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As somewhat of a true crime enthusiast and serial killer aficionado, you can imagine my excitement when
I got an assignment to write about a museum in Hollywood, called
the Museum of Death.
I had never heard of a Museum of Death and imagined it to be kind of precious, like a silly
haunted house ride at an amusement park that's supposed to be scary, but isn't. I
imagined a building filled with harmless, re-created torture mechanisms from
medieval times held in the papier-mâchéd hands of notorious boogie men like Jack the Ripper and Ted
Bundy. I thought maybe I'd even see some yellowing, dust covered newspaper clippings from heinous crimes
of days-gone-by like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping or Bonnie and Clyde.
Ah,
how refreshing it is to be naïve.
The Museum of Death is not precious, nor cute, nor innocently fascinating. It is horrific, unbelievably
macabre and truly riveting. After spending a good hour meandering through the
five rooms adorned with every imaginable aspect of death and destruction, I left
feeling queasy and depressed. It exceeded my wildest imagination as to what people will actually pay seven
bucks to see. |
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Like you might guess form the name, the Museum of Death features
photos, knick-knacks, memorabilia and other miscellaneous items
related to death, dismemberment, entrails, murder, torture and suicide.
You'll see
glossy 8x10's of
people who've been hit by cars, run over by trains, burned, shot, bludgeoned and beaten to death. Come
prepared to spend some time wading through the hundreds of uncensored war photos, POW shots and
Hitler pics.
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| There's a room dedicated to the art of the autopsy
where you'll see photo after photo of the same creepy, moustached coroner posed over cadavers in different
stages of an autopsy. Here's a cute one of him as he hacks through
a femur and, Oh, here he is smiling as he
peels back a scalp for easy access to buzz saw someone's brains. And if you need a more tangible autopsy
experience, all the tools you see in the photos are elegantly displayed beneath them in pretty little
shadow boxes. You can look, but don't touch! |
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| If you're into taxidermy, you won't be disappointed with the celebrity stuffed animal case including such
quadruped luminaries as Liberace's cat "Candy" (short for Candelabra) and Jayne Mansfield's Chihuahua who
perished in the car wreck with her, complete with actual photos of the dead dog being pulled from the
mangled vehicle. |
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Just when I was about to get bored, I came across the
Video of Death. This overlooked Academy Award winner features video and film clips of real deaths clumsily
edited together under a speed metal soundtrack and a voiceover that will haunt you for weeks. In a deep,
slow, drawl the narrator says, "This is what a man looks like after hitting a tree going 85 miles per
hour." As we watch a man who looks like a ground round doll being pulled from a sports car
and then, as if on queue, he expires right in front of your eyes. |
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Making my way toward the back of the museum, I finally found what I was looking for. Just across from the
wall of car accident photos were the serial killer rooms. A section of each room is dedicated to one
notorious serial killer after the next, many of whom the curator of the museum has had personal, lengthy and
truly creepy correspondence with. All the letters are photo copied and displayed either in big volumes or
hung on the walls.
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| In John Wayne Gacy's section, you can read letters
from him bitching to art dealers and curators about how people are making money off of displaying his
masterpiece, Pogo the Clown, without his consent. In The Henry Lee Lucas Room, there are volumes of fascinating, hand
written letters from Henry and his mentally retarded sidekick and partner in crime, Ottis
Toole. |
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The best part of the serial killer rooms are the fill
in the blank bio/ questionnaires that the curator sent to all his murderous pen pals and luckily for us, they
filled them out and sent them back. On Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker's form, we learn that his
favorite color is black, his favorite number is 666 and his favorite food is "women's feet." Who knew that
John Wayne Gacy's favorite song was "Send in the Clowns" and that his idea of the perfect date is
"dinner and a concert or live show, drinks and a quiet walk by lake."
The Manson room features several never seen before Charlie nick knacks including an album released in
Spain featuring his supposed hit entitled "Garbage Dump." I asked the lovely proprietor to play it but he
refused to take the album out of its case. The Manson room also has several of his paintings, drawings and
doodles (he should stick to scaring people and forget the art career!) along with letters and pictures of
him throughout his life. The Manson room also features several 8x 10 color photos of the crime scenes at both
the Tate and LaBianca residences that have never been shown before. |
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At this point during my museum visit, I had had enough
death and destruction to last me until the next high
school massacre and I still had the Heavens Gate
room, the blown up crime scene photos of the Black Dahlia murder and
the high rise jumper wall of photos to conquer! I
pushed on and was glad to see that like any savvy
establishment, the Museum of Death had saved the best
for last.
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This final wall of photos was what really did me in and quashed any hopes I had in the future of mankind
or in sleeping through the night without nightmares. The color photos document a night in the life of a
naked woman (who appears to be on her 45th day without sleep from crank) as she kills then dismembers her
husband while her boyfriend documents it all with his
pocket instamatic. |
Not only does she pose demurely with the hack saw as she's decapitating him,
but she then goes onto prop his hands, head and genitals in kooky set ups on the bed as she waves from
the background. And to think this smarty pants would have gotten away with the crime
if she hadn't made
the fatal flaw of dropping the film off at a local Photo mat to have it developed.
On that note, I hit the road and felt nauseated the whole way home, that is until I killed my boyfriend
and ate him for dinner, then I felt much better. The Museum of Death is located in the heart of Hollywood
at 6340 Hollywood Blvd. |
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