Who is the Killer in the Richard Marx Song "Hazard" (1992)

Cafe Society
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As a child of the MTV generation, I was always a sucker for songs that also told a story. The song “Hazard” is structured around the nameless singer, who resides in the town of Hazard, and has always always been something of an outcast. He has a strong emotional connection to a girl/woman by the name of Mary, although the exact degree of their relationship is unclear. One night Mary went walking all alone, and never came home, leading the local authorities to accuse the singer.

That’s most of what we know from the -song-. What makes everything more interesting is that the video shows a great deal more of the circumstances, and leaves the interpretation of who causes Mary’s death very unclear. While their were/are apparently two versions of the video, the only one that comes up easily is the official one - linked here.

I always loved the song, it’s not one of my all-time favorites, but I enjoyed it at the time and I purchased a copy when singles became an easy thing in the days of iTunes. But I’ve gone back and forth between who the killer is. So first, a poll of the most common suspects:

  • The nameless singer
  • The stalking sheriff
  • The unknown lover (?)
  • The girl herself, as suicide

0 voters

Richard Marx has still not revealed who the killer is, although years ago they indicated that there were enough clues to be able to figure it out. My opinion is in spoilers below as to not influence anyone coming to the song for the first time, and there are a few blogs out there with detailed summaries and opinions as well. I also welcome any side theories for anyone who wants to participate!

Summary

I’ve gone back and forth over this for years, and given that there are many fantastical elements in the story, feel it’s -likely- that it was a suicide, although I wouldn’t bed money on it. The nameless singer is an unreliable narrator, and considering his history with female figures in his life, is an easy suspect. The smirking sheriff is also an easy guess, as he’s definitely an unhealthy stalker, and his attitude during the interview sure makes it look like he knows a lot and is determined to make the singer take the hit. The unknown lover from the car is a huge unknown, but would fit a crime of passion if Mary dumped him in the middle of their activity to go chasing the narrator.

All of them are plausible, but I go with suicide for one reason. The narrator is released and allowed to leave town. If the sheriff had done it, and was framing the singer, I can’t see that happening. He’s got all the authority and influence he needs to make it happen. The singer’s claims when arrested are paper thin, unbelievable, and probably easily falsifiable, and yet, they go free. The unknown lover is, frankly too unknown, and has fundamentally no screen time: yes, it could be them, but the whole point of the song and video is the narrator, the sheriff, and Mary.

Which leaves Mary. Who knows she’s badly hurt the singer, and likely could/would have chased after, recovering the scarf on the way. The singer has also told us that Mary too wished to leave the town, and her relationship with the stalker sheriff certainly gives her reason to do so. Between her own fears and hopes, a possible feeling of betrayal, and despair, suicide seems reasonable. The sheriff’s efforts to nail the singer may have come to naught as a result of the autopsy and/or coroners final report, even as the entire town obviously believes the singer guilty.

2

I always thought her death was accidental. Like she slipped and fell into the river or something. (ETA: I never saw either of the videos; I was just going by the lyrics.)

3

I waffle between an uncompleted suicide pact between Mary and the narrator and the killer being some rando from the town who felt that they had to kill the girl to save the girl. Might’ve been the stalker sheriff, might’ve been the woman who covered the boy’s eyes, might’ve been one of the assholes with torches.

The line “I need to make it to the river and leave this old Nebraska town” would seem to support the suicide pact theory, as would Mary’s pretending to strangle the narrator with the same scarf that would later end her life.

I’m sure that the hair-cutting is a major clue, but I can’t work it out. I know that female abuse survivors sometimes cut their hair to look more like a male, but that doesn’t seem to fit. Also, the narrator seems to have been an arsonist in his youth, but I’m not sure how that applies, either.

4

Just going by the lyrics, that’s what I got, as well. Though I could never shake the feeling that the narrator was unreliable.

5

Do we consider the clues in a music video to be important in determining the meaning of a song? I always regarded the video as its own separate thing. I’m struggling to come up with examples right now, but I feel like there have been a lot of videos that portray a song completely differently than what any reasonable person would have interpreted the song to mean on its own. And it seems that’s by design, to create an interesting and distinct piece of media.

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I do admit, when I first heard the song on airplay, the narrator felt unreliable. What opened up the can of worms is the video, which makes him -more- unreliable and adds a great deal of backstory to his relationships with women.

The video seemingly spends a lot of time pushing the narrator and the sheriff as the the most likely culprits, and when I was younger, I leaned into the sheriff. These days, in the #metoo era, the sheriff looks even worse, but the singer gives off ‘incel’ vibes as well.

Which is probably why (other than enjoying the song itself) the question pops into my head a couple of times a year.

7

It was the sheriff, as far as I’m concerned.

8

I’ve always considered it canon, and after all, it’s fully ambiguous. A lot of videos seem only tangentially related to the lyrics in general, but this one is specifically amplifying and expanding the story. In fact, this particular video plays a lot like a mini-movie with the song playing in the background.

