‘Dexter’-Obsessed Teen Kills, Dismembers Girlfriend
Steven Miles, a small, red-headed British teen, doesn’t look that menacing in his mugshot. But his crime, which was inspired by a tv show, surely is chilling.
Miles admitted to the court that he stabbed his 17-year-old girlfriend Elizabeth Thomas in the back of the head, chopped up her body and put her parts in plastic bags. He said he was inspired by the character ‘Dexter” in the popular television show about a serial killer-forensic investigator who tortures, murders and dismembers criminals in his "kill Room."
Immediately after the murder, Miles admitted to his sister that he had “done something bad” to Elizabeth Thomas. The boy was known to be obsessed with horror movies and had a particular fascination with the character Dexter.
Unfortunately, this is not the first murder inspired by the show.
This girl is the fourth murder victim, to add to three already documented murders and one prevented murder, all inspired by the serial killer show “Dexter.
When the Emmys nominees were announced in July and NBC’s serial killer star ‘Hannibal’ was left out, NBC’s head of entertainment, Robert Greenblatt defended the low-rated show as one of the network’s “best” and most “creative” that NBC was still “struggling to find an audience for.”
“The minute you try to do something that is dark and subversive and frightening and gets into that territory, you start to peel away the mass audience” Greenblatt explained at a press conference.
Greenblatt, as a former producer for Showtime, the network on which the bloody Dexter aired, also had to defend the show numerous times over the years.
Clearly Greenblatt doesn’t understand that these serial killer shows will not do well on broadcast television during hours which families watch television. And Dexter has a horrifying track record of inspiring acts of violence in the real world.
Hollywood constantly congratulates itself for impacting public perceptions and behavior in ways it feels are for the better (homosexuality, for example). But that influence cuts both ways.
— Kristine Marsh is Staff Writer for MRC Culture at the Media Research Center. Follow Kristine Marsh on Twitter.
