{"id":322228,"date":"2026-02-28T18:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T18:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/322228\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T18:29:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T18:29:22","slug":"a-chilling-new-exhibition-lets-you-visit-and-take-selfies-in-the-gory-crime-scenes-of-the-worlds-most-notorious-serial-killers-but-critics-suggest-that-you-could-be-exploiting-victims-by-attendin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/322228\/","title":{"rendered":"A chilling new exhibition lets you visit (and take selfies in) the gory crime scenes of the world’s most notorious SERIAL KILLERs – but critics suggest that you could be exploiting victims by attending…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new exhibition on history\u2019s most notorious serial killers \u2013 which has gory recreations of crime<\/a>\u00a0scenes and killers\u2019 living quarters \u2013 has divided opinions with one prominent true crime podcaster arguing it \u2018crosses a line\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a psychotherapist \u2013 whose sister and two nieces were the victims of a notorious 2008 triple murder \u2013 believes our fascination with serial killers is an understandable part of \u2018human nature\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mind of a Serial Killer, running at the RDS in Dublin until May<\/a>, is an immersive walkthrough of 20 areas relating to 20 different serial killers, the majority from the US and many well\u2013known.<\/p>\n

Information on each killer\u2019s background and their victims are presented in text, while most rooms feature props where attendees can interact and take selfies.<\/p>\n

These include a recreation of Jeffrey Dahmer\u2019s fridge complete with body parts inside; a bloodied bathtub representing the place Richard Chase\u2019s victims\u2019 mutilated remains were discovered; and the homemade gynaecological chair in the BTK killer\u2019s \u2018toy box\u2019 torture room.<\/p>\n

Host of the Ireland Crimes and Mysteries podcast Nules N\u00ed Chleirigh said the appeal of the exhibition was obvious, with true crime \u2018more popular than ever\u2019.<\/p>\n

She old the Irish Mail on Sunday: \u2018That curiosity we have isn\u2019t in itself unhealthy, and it doesn\u2019t make you a bad person for being into true crime.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

But the former nurse said there appears to be a \u2018tension at the heart of\u2019 the expo in relation to what purpose it serves.<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Chleirigh said: \u2018On the one hand, the exhibition claims to focus on criminal profiling, investigative processes, and forensic techniques, which could be genuinely educational.\u2019<\/p>\n

There is \u2018value\u2019 in learning about how cases were solved, understanding victimology and seeing the real investigative work that went into catching killers, she added.<\/p>\n

\u2018But on the other hand, they\u2019re heavily marketing photo opportunities with recreated belongings of killers and crime scenes. They\u2019re calling it a \u201ckiller date night\u201d for Valentine\u2019s Day. That\u2019s where it crosses a line for me.<\/p>\n

\u2018When you\u2019re encouraging people to pose for Instagram photos in a recreation of a killer\u2019s car or kitchen, you\u2019re not honouring victims \u2013 you\u2019re turning their murders into entertainment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Another set allows attendees to pose inside a recreation of Ted Bundy\u2019s Volkswagen Beetle.<\/p>\n

\u2018Those aren\u2019t just props,\u2019 Ms N\u00ed Chleirigh continued. \u2018Bundy\u2019s car held terrified women before they were murdered. Dahmer\u2019s kitchen was where he dismembered real people with families who are still living.\u2019<\/p>\n

John Whelan, a psychotherapist and co\u2013founder of SAVE, said the exhibition \u2018doesn\u2019t really bother me one way or the other\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Whelan has been an advocate for criminal sentencing reform since his sister Sharon Whelan and her daughters Zara and Nadia were murdered by postman Brian Hennessy at their home in Co. Kilkenny on Christmas Day in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u2018People have a fascination with that type of thing, and it\u2019s just human nature,\u2019 Mr Whelan told the MoS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018People are going to be fascinated by crime, whether it\u2019s serial killers or the lads down the road.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think it\u2019s just a fascination with the limits of human behaviour \u2013 what the human being is capable of and the worst of it. And I think people engage in those stories in a way that\u2019s kind of voyeuristic.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Serial <\/p>\n

Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer enters court in August 1991. Dahmer was later killed by a fellow prisoner<\/p>\n

\"Ted <\/p>\n

Ted Bundy’s 1968 Volkswagen Beetle, in which he committed many of his crimes<\/p>\n

John Zaller, creative director of the company behind the show, Exhibition Hub, said his approach was about \u2018trying to strike a parallel tone between connecting with the public on a subject of great interest, but also trying to create some spaces for reflection\u2019.<\/p>\n

He told the MoS: \u2018It\u2019s framing this as not a celebration of these individuals, but more of an exploration of the mind and the dark recesses of the soul.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Zaller said a \u2018big concern\u2019 was to avoid making something \u2018really sensational\u2019, like many true crime documentaries and podcasts that have exploded in popularity in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018What got me as I did the research, was that all we remember are the names of these killers. We don\u2019t know their victims. We don\u2019t know anything about their victims.<\/p>\n

\u2018And so I did want to make sure that we made it clear the volume of death that these people perpetrated in places where we could tell the story, where we had the research to talk about some of the individuals without getting too gruesome in the text panels.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mr Zaller called it a \u2018fair point\u2019 to question the taste of some of the exhibits and said it was \u2018part of that line you walk in terms of having a cultural experience \u2013 it\u2019s also a commercial experience.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Everything is a selfie opportunity in our world today, so there are certainly places where we lean into that, while also trying to tell the story in a powerful way.<\/p>\n

\u2018You might be able to get into [Chase\u2019s] bath tub, but if you get in, you\u2019re also going to see there\u2019s dead kittens and puppies there.<\/p>\n

\u2018It really makes you think twice about what you\u2019re doing, and it helps tell the story of Richard Chase, who was completely out of his mind, thinking that he had to drink the blood of animals and then humans in order to live.\u2019<\/p>\n

It’s a question Ms N\u00ed Chleirigh returns to: \u2018I think the question is: when someone leaves that exhibition, what are they taking away?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mind <\/p>\n

Mind of a Serial Killer, running at the RDS in Dublin until May, has divided opinions<\/p>\n

‘Are they thinking about the victims? About the investigative work? About how to prevent these tragedies? Or are they thinking about their photos and how creepy it was?\u2019<\/p>\n

The podcaster insisted true crime \u2018has to keep the focus on the right things, the victims, the investigation, the justice \u2013 not on making killers into celebrities or turning tragedy into a photo op\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s where I try to draw the line in my own work \u2013 keeping the focus on the people who were lost, not the people who took them.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new exhibition on history\u2019s most notorious serial killers \u2013 which has gory recreations of crime\u00a0scenes and killers\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[539,93,61,542,60,149742,43],"class_list":["post-322228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-instagram","tag-ireland","tag-m-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}