I -remember- discussions about it at the time on MTV where it was explained that there answers was there, but we all know that memory is not exactly reliable, and my google-fu isn’t good enough to confirm one way or another.

But on another note, we do have Twitter -

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My thoughts on the murder in the video (long)

The video starts off by introducing us to the town of Hazard, Nebraska. We enter the city limits. This mirrors the end, where the narrator leaves town.

0:19 The narrator sits alone by the river and cuts his hair. I think that this takes place much later in continuity, after his arrest and release.

0:23 The lady standing in the river is his mom, right?

0:33 Okay, now there’s a woman standing in the water wearing a different dress. I think it’s a different woman. Was the first one Mary and this one Mom?

0:35 The narrator is a boy and is surrounded by men. One seems to be stroking his hair to comfort him, and the others seem at least a little inviting. The lyrics are The folks in town would say with prejudiced eyes, “That boy’s not right.” Then the boy runs away.

0:46 He meets Mary, apparently after surprising her beside the river. Probably no significance to whatever’s making ripples in the river while they sit and watch? There’s a little romantic tension. That was three years ago.

1:02 The sheriff takes pictures from the bridge. The narrator gives her his coat twice, once at the riverbank and once on the bridge. You’d think she’d bring her own coat every now and then.

1:20 Mary pretends to box with the narrator. She then pretends to strangle him with the same scarf that would later end her life. This bothers me. It doesn’t seem to fit. I wonder if the narrator is remembering or relating things unreliably. Did they have a real fight? Did the narrator get rough or violent with Mary, perhaps even “pretending” to strangle her?

1:26 They’re lovey-dovey again. Is that a bandage on his finger? A ring?

1:28 Mary walks alone in town, and the police car approaches her. She does not look happy to see the sheriff.

1:32 This is a little weird. It shows somebody’s police report, including photographs (probably the ones that the sheriff had taken at 1:02–she’s wearing the same shirt, at least) and fingerprints. So who got arrested? The narrator? Mary? And what for?

1:35 Mary is doing some dude in a car. She seems to be wearing the dress from 0:23, so that was Mary in that sequence. The narrator comes upon the scene, and Mary is evidently having the time of her life.

1:41 The narrator is a boy. He sees a woman, I presume that it’s his mom, preparing to have sex with some bushy-headed guy.

1:44 The narrator turns away from Mary’s lovemaking escapades. The scene then flips back to him seeing his mom have sex. Mom might have seen him seeing her.

1:48 The narrator is walking away from Mary’s backseat adventures when the police show up.

1:49 He runs away through the woods and loses his long scarf to a tangly bush.

1:52 A quick shot of his trailer. Lights seem to flicker inside. Looks like he’s watching TV in the dark.

1:59 Mary has recovered the scarf, which probably made it pretty obvious to her that he’d seen her with dude.

2:00 The narrator sits at home and experiences anguish.

2:02 Somebody surprises Mary at the river.

2:04 She is underwater (at least, the scarf is).

2:49 The narrator is a boy. His father leaves him and his mother for another woman.

2:58 The aftermath of the boy seeing his mother in bed with the shaggy-headed guy. The boy burns the place to the ground. Could be the source of the fingerprints and such at 1:32.

3:41 Another image of Mary at the river, similar to 2:02. Here, she seems a little less surprised and a little more like she had been crying. May show the moment of her death as she closes her eyes, opens her mouth, and it becomes a negative image.

3:48 Reprises Mary’s encounter with the sheriff from 1:28. Here, Mary is running from somebody, apparently the sheriff. Seems to be what happened after he pulled alongside her. Did he show her the police file on the narrator, and she refused to believe it and ran away?

4:16 We’re back to the hair-cutting scene.

4:22 He stands looking over the bridge’s railing. He turns and walks away.

4:30 He leaves the Hazard city limits.

4:35 He remembers Mary telling him that everybody says that she should be afraid of him, but she is not. But there’s a weird insert of the sheriff during her speech, too.

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There’s this too:

Richard Marx Hazard Acoustic Grammy Museum 3/3/2020 - YouTube

11

It does remind me of Twin Peaks.

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I think what’s really going on is that Marx has made me the town. It would be really easy to point my finger at the emotionally damaged guy who keeps to himself and does weird shit in the woods at night. Cuz, you know, that boy’s not right.

13

Wha? I think there’s a word or two missing, or at least it looks like sentences I’ve typed where I’ve left out words. If you’re saying that the town is a killer (in a metaphorical sense at least) then yeah, I’d have to agree. The attitudes of the boy not being ‘right’, the flaming lynch mob, the super shady sheriff, the ‘avert the eyes’ even without a conviction…

It does live up to all the classic insular small-town tropes.

ETA - I love at this point we have 4 votes, and it’s one for each of the answers!

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Parsing this better, I think you mean that you find yourself, like the town, finding it easy to judge the singer based on his past/strangeness/outsider/etc. I need to better my reading comprehension today.

