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This Couple Turned a Macabre Hobby — Writing to Serial Killers — Into a ‘Skyrocketing’ Business: ‘People Are Fascinated By Death’

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This Couple Turned a Macabre Hobby — Writing to Serial Killers — Into a ‘Skyrocketing’ Business: ‘People Are Fascinated By Death’

Cathee Shultz and JD Healy give their customers an up-close look at death.

Forty-four years ago, Cathee Shultz and JD Healy met while working at a cafe in Arizona. She was the “cappuccino girl,” and he was the baker. Even though they had opposite shifts, the two artists caught each other’s eyes. They got married two weeks later.

Before long, Shultz and Healy channeled their creativity into the Rita Dean art gallery (a combination of their middle names), based in San Diego, California. The couple’s gallery featured “against the grain” work across death, sex, politics and more, some of which stemmed from a macabre hobby. 

“ I started writing to serial killers and visiting them on death row,” Healy says. “I accumulated this large collection of serial killer artwork. And being an artist, I also like building things. So I used to build full-size guillotines, gallows. Anything that deals with execution devices.” 

Shultz and Healy noticed a significant trend: Of all their themed shows, those having to do with death-related topics drew the biggest crowds.  

“ People are fascinated by death,” Shultz says. “You want to look at it, but not do it.” 

By 1995, Shultz and Healy were running their art gallery on the ground floor of a three-story building. Upstairs, they had a “freak farm” museum displaying rare animals (like two-headed and albino turtles). “Since they were alive, I had to keep them really clean, and it was a lot of work,” Shultz says.



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