All That is Wicked

August 1, 2022
In this meandering account, Dawson (American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI) expands on a true-crime podcast to examine the life of psychopath Edward Rulloff. Born in Canada in 1819 and raised in upstate New York, Rulloff killed at least seven people, including four family members, before he was arrested and sentenced to hang in 1871 for only the last murder, that of a clerk in a warehouse he and two others were robbing. Rulloff was in love with learning, particularly languages, but given his impoverished upbringing he was mostly self-taught. Over the decades, his one passion was writing a book on the beginnings of language, which he completed while waiting for the gallows and was later ridiculed by scholars and the media. Rulloff’s real claim to fame is that he was the first high-profile killer to inspire neuroscientists to dig into the criminal mind. While in prison, he was visited by alienists, phrenologists, psychologists, and journalists, all trying to reconcile his intellect with his amoral actions. After his execution, his abnormally large brain was placed in a collection at Cornell University, where it’s still studied. This is a fascinating subject, but Dawson’s drawn-out style is more suited to podcasting. True-crime buffs interested in early mind hunters, though, should have a look. Agent: Jessica Papin, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.