15

Nah, I could have definitely phrased that better. And yes, I do find it easy to put the blame on the narrator. I try to tell myself that he’s probably the victim here (not counting the murdered girl), but there’s that whole burned down the freakin’ house thing. And how he seemed to be flashing on seeing his mother have sex while he was seeing Mary have sex in the back seat.

I’m also assuming that Moms died in the fire.

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The Sheriff is shady as F***, given, and a creepy stalker cloaked in the power of his position at best - but why do you think he is the killer. I’ve seen online theories that (sadly) put a lot of victim blaming on Mary, indicating that she is/was free and easy with her lovers, and that included the sheriff, who was enraged at her infidelity, and took advantage of the scenario with Mary’s most recent lover, and the singer’s awkwardness to frame the singer for the murder after killing her himself.

Supporting evidence being that the officers seemed to know ahead of time where to drag the river for the body, and his smirky smugness during the interrogation. But what ticks the boxes for you @MrDibble?

17

No, I don’t think the Sheriff was Mary’s lover, and I think that’s why he killed her. Because he was a creepy pervert stalker, and small-town sheriffs are stereotypically really bad at having their authoritah disrespected. We know the scarf was at the scene when the cop car showed up, as was Mary and some other (younger) guy. That guy is either under the water somewhere himself, or else ran off and is now too chickenshit scared to say anything.

Side note - it amuses me greatly that authoritah has a wiktionary entry.

18

Here’s my (long) take starting with a brief “No way is it the sheriff.”

If the sheriff was the murderer he wouldn’t let Marx go at the end. Indeed if the sheriff had planted the incriminating scarf all he needed to do was shoot Marx ‘resisting arrest’ and with all the evidence tying town pariah Marx to Mary it would be an open and shut case.

But we do know from the video the sheriff was spying on Mary. The photos he had were of Mary plus we see him interacting with her and her seemingly running away from him. I reckon that’s simple, basic misdirection.

It’s possible the sheriff is a lover of Mary. It’s possible she is his daughter but there’s no evidence of that in the lyrics or video. But in the video we see Marx fleeing a burning house as a child and the sheriff is clearly hostile to Marx so…? Let’s connect those two things.

How about the sheriff suspects (but can’t prove or at least can’t prosecute due to Marx being a minor at the time) Marx killed his mother (and perhaps her lover) in a fire? How about the sheriff has been watching Marx ever since and when he hooks up with Mary the sheriff is trying to protect Mary? He suspects Mary will be Marx’s second victim. The lyrics confirm Mary is the first time Marx has a relationship of any meaningful kind with anyone since whenever. When the sheriff tries to warn Mary off Marx, she obviously doesn’t want to hear that about her only real, platonic relationship, friend and flees the sheriff.

Is Marx the murderer? There are certainly inconsistencies in his story. He says Mary went out alone but also says he left her safe and sound. The self hair cutting in the video could be an admission of guilt. But the lyrics also say Mary “looked beyond the rumours and the lies” so I don’t like Marx as her murderer. He’s said all along he’s the victim of unfair prejudice.

Suicide and a suicide pact are explanations that would fit the lyrics. Two social outcasts, the town weirdo and the town prostitute, who “walk along this river and dream our way out of this town” but the video shows Mary turning to see someone (presumably on the night she was murdered) and she seems scared which rules out Marx. She wouldn’t, in the first instance, be scared of Marx.

Neither the lyrics or the video absolutely confirm it but it seems very likely it was murder. Let’s assume she was strangled by Marx’s scarf so it’s definitely murder. But if not the Sheriff or Marx then who? The scarf suggests someone wants Marx to be blamed (although it could be the murderer randomly using a convenient scarf Marx left behind.)

In a slasher horror film it would obviously be the burn scarred and deranged mother. However I don’t think it’s her.

Then there’s the vague lover. The mother’s lover, Mary’s lover… Are they two different people? There’s the fact Marx has supposedly suggested the video provides an answer but then there’s the fact the lover (or lovers) don’t have their face shown which rules them out for me. They aren’t identifiable enough.

So who else is there? The remaining most identifiable character in the video is Marx’s absent father. A military man so used to death. He could easily have killed Marx’s mother and burned down the house out of continuing jealousy. Why kill Mary. If he’s now targeting Marx that suggests the father hates his son. Why hate Marx? Obvious suggestion being Marx is in fact not his son. A permanent reminder of his wife’s infidelity.

Hence I rule out the sheriff, Marx, suicide and that only leaves the father.

TCMF-2L

19

Huh. I only ever heard it on the radio, and always just thought she had gone missing, based on the lyrics.

Maybe kidnapped, maybe ran away; but possibly still alive.

20

Was the house fire real or metaphor for his innocence ending?

I think the house that burned was his childhood home and after his father left, he and his mom moved into the trailer in Hazard.

The sheriff being Mary’s father would explain his following her and hating Marx.

Maybe Marx’s character is gay and that’s why his Military father left and the bigoted townspeople disliked him from the start, and also why he says he and Mary never dated.

So, I guess maybe suicide pact. And his needing to make it to the river to leave this Old Nebraska town is also metaphor for his suicide.