAS. The convention centre reeks of stale coffee and processed grief. A thousand true crime fans have gathered for CrimeCon 2024, their pallid faces lit by the glow of smartphones recording every word from the podium.
But this year, the entertainment hit different. There was a body count that no one paid for. My sources confirm the conference has become an ad hoc coroner's court for the industry's darkest secrets.
A woman in the third row wept silently as a former detective detailed how the family of a murder victim had been harassed by amateur sleuths for years. The panel moderator, a former FBI profiler, struggled to maintain composure. Attendees told me this was the year the fantasy of 'solving' crimes collided with the human wreckage left behind.
I uncovered documents from a support group that met in a back room: private notes from victims' families describing the trauma of being turned into entertainment. One note read: 'They don't see my daughter. They see a cold case.
' A source inside the organisers' office admitted liability concerns are mounting. But the show, as they say, must go on. And so the crowd shuffled to the next talk: 'How to spot a sociopath at work.
' No one laughed.
