All my mom watches is all of those Murder shows on cable like Forensic Files and the like. She's been watching this since I can remember and long before I ever heard the term "true crime". I legit think shows like this are why so many gen-x and boomers are terrified of the world. They all open talking about how the small town that the case happened in was using almost identical language each time, " here in x we don't lock our doors, everybody knows everybody, things don't happen like this in x, we stop and help people on theroad ". And as a person who grew up in a small town I'm like what? Everyone there is the most paranoid castle doctrine ass motherfucker I've ever met. They don't know their neighbors and they treat anyone who they don't know as threats. Then the show goes at lengths to show you how kind, pretty, full of life, etc the victim is so they can then go into detail about how they were brutalized.
I don't know where I'm going with this rant it's just something that's been on my mind for a while.
Used to listen to it all the time before it blew up to what it is today. It was out of a morbid fascination and an intrigue into the lowest levels of human depravity.
Funny thing is I’m still as carefree as ever even though the town I live in is a lot more dangerous than where I was living when I first got into it.
Edit: I do know someone exactly as the type of people you described. One of my older American relatives. Lives in a very nice neighborhood with a nonexistent crime rate but is convinced everyone else is out to get her. Locks all the doors to her house and checks them twice, terrified of the city because she constantly watches news channels that tell her it’s a place where you will get shot, afraid of damn near anything that’s not some place she can drive to within five minutes.
Stayed with her as a kid briefly and I couldn’t go to sleepover parties because she listened to a radio news show that mentioned some people dying during one. She consumed early True Crime shows like 20/20, Dateline, 60 minutes, etc. all the time and it made her increasingly paranoid.
Thus reminds me of Tony Soprano's mom Livia keeps bringing up mother's throwing their babies out of highrises. Just the mind of a person who's only perception of the outside world is the 24/7 news cycle.