Photo Courtesy AP
If nineteen-year-old Miranda Barbour’s confessions prove to be true, she could be one of the worst serial killers in our nation’s history. The Pennsylvania teenager and her husband were arrested earlier this month on charges of criminal homicide after allegedly stabbing and strangling a man they met through Craig’s List. Once in custody, Barbour readily shared that this was not her first experience with murder and had killed somewhere between 22 and 100 people over the last six years. But, this confession does not make for an open and shut case.
Barbour claims that she was involved with a satanic cult and only killed “bad people” in a crime spree that occurred across the country, from Alaska to Texas to Pennsylvania. However, law enforcement officials in the various areas she lived have no reason to believe she is connected to any murders and even a spokesman from the Church of Satan has gone to the media to disavow any involvement with her. Instead, relatives and others who know her state that she is a sexual abuse survivor who now exists in a fantasy world fueled by drug use.
Whatever her involvement may be with other homicides, the evidence pinning her to the death of Troy LeFerrara, the Craig’s List respondent, is pretty strong. Does she feel the need to make her crimes exponentially worse, if only through fiction? If so, why? Whether it is true or not that she has killed dozens of people, how do you handle such a young individual whose psychological framework seems to be so damaged?
I cannot help but be grotesquely fascinated by Miranda Barbour’s story. With her background of enduring abuse as a child, it seems that she has grown into a callous and violent adult, perhaps out of a seeming need for protection. If she has killed one man or fifty, she deserves to serve the punishment deemed appropriate for her crimes and perhaps her example will be one that experts can study for warning signs before tragedy repeats itself.
What are your views? Are we, as a society, creating more serial killers?
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Author Jennifer Chase 
Jennifer, it is truly a fascinating story and concept. We had a similar situation in Texas about thirty years ago when a guy claimed to have killed fifty or so people. The investigation demonstrated he could not have committed most of the murders, but we are left with the question you raise: why confess to crimes you did not commit?
I don’t know if there are more serial killers today than in hears past, but my sense of it is that because violence has become so commonplace, even glorified, then people who are little unhinged already find it easy to take the next, violent step.
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Unfortunately in today’s society some people want to be validated in some way and even aspire to have a type of celebrity status — and that means being a murderer too. For whatever reason Barbour has, this story will continue to unfold.
Thanks for your comments Stephen! 🙂
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