A new study out on the (literal) romanticization of violent criminals has introduced a new (to me) term for the attraction: hybristophilia.
A slightly less than authoritative source reports that Mangione has been getting marriage proposals from both women and men, and there was a case where a woman reportedly planned to marry Luigi’s AI and live happily ever after.
Seems like a hell of a way to attract romantic partners, but it works for some inmates (see also Jeffrey MacDonald.
Ted Bundy got married in court during his murder trial.
He took advantage of an obscure Florida state law that said an acceptance of marriage in front of a judge legally counted as marriage.
Ted Bundy and Carole Ann Boone conceived a child together while he was in prison. According to Boone, they would engage in intimacy behind the water cooler in the visitors’ area or sneak into the bathroom.
So romantic!
Hmm, I seem not to have linked this Laurie Penny article on this phenomenon at time of writing.
There’s a whole community of women online who are/were big fans of Harris and Klebold, the two Columbine High School shooters.
To be fair (?), Carole Ann Boone knew Bundy before his first arrest and subsequent convictions for kidnapping and murder.
Absolutely, yes, they knew each other before he was infamous. But they reconnected while he was in prison in Utah for murders he committed there, and then they literally got married during the trial, in the trial courtroom. That seems to me like taking the “in love with a murderer” to extremes.
From your cite:
According to Florida law at the time, an open declaration of marriage — properly phrased — in the courtroom in front of legal court officers, was considered a legal marriage. So Bundy, serving as his own attorney, called Boone to the witness stand, and the two performed a marriage ceremony.
What I think is even more bonkers is that Boone apparently had a limit. She was fine with him being a murderer, as long as he didn’t murder too many women, but when he admitted to murdering even more, I guess she figured that meant he wasn’t going to be a model husband and father.
For Bundy’s first two years on death row, Boone often visited him in jail. However, she ended her visits — and his ability to see his daughter, Rose — after he admitted to more murders.
People can be pretty weird I guess.
Charles Watson was married and had kids.
It wasn’t that Boone was fine with the murders as it was she believed Bundy to be innocent. Bundy was pretty good at manipulating people, but whatever hold Bundy had over her was knocked out by his confessions. And I’ll be damned. The name Mumia Abu-Jamal just popped into my head and I haven’t thought about him in more than twenty-five years.
And probably an even bigger one that fawns over Chris Watts, who killed his pregnant wife and two preschool-aged daughters in Colorado a few years ago.
On another (kink-related) site I warned people about a predator who had manipulated one of the users to do some bad things. I got a DM from someone hoping to meet them.
Most everyone else seems to understand that the danger should be fake, but there are some who don’t seem to care.
Someone tried to break him out jail.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/nyregion/luigi-mangione-break-out-blade.html
Sounds like someone mentally ill doing something relatively random rather than any considered or serious attempt.
My family and I talked about the “attempted break-out” at dinner last night, and these words actually came out of my mouth about Mangione. I still can’t believe I said them.
“Is he the bad kind of murderer, or the good kind? I mean, he did kill a soulless CEO of an insurance company -” and I fucking know better than that. Soulless? Those words, coming from the mouth of a liberal Christian?
There is no such thing as the good kind of murderer.
But adding terrorism charges against Mangione is a transparent attempt to make sure he gets the death penalty. It’s clearly being charged as terrorism just because of who the victim was. A CEO who made millions of dollars.
The terrorism charge was dismissed.
Ah. Ignorance fought. Federal murder charges. Yeah, if he’s guilty, they’ll probably execute him, and he deserves to die if anybody else does. I’m against capital punishment, though. I think.
I don’t know the detail of the definition of terrorism in the relevant jurisdiction. However, broadly, terrorism tends to involve the concept of violence to pursue a political goal. So I suspect you are only correct in the sense that the terrorism charge was based (ultimately unsuccessfully) on an allegation that Mangione’s victim was chosen by reference to a political goal. The terrorism charge would not have been based on the victim’s salary.
In theory. In practice it means the “present government doesn’t like you”. Thus the people murdered by ICE being labeled as “terrorists”.
Also, I think the shielding of those murderers by the government makes it even harder for me to really work up much outrage over what Mangione did. It’s just too clear that the killing isn’t the problem, it’s who he killed. I doubt he’d even be imprisoned if he’d killed someone for being brown instead of for being a CEO.
Thus the people protesting ICE being labeled as “terrorists”.
Yeah, save the outrage for those who say “meh” about the murder or actively support him.
He’s been arrested by and is being prosecuted by the state of New York which is certainly not “shielding” anyone from ICE. What are you even talking about? The fact that Trump’s federal government is doing fucked up shit with ICE impacts the way you view New York going after this fucked up asshole? Very strange.
You think the State of New York would not imprison him if he “killed someone for being brown” and your evidence for this is the way they shield ICE agents? Cite for NY doing that? You’re high off your ass.