What it’s like to interview convicted killers — and why one infamous Canadian hitman stands out
Hanging out in prison. These are the words on my mind whenever I hear them spoken. On the surface, this is a relatively harmless thing: when we meet someone in the prison library, someone who was arrested for a murder committed 18 years before and who has already served three life sentences for murder and has no chance of ever being freed, why wouldn’t it be fun to hang out with people who have been in the same room with some of the most horrific murderers in history? It is only when our conversations get particularly personal — or when we discuss the most horrific details about those who have been convicted of the most horrific crimes imaginable — that our encounters in prison begin to feel particularly troubling and unsettling.
In this way, our conversations aren’t just a pleasant part of our routine, but a potentially powerful tool for changing the world. For that reason, it’s important to understand exactly how prison can affect us psychologically.
The truth is, after you get out of prison, prison becomes an entirely different place. Not only does the world start to look and feel differently, your mindset starts to shift. You begin to see life from a more objective perspective. You begin to understand that the people you were around while incarcerated may not have always been who they seemed to be. You begin to realize that not only could you have known and loved people who tortured and killed others; that somehow, you could have become that person yourself.
That’s why, when I saw the news that notorious Canadian hitman Kevin Bacon was scheduled to be released and, despite the controversy surrounding his sentence, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Bacon, who was convicted of murdering 14 people, is notorious primarily due to his involvement in the notorious “Hillside Strangler” case. Hillside Strangler was the name given to the bizarre, brutal murder spree that Bacon carried out in Toronto, and in this case, Bacon murdered 13 men and a woman