Conference Reflections, Serial Killer Panic, and the Slow Grind of Writing
I just got back from a conference; I am still jet lagged but I am at that point where I am almost a functional human again but not quite. Which, in a strange way, feels like the perfect mindset to sit down and write a quick update about where things are at, both with my research and with the writing project I have been working on. This post sits somewhere between a travel log, a research update, and a reflection on what it actually feels like to exist in this field for a while. So, if it’s a bit disjointed, try not to judge…it was a miserable flight home.
American Psychology and Law Society Conference 2026
I spent the past week at the annual conference for the American Psychology-Law Society. This is, for lack of a better phrase, the main event in forensic psychology. Researchers, clinicians, legal scholars, and students all converge to present new work, argue about theory, and catch up with people they only see once a year.
I have been going to APLS since graduate school, which is now approaching an uncomfortable number of years ago. It was one of the first places where I felt like I was actually part of the field rather than just studying it. That feeling has stuck. There is something about being in a space where everyone is thinking about the same strange intersection of psychology and law that makes it feel like home. This year, the conference was held in Reno, Nevada. Getting there from Rhode Island was, to put it lightly, not fun. Multiple flights, layovers, and the kind of travel schedule that makes you question your life choices at three in the morning. But once I got there, it was worth it.
Reno is an odd and interesting place. You have this desert landscape, and then you look up and there are snowcapped mountains right there. It feels like two completely different environments layered on top of each other. The conference itself was held in a large resort that was constantly busy with tons of people doing other things, but integrated within was all forensic psych meetings and people. There is always something happening, always another talk to go to, always someone you run into in the hallway.
Presenting Research: “I Wish I Had More Time”
This year I presented two research projects, which is becoming something of a pattern for me. Last year was the first time I presented two, and apparently, I decided that was a good idea to repeat.
The first project was a follow up to work I presented and published last year on perceptions of sexual offending. This time, we focused specifically on gender role beliefs and how they interact with perceptions of female sexual offenders. We looked at participant gender, victim gender, and perpetrator gender, and the results ended up being far more complex than we initially expected. What we found was essentially a four-way interaction between the participant that I am still in the process of fully unpacking. It is one of those findings that is both exciting and slightly annoying, because it means the story is richer, but also harder to tell cleanly. There is more work to be done there, and hopefully a publication coming out of it. That presentation was a full paper session, which meant I had more time to walk through the study in detail. It still felt a bit rushed, which is the nature of conferences, but overall, it went well.
The “New England Serial Killer” That Wasn’t
The second project was something I have been particularly interested in lately. It is an extension of my work on true crime media, but this time focused on what I can only describe as a regional moral panic. If you were anywhere near social media last year, especially in New England, you might remember the wave of posts about a supposed serial killer operating in the region. A number of bodies had been discovered, and very quickly, people began connecting them into a single narrative. The logic was familiar: multiple deaths, geographic proximity. Therefore, there must be a single offender.
Except there was no actual evidence linking these cases.
Despite that, online communities, particularly large Facebook groups, became increasingly convinced that there was an active serial killer. Not only that, but people began speculating that this hypothetical offender was connected to the Connecticut River Valley Killer from the 1980s.
So, we decided to study it. We conducted a qualitative, phenomenological analysis of posts within one of these large online groups. What we found was fascinating and, in some ways, predictable. The narratives that emerged mirrored classic elements of folklore and urban legend formation. There were themes of fear, randomness, and vulnerability. The “it could have been me” reaction showed up constantly, with people inserting themselves into the story. There was also a strong sense of pattern seeking. Humans are very good at connecting dots, even when those dots are not actually connected. Once the idea of a serial killer took hold, every new piece of information was filtered through that lens. It was not just speculation. It was storytelling. And like all good stories, it spread.
I presented this as part of a shorter session, which was a bit frustrating because I would have liked more time to really dig into the themes. But that is how conferences go. You do what you can with the time you have. The upside is that this project is still developing, and I am planning to expand it and submit it for a longer presentation at a future conference before we try to publish it.
The Best Part of Conferences: Parasailing with movie stars
In the long-ago days of LiveJournal, I had a post about my first trip to APLS and described it as “parasailing with movie stars”. This remains an apt description. The research is great, but honestly, the best part of APLS is always the people.
I got to see colleagues from graduate school who are now doing incredible work in forensic psychology. I got to catch up with former students who are now in PhD programs themselves, which is both very cool and a little disorienting. There is a moment when you realize you have “former students” actively in the field….it’s kinda a middle-age rabbit hole.
