A woman in central Ohio is following in the footsteps of other fellow Americans by following television crime-dramas as a way of life. Emily Creno, of Utica, convinced people that her four-year old son was dying of cancer. She scammed money and other kindnesses from people all across the nation. Her attorney has entered her into a plea of insanity, claiming that she had previous mental illness and did not realize her actions were illegal.
To the untrained eye it would simply appear that Creno is indeed suffering from mental illness, most likely that of Munchausen by proxy, a mental illness in which the inflicted intentionally causes harm to a chosen victim to continue to receive attention by association. In the television crime-drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit such a case occurred, on more than one occasion. There is no definite way to determine if Creno had seen these episodes and learned from them or if she truly developed Munchausen by proxy, but the case can be made that because television shows are becoming more and more detailed, she copied the show as if it were a “How-to Manual”.
Many other people have succumbed to the allure of television crime-dramas. They have become so detailed, in the crime and the takedown, that people have mimicked them to the tee in real life. Concerned parents have protested against the growing amount of gore and violence in video games, television shows, and movies. Perhaps they have a point when woman, like Creno, can no longer tell the difference between right and wrong (possibly due to watching television crime-dramas) how can children be expected to tell the difference. Maybe we should revert back to the old days of television where suspense and imagination were large parts of the experience