The audience for murder

High-profile murders -- and the trials they produce -- rivet our attention. The media certainly feed our fascination with such crimes, but why do we have an appetite for murder in the first place? Literary scholar Joel Black (Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Georgia, Athens) and legal studies scholar Martha Umphrey (Associate Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought; Amherst College) join Chicago Public Radio's Gretchen Helfrich for the discussion. Black is author of "The Aesthetics of Murder: A Study in Romantic Literature and Contemporary Culture." Umphrey is working on the book "Dementia Americana: Narrating Responsibility in the Trials of Harry K. Thaw."