Benjamin Atkins: Out of obscurity and onto Darkness Radio and more

Over the years, particularly in the past decade or so when the true-crime genre has really exploded, there have been oodles of serial killers profiled on TV documentaries. "Dateline," "48 Hours" and "Forensic Files" were pioneers, but nowadays there are just a ton of shows on ID, Oxygen and the like that take a close look at criminal cases. This author has loved them. I eat them up. I also consume a lot of true-crime books. So can you believe there's been hardly anything at all done on convicted Detroit serial killer Benjamin ("Tony") Atkins? At the time of his arrest in August 1992, as police were sorting through the mess of this case that spanned less than a year, he was being called the country's fastest serial killer. Indeed, as far as I know, he still holds that unofficial title -- the most people killed in the smallest timeframe, 11 people in about 6-9 months.

Yet, until the release of "The Crack City Strangler: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins," there was no book done on the case. There are a couple e-books on Atkins out there, but they are more of a memoir / reminiscing quality. I have read both, and they each offer an interesting perspective on this serial. There have been some podcasts done on the case in recent years, but they only pull facts from newspaper articles of years ago and maybe offer an opinion or two. Only since January of this year have there been modern podcasts produced that introduce new information on the case. But can you believe there has never been, to the best of my knowledge, a TV doc done on the case? John Eric Armstrong, another Detroit serial, by comparison, has had three (and a half) TV episodes devoted to him. And I would argue that followers of true crime out there actually know Atkins' name better than Armstrong's -- the serial they casually call Tony Atkins does come up in some true-crime conversation on Reddit, etc.

So why has Ben Atkins faded more into obscurity over the years? Is it because it's an older case? Is it because of the demographic of his victims? Maybe his own demographic? Who knows, but it's one of the questions addressed in this latest interview with Tim Dennis of Darkness Radio, for his True Crime Tuesdays. We recorded only yesterday -- St. Patrick's Day (and hey, we're both wearing green, you'll see when the video YouTube version drops), and it was a great discussion.

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Thanks again, Tim -- really enjoyed it!