Lost Boy

As true crime has gone from niche to zeitgeist, all walks of life have begun to consume it. The massive expansion of forums like Websleuths, Reddit, and Uncovered, has galvanized millions of ‘citizen detectives’ to dedicate countless hours investigating, analyzing, theorizing, chatting, and posting incessantly about any true crime case imaginable. A discerning exploration of this movement reveals that trauma may well attract trauma. The most prominent voices in this arena have often experienced their own tragedy, and some appear to be using these cases to work through their own trauma, blurring the lines between seeking justice for others and redemption for themselves. The popular attention brought to them is clearly a factor as well. At the time of Dylan’s disappearance in 2020, an army of amateur detectives had just been credited for helping to identify the killer, Luka Magnotta of Montreal, in the Netflix series, Don’t F**k with Cats. And within weeks of Dylan going missing, the HBO series, I’ll be Gone in the Dark, had offered its own take on the subject with the story of how the Golden State Killer was caught. Then the pandemic hit and we all went a little crazier still. Although there are examples of ‘success stories’ for amateur sleuths, recent PR disasters like Netflix’s dramatic series, Dahmer, have started to make clear to the industry that the voracious appetite for crime as entertainment has opened Pandora’s box and we’re not sure where it’s taking us. In the last four years, Dylan Ehler and his little grey rain boots have gone viral many times over. His mother has retreated from the world almost entirely, but his father has become, in his own words, “addicted to social media”. Despite the harassment on all sides, to which he knows he is contributing, it is the only place that is still talking about his son. As the sleuths turn up the heat on him, based on his erratic behaviour, he points the finger more and more aggressively at the last person to see Dylan alive, his grandmother. This is understandable, but it also plays neatly into the narrative of what the world wants to see. Drama, conflict, and accusations flying every which way. Yes, people want true crime stories. But at what cost to our own sensibilities as storytellers, and to the lives of those whose stories we tell? These are some of the questions that haunt me and that I look to Dylan’s story to help answer.