Anastasiya Zhirova

Excellent 101 Research Project

Faculty Mentor: Heidi Bratt

Hello, my name is Anastasiya, or Ana for short. I’m currently a sophomore with an interest in criminology, although I’ve recently switched my major to Economics. My goal is to attend law school and eventually practice litigation in the big city, hopefully becoming the first lawyer in my family. In my spare time, I love reading (mostly classics), painting, and spending time with my two cats. The inspiration for my paper came from the release of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” the docuseries by Ryan Murphy. It sparked a significant amount of controversy around the ethics of retelling real-life murder cases.

Click here to read Zhirova’s piece “Criminally Attractive: How our addiction to 'murder-tainment' is shaping our behavior toward killers”