Netflix’s ‘Should I Marry a Murderer?’ Shouldn't Be Shocking

In the new Netflix documentary series Should I Marry a Murderer?, Caroline Muirhead, a Scottish forensic pathologist, falls in love with Sandy McKellar, a man who, after proposing, reveals to her that he and his brother have committed a homicide. What follows is baffling: Even after Muirhead turns him in to the police, she returns to his side. She’s spent her career reading evidence of violence; if anyone should have been repelled by her fiancé’s brutality, it was she.

Yet she still goes back, with disastrous consequences. In my practice, I have repeatedly witnessed sensible people who, in the thrall of strong attachments, seem to throw their judgment to the wind. But there will be many watching the documentary who don’t have the same frame of reference and will be tempted to dismiss Muirhead’s decision as an outlier.