E-Mail This Article to a Friend DEATH BE NOT PROUD True Crime comes to Salem BY MIKE MILIARD

Shane Bugbee grew up in the ’70s, in suburban Chicago — not far from the horrors concealed in serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s crawlspace. "Me and my brother and friends would ride our bikes up there to watch the dig," says the author and radio host. "And we’d hear the police officers talking."

The things the cops were saying — dark mutterings about the grisly finds unearthed from beneath those floorboards — weren’t making it into sanitized newspaper accounts of the "Killer Clown." Those discrepancies, coupled perhaps with the things Bugbee learned while spending his summers at the family funeral home, sparked a decades-long interest in the true stories behind so-called "true crime." And so was born the True Crime Warped Minds Tour, which comes to Salem on Friday as part of the town’s Festival of the Dead. Here, Bugbee, a self-described "cultural forensic pathologist," will talk straight about all things Gacy and Bundy and Dahmer.

With the huge popularity of crime TV (Cold Case, CSI, Bones), Bugbee would seem to have a ready-made audience for this multimedia Grand Guignol. But he’s just not so sure folks are ready for it. "True crime and serial killers have been so popular in this country for the last couple years," he says. "But it upsets me how homogenized it’s become. They cut all the reality out of these shows, so people can ... almost romanticize this stuff."

There’s nothing romantic about Bugbee’s crime-scene photos. Or the footage of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold screaming and waving shotguns in their videotaped threats, or a real-life clip of an attempted murder, or a "shocking" home movie of an animal being tortured, made by a future serial killer. Bugbee makes no bones about it: this is not a night for anyone seeking campy Halloween fun. "It’s very shocking stuff for sure," he says. "This is what Bill Curtis leaves out when he does his A&E Biography on a serial killer."

In the 20 years he’s pursued this ghastly avocation — one he talks about every week on his Web cast (threeringradio.com) — Bugbee has amassed an ever-changing collection of true-crime artifacts. He buys things, studies things, and then sells things to people more morbid than he is. ("I am not a collector. I think they’re sort of a strange lot.") Among the bloodstained relics on view are serial killer Aileen Wuornos’s "death shirt," and a hatchet used by depraved grave robber Ed Gein.

In fact, the big-ticket item at TCWMT is Gein’s 1949 Dodge pickup — possibly the same one he used to hunt for human quarry during his Eisenhower-era killing sprees — which is being sold on eBay ($90,000) by a couple of residents of Gein’s hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin. They’ll also be in attendance. "They are the real deal," says Bugbee. "These people alone will creep folks out. People in that town are messed up. They have dead dogs hanging from the trees up there. It’s just bizarre. Insane."

Of course, there’s a mite of black humor to all this. Examples of mass murderers’ paintings and writings will be on exhibit, as will black-velvet portraits of serial killers by artist/satanist Jack Malebranche (yes, the Boston Strangler is one). Music comes courtesy of the Crawlspace Brothers, who sing cheerful songs of murder and mayhem.

Still, although though he’s corresponded with Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez, even though he co-authored a book with Gacy before his execution, and compiled old-maid murderer Dorothea Puente’s favorite recipes, Bugbee insists he harbors no love for murderous sociopaths. "I’m for the death penalty. I think these people should be put to death immediately," he says. "I think it’s sickening how people have romanticized these serial killers and talk about them like they’re geniuses."

True Crime Warped Minds Tour will be held from 8 pm to midnight on October 21 at the Lyceum Bar and Grill, 43 Church Street in Salem. Tickets are $75; Call 617.423.6000. www.clubhate.com and www.festivalofthedead.com