George Zimmerman taps into Murderabilia
Neely Tucker
The Washington Post.
From serial killer John Wayne Gacy's clown art to the Volkswagen in which Ted Bundy killed some of his victims, Americans have long been fascinated with the macabre aspects of sensational killings and the people who commit them.
The low strata of this trade is "murderabilia," the trafficking in sensational items from notorious crimes or killers. The online store Serial Killers Ink, for example, is currently offering letters and artwork from both Charles Manson and the BTK Killer, Dennis Rader, as well as the confession signed by Ed Gein, the man whose skin-peeling killings inspired everything from "Psycho" to "The Silence of the Lambs."
This is the market George Zimmerman is trying to tap into by selling the semiautomatic he used to kill Trayvon Martin in the 2012 Florida slaying that riveted the nation. Zimmerman was acquitted in a sensational trial, the gun is his property and, legally speaking, he's free to sell it as he would any other personal item.
Still, two gun sites have dropped the weapon from auction after public outrage ...
http://www.the-journal.com/article/20160514/AP/305149887/George-Zimmerman-taps-into-an-American-tradition:-Murderabilia