A hurricane hits the city. Most people escape it. Some fall victim and die at the hands of the water. The same water we see every day when we walk by the beach. We feel bad for a while, as long as no one we knew was taken by the wave. We continue our lives. We know what happened. It’s over though. Why dwell. The hurricane is the culprits that run in our streets. The same people we see every day. We know what they are capable of, but not when they will strike. We don’t know who they are. Who cares? They could be anyone. As long as it doesn’t happen to me.
We live such careless lives while around us crime flourishes. Nightly news broadcasts admonish us about who wasn’t as lucky as we were. The people in our nightmares are more real than we like to think. Where will we go from here? Will people ever question their own ethics when it comes to crime? I interviewed the notorious serial killer Rocky McSteve, known for his inane spree of brutal murders along the California coast in 2001, to see things from the perspective of the ones we fear.
As I arrived at the Santa Carla maximum security prison to conduct my interview, the guards were inexorable to letting the interview to be longer than six minutes. I was then clandestinely escorted to the highest security wing of the prison, where McSteve was being held.
At first glance, McSteve appeared to be the normal guy you see sitting at a fast food restaurant, but who wouldn’t stop looking at you. As I sat down in on the metal stool bolted to the ground in the room we were going to speak in, I noticed the flagrant scar on his lower neck. Story goes this is where his last victim was able to bite him before they were killed at the hands of him. He was then found on the shore of San Diego beach, passed out due to blood loss from this particular would. I was scared.
I wanted to get things rolling. Santa Carla is the murder capital of the U.S. “Since I arrived in Santa Carla in 1986 with my stepfather and my mother, I was astonished with the town’s reputation” says McSteve. “It was purely fascinating.” Desensitized to murder, perhaps. “No one is quite sure why Santa Carla has the crime rate it does; it must just keep passing off from generation to generation.” McSteve is aware of the consequences of murder. “If I cared about going to jail, I wouldn’t have bothered murdering. It’s a crime of passion. I get my kicks from it.” He gets his kicks from it. “It will never end. I am just the voice of a generation. There will be someone that will take my place in years to come. Until then, I’m the one you fear.”
People like McSteve are the people we try to forget exist. After meeting and talking to the man who had his face on the cover of Rolling Stone in 2001, I understand why. Crime is not a thing that is going to end. This is beyond disregard for authority. As much as we would like to stop it, there is no way. Crime is a passion. An abnormal one at that, but if one’s mindset is on it, we can have no effect on that. We will live our lives until someone falls victim, we’ll tune in at ten o’clock to the nightly news, then we will brush our teeth and go to bed.