In Wafeeq Sabir’s classroom on TR Campus, students started their morning learning about Jeffery Dahmer and how to catch a killer like him.
It wasn’t some crazy, caffeine-fueled tangent after one-too-many binges of “NCIS.” This was part of the lesson plan.
This is what makes Sabir’s Serial Killers and Extraordinary Homicides class different.
The class, taught by Sabir, a criminal justice professor, covers the psychology, methodology and history of serial killers, cults and unusual murders. The class is an eight-week technical course that aims to dive into the gritty details.
“This is the type of class I want to sit with it long enough and allow students to be able to have fun and really process these individuals they’re reading about,” Sabir said.
He wanted to make it clear to his students that, despite the fascinating material, serial killers are not just a story or an interesting TV show. They leave real devastation in their wake.
Sabir uses his law enforcement background of 25 years at the Fort Worth Police Department to connect textbook knowledge with lived experience.
TR student and criminal justice major Yvonne Marie Curtis is taking the class as part of her route to becoming a criminal profiler like she saw in the TV show “Criminal Minds.”
“He gets you to think about what’s happening,” she said about Sabir’s teaching style. “You feel like you right there, in that position, in that situation.”
Sabir shared his encounter with a young, cross-dressing prostitute who used to stand on Rosedale Street in Fort Worth in the ‘90s. The prostitute, who went by the name Penny, was chased down the street by one of their customers with a gun.
Sex workers make up a sizable percentage of violent crime victims, especially serial killer victims.
“Oftentimes, [serial killers] go after prostitutes simply because even if they victimize them, they’re likely not going to call the police,” he said.
Sabir doesn’t shield the class from the reality that serial killing cases have involved horrifying topics like rape, hate crimes, cannibalism and incest.
He said much of the public’s fascination with serial killers is driven by the media, which tends to sensationalize these topics.
TR student and criminal justice major Hannah Lima was drawn toward the class by her love of true crime stories. After taking the class, however, her perspective on serial killers has shifted.
“Killers shouldn’t be as famous as they are,” she said. “The media should focus more on the victims.”
Sabir advised others not to look for the motivation behind serial killers.
“Remove that and then look at them for what they are,” he said. “There’s no humanity there. It’s long gone.”
Lima said she was surprised to learn in class that a lot of serial killers can be classified as sane.
“They’re not all, like, psychotic or crazy,” she said. “They’re very sane in how they talk. If you didn’t know what they did, you would consider them kind of a normal person in the crowd. It makes you think about the people you see in public. Could you be walking by someone like that?”
The students were assigned a question near the end of the semester about how they might apply the information they learned from class to protect themselves and people they care about.
“Back in the day they would show you a picture of the devil, and the devil was a red man with horns and a tail. If we saw that walking down the hall, we would take off running,” Sabir said. “So if you would run from that, why aren’t people running from serial killers? Because they don’t look devilish. They’re handsome people. They’re charming people.”