I also had one of those moments that reminds me why I got into this field in the first place. Through my colleague and mentor, I had the chance to briefly talk with Saul Kassin and Elizabeth Loftus. Their work has fundamentally shaped how the legal system understands evidence, and both have had a critical impact on the exoneration of innocent people punished for crimes that they didn’t commit (see The Innocence Project for more information).
Kassin’s research focuses on false confessions, which is one of the more counterintuitive problems in criminal justice. Most people assume that innocent individuals would never confess to a crime they did not commit. His work shows that this assumption is simply wrong. Through decades of experimental and field research, Kassin has demonstrated how certain interrogation techniques, particularly those involving psychological pressure, false evidence, prolonged questioning, and police outright lying to people, can lead innocent individuals to confess. He also helped develop the widely used taxonomy of false confessions, distinguishing between voluntary, coerced compliant, and coerced internalized confessions. That last category is especially unsettling. It refers to cases where individuals come to believe, at least temporarily, that they may have committed the crime, even when they did not. This line of research has had a major impact on policy discussions, interrogation practices, and the evaluation of confession evidence in court (Kassin et al., 2010).
Loftus’s work on memory is just as influential, and in some ways even more disruptive to common sense. She has spent decades demonstrating that memory is not a perfect recording of events. It is reconstructive, malleable, and highly susceptible to suggestion. Her research on the misinformation effect showed that people’s recollections can be altered by post event information, including subtle changes in wording. In classic studies, simply changing a verb in a question, such as “hit” versus “smashed,” altered participants’ estimates of speed and even led them to report seeing broken glass that was never there. Over time, this line of work expanded into demonstrations of how entirely false memories can be implanted under certain conditions. In a legal context, that has enormous implications. Eyewitness testimony has long been treated as powerful evidence, yet Loftus’s research shows that it can be both confident and wrong. That tension has influenced court decisions, expert testimony standards, and police procedures related to lineups and interviews (Loftus, 2005).
Standing there, talking to both of them, was one of those quietly surreal moments. Not dramatic, just a kind of internal recognition that the theories and studies I teach in class are connected to real people who are still actively shaping the field. They were both incredibly kind and approachable, which, as a general rule, is always a relief when you meet people whose work you admire. (You can check out both of their websites for a ton of information and links to their research https://saulkassin.org/ and https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/eloftus/publications/)
The Writing Project: Slow Progress Is Still Progress
The second part of this update is about the writing project, which has been moving forward, just not as quickly as I would like. This semester has been busy. I am teaching more, juggling multiple research projects, and generally operating at a level of mild, constant stress that is usually the effect of me doing too much. As a result, my writing pace has slowed. That said, I have still made progress. I have added about 5,000 words, which I am choosing to view as a win. At this stage, consistency matters more than speed. I have also started having conversations with people in publishing about next steps. That includes thinking about the proposal, potential revisions, and what the manuscript might look like in a more complete form.
One of the more interesting parts of the conference was the presence of several university press representatives. I had the chance to talk with them informally about the project. There was some interest, which is encouraging, but I am trying not to overinterpret that at this stage. For now, the goal is simple. Keep writing.
My plan for the next month is to add another 5,000 words and continue building out the central narrative of the book. Once that is in place, I want to go back and revise some of the more academic sections and refine the proposal. If I can get that done by May, I will feel pretty good about where things stand. From there, the summer becomes a time to expand, refine, and potentially start submitting the proposal more broadly. It is a slow process. There is no way around that. Writing a book, especially one that sits at the intersection of research, clinical experience, and narrative, takes time.
Final Thoughts
If there is a theme running through all of this, it is that this field is both intellectually fascinating and personally grounding. Conferences like APLS remind me why I enjoy this work. The research, the conversations, the sense of shared curiosity. At the same time, projects like the true crime study remind me that the topics we study are not abstract. They involve real people, real fear, and real consequences. And the writing project sits somewhere in between. It is an attempt to make sense of all of it, to translate research and experience into something that feels coherent and useful.
So that is where things are at right now. A little tired, a little behind schedule, but moving forward. And honestly, that is usually enough.
References
Kassin, S. M., Drizin, S. A., Grisso, T., Gudjonsson, G. H., Leo, R. A., & Redlich, A. D. (2010). Police-induced confessions: risk factors and recommendations. Law and Human Behavior, 34(1), 3–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-009-9188-6
Loftus E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: a 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12 (4), 361–366. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.94705
