Crime novels and "true crime" genres of books are perennial best sellers. The type of folks who read that stuff often (though not always) go in for the "Cops" and "Americas Most Wanted" shows too. It is a certainly personality type that gets into this stuff, and at least some of them are obviously tuned to Fox, CNN & MSNBC, because those are the channels most guilty of the sensationalist coverage. Let's face it, the 24/7 world of anything is news has some serious drawbacks for certain kinds of people.

I don't think it has anything to do with the low risk/high risk factor though, guest sympathy. I think it is just some people's lurid fascination with the morbid and macabre, and the fact there is always some Barnum willing to give them what they crave. But I do think control issues, and by extension the unpredictability factor, do enter into the interest in this particular case. But then, what was the reason for the same sort of coverage last summer of the child abductions?

My sister (who is one of those types of people I describe above, who has been addicted to the coverage) tells me CNN (?) came out with a survey of DC area residents which showed less than half the people changed the way they conducted themselves during the past few weeks, and then even less people thought they were personally at risk, etc.

Hysteria and fear are highly contagious among certain types of people. My sister is one of them.