Police Line Do (Not) Cross: True Crime TV & Podcasts

New wondery podcast Over My Dead Body is pretty good.

Obv this way more than true crime but Lorena docuseries in Amazon Prime is a must-watch.

and in case you are wondering yes ~he~ is still a walking piece of human garbage & he will make you want to throw your tv out the window

but Lorena herself is v inspiring

and I cried through the whole 3rd episode

I am addicted to Yeardley Smith’s “Small Town Dicks”.

Quite possibly my platonic ideal of a true crime show.
Most of the details are relayed by the IRL small-town law enforcement who worked the crime, perhaps one of the two detectives Dan & Dave or their colleagues, interspersed with querying or clarifying questions from Yeardley or Zibby.

At times, it’s fuuuuucking brutal; like if Forensic Files was a podcast. These guys will spare no detail, & lay it all out in that very matter of fact way.

One thing I love is they occasionally talk to other involved people, like a victim’s mother, or the dispatcher . It’s usually really good & adds a lot of context to a case.

I dunno if it’s for everyone: but it’s DEF for me.

It’s SO rare that hosts are willing to take a backseat & let the stories be told to them. It’s impressive.

I unsubscribed from Sword & Scale years ago - had no idea the host was such a horrible person but am not surprised.
https://www.tampabay.com/arts-entertainment/want-to-quit-your-job-and-start-a-true-crime-podcast-obscuras-host-did-it-20190703/

yeah Sword & Scale turned me off years ago. Host is a grade-A douchebag.

Oh my bf has said a loootttt about Boudet, he is Not a Popular Man among the indie TC pod community.

"I Love You, Now Die" is extremely compelling

Darknet Diaries has hit a streak of terrific episodes this year, but this one on the financial trader who dug the bunkers underneath his house in Bethesda is outstanding. I had no idea this was the same guy who set fire to hard drives at hacker cons.
ttps://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/

Crimetown season two is outstanding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Noida_double_murder_case

watched pt one of the hbo show, its not great just read the wiki if youre interested

god help me I started listening to Wondery’s Mysterious Mr Epstein podcast - it is v good, I really like Lindsey Graham (not that one) as a host, his American Scandal podcast is great.

anyhoo it’s creepy and gross and I cant stop listening...and Real Crime Profile has a crossover series of eps about it. You havent lived til you hear Jim Clemente lose his ~shit~ over the deal Acosta gave Epstein in 2008. I have never heard him so angry (& he is an angry man at the best of times)

Also Kim Goldman (sister of Ron Goldman) has a podcast about the OJ trial & she talks to everyone & it is v good. First ep is v sad, she talks to a lot of Ron’s friends etc. Highly recommend.
c

This is interesting:

https://newrepublic.com/article/155801/favorite-murder-problem

I think it would be hard to listen to MFM and get the sense that your trust in the police (as opposed to a handful of hero cops) should be greater but there’s something increasingly troubling about the way they, and the broader network, looks at justice. The strain of ‘why aren’t people locked up forever / why aren’t people executed’? has been there for a while but it was legit shocking to hear Kilgariff recently talk about a prisoner being murdered by other prisoners as a great piece of moral community justice.

The trend mentioned briefly in the article towards positioning the listener as detective and crowdsourcing investigations is even worse imo. Paul Jensen’s podcast on their network strikes me as deeply irresponsible and dangerous.

In terms of fearmongering / copagands, TV procedurals are much worse than podcasts, though.

I just binged the Teacher's Pet series. They actually had to take the podcast down in Australia! That's nuts.

legit shocking to hear Kilgariff recently talk about a prisoner being murdered by other prisoners as a great piece of moral community justice.

oh no, poor necrophiliac serial killer got what was coming.

This has always bothered me about MFM. So much of true crime fandom is like this. It seems like the emphasis on identifying with and emphasizing with victims, in theory a good thing, is often shallow, self-indulgent, sanctimonious, and a way to avoid critical thinking or challenge. So are the usual lazy supposed explanations of why women love true crime.
Also, true crime podcasts classifying themselves as “comedy” and endlessly repeating that they’re not experts and don’t do much research seems like something of a cop out at this point.
Of course it’s nothing new or exclusive to podcasts.

Xp, yes, if you think the death penalty should be outsourced to other criminals’ sense of justice, it’s great.

i don’t disagree with the newrepublic piece in general. true crime fandom as a collective esp now that it’s so out in the open def has some tendencies that I don’t love & that make me uncomfortable.

but my thing is, singling out MFM is lame. there’s a TON good thoughtful true crime podcasts with large followings that dont delve into comedy at all. MFM has been honest about their approach & their failings from the beginning. calling them out for things they arent doing and never intended to do is really just a great way for an intelligent writer to drag an easy target.

All it does is make existing MFM fans more defensive and non MFM fans feel more smug.

MFM has such a big platform and large, vocal fan base. I don’t think disclaimers about their approach, limitations etc give them carte blanche or absolves them of all responsibility for what they say. It also seems to me that they and some of their fans are happy enough to claim to be feminist, socially aware, advocate for victims, take positions on issues etc -to the point of self-righteousness- but then deflect criticism by being “comedy”.
There’s social responsibility but it’s also about quality-after a while listening to ignorance, standard issue knee-jerk reactions and cliches etc just isn’t that enjoyable. (Of course it’s even worse with some other podcasts which in addition to all that don’t have any of the good qualities of MFM. )
I do think the article could have taken a broader approach. These problems have always existed in true crime, but true crime fandom has reached a really annoying point. That’s the nature fandom I guess but there’s certainly room for improvement.
(Also, obviously that was meant to say empathizing not emphasizing in my post above.)

the netflix series on henry lee lucas is fascinating (much of it is abt arrogance corruption and uselessness in the texas rangers, and the politics surrounding pushback against his absurd claims)

the ITV recreation of the investigation into the white house farm murders in 1985v in essex: it was bungled initially -- police believed sheila, the daughter with a history of mental illness, had shot her adoptive parents and her two boys (twins, 6) and then herself. suspicion -- as of ep 3 -- is turning towards the adoptive son

Bamber used to regularly phone in to talk radio in the mid 90s, pretending to be someone else, and gradually bring conversation around to the innocence of Jeremy Bamber, until they cottoned on and cut him off.

Casefile is back with a new 2 hour episode on Azaria Chambers :D

Am I the only one who watched the Atlanta Child Murders doc on HBO?

I have it on my list to watch but I haven’t been in the right frame of mind yet...

It's really well done, but yes, so sad

Particularly as someone who grew up just outside of Atlanta and never heard about the murders (until a few years ago). I read most of the James Baldwin playboy piece - this seemed to strike a familiar tone by the end.

I'm four episodes into Forgotten: The Women of Juárez, and it's very very good but hfs grimdark. (and I thought I knew the story going into it)

Anyone else watching the NXIVM doc “The Vow” on HBO?

First ep aired tonight, lot of inside footage & primary source material, bodes well so far

Episode 2 of “The Vow” went up last night. Watched at lunchtime. Crazy. introduces the really disturbing stuff, so all the almost-normal of the first ep gets put through the funhouse mirror & shit gets weird & bad.
the ending of ep 2 was O_o

it’s been impressive in its depth so far

in opposite news, Class Action Park hbo doc about action park theme park in NJ attempts to be both a morbid/fun nostalgia trip and a true crime doc and imo it really needed to either pick a lane or be much more sensitive.
Like, do I really have to say that you SHOULD NOT edit the voiceover of a comedian sort of wistfully saying that the 80’s were bad irl but when they’re drunk everyone who was there wil say that it was great —- over top of footage of the family of one of the park’s fatalities visiting his grave at the cemetery
bad. idea.

Oh and podcast wise:

Casefile just put up a new episode about the Stephen Stayner case. I listened to the whole thing yesterday it’s v good but (obviously) so crushingly sad & awful

I've never heard of Action Park, but the wikipedia article dropped a little tidbit that Alice in Chains filmed an episode of Headbangers Ball there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwxEbYVxkIg

they used an AIC clip of Jerry & Layne in the documentary

I have been watching the Murder At White House Farm miniseries drama on HBO - 3 or ; eps in so far

I only know a little of the case but something about the show itself feels off. I find it kinda boring? I think the switching focus between all the characters instead of staying w one or two dulls the momentum. Also Stephen Graham’s “welsh” accent is terrible.

But I will keep watching

3 or 4 eps in, that shouldve said

update: it is less boring once the girlfriend goes to the cops

Accent Watch: in addition to Stephen Graham’s “Welsh”, Alfie Allen does an egregious “New Zealand” accent

but in terms of the real story, if the mini series is anything to go by, this Jamie Bamber was a twisted, manipulative & dare I say nasty piece of work.

VG have you listened to The Informer (second season of Trace) about Nicola Gobbo, the lawyer who was informing on Victoria’s underworld criminals? It was pretty intriguing.

whaaaaaaAAAAAAT?

no

but i will immediately omg

I wasn’t going to but I ended up watching American Murder: Family Next Door while I folded the laundry

a) so weird how it’s all constructed from irl footage. Shannan Watts lived like her whole life on a Facebook group - plus there’s like bodycam footage from like, the responding officer after her friend called & said she was missing.

2) skywrite it: “This. Fuckin. Guy.”

iii) the operator of the lie detector is the star of this thing. she’s just flat out like “dude if you you did it, and you came here to take the test anyway knowing that you did it, you are an idiot” (paraphrasing but only slightly)

Really, really liking the Fly By Night podcast - stories about drug smuggling pilots. (well edited, each episode is 30min tops)
https://flybynightpodcast.com

the bbc harold shipman doc is ok at best -- the narrator's an idiot -- but i did enjoy the (unexplored) tension between that fact that he was hyde's most popular GP and everyone local also already knew him (long before the murders were public knowledge) as "doctor death"

lots of good and interesting interview detail in this doc, pulled annoyingly together by a presenter with nick broomefield insert-yrself disease: endlessly pretending not to know what he actually does already know, this lone late moral titan present himself as undertaking the *true* investigation, when all he's actually doing is regurgitating half a dozen earlier ones. every routine fact or long-ago practice cast as a troubling laboured marvel to reveal… but some of it is moving, and if he'd just stop and listen and *think*, some of these interviewees are very insightful >:(

murder on middle beach was wildly good imo

yes, so good! i just finished the final ep last night

pretty astonishing piece of work for such a young dude. i really am impressed by the series, and him.

great interview w Madison here about how it came about & life now that it’s out in the world
(spoilery i think? maybe dont read if you havent watched?)

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34865015/madison-hamburg-father-now-case-murder-on-middle-beach-finale/

New series up on Netflix
- “The Ripper” about the Yorkshire Ripper

I went in skeptical but it is pretty impressive, loads of primary sources & archival footage, interviews w family, police & higherups, journalists, forensic examiners who were all involved in the 70’s

Alot I knew already but the level of detail is v good

(Lots of good Yorkshire accents too)

Also ep 3 deals in detail w the effect of the killings on women & their reactions, v v good

I didnt know where else to put this but it is hilarious & great

The timeline is heavy today. For some levity, here's Nancy Grace reading Shakespeare. Inspired by the @yourewrongabout series on her pic.twitter.com/4eYC0quqk5

— Ryan Ken, True Prince of Wales (@Ryan_Ken_Acts) January 9, 2021

You absolutely must get on the george gibney podcast

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p08njhrm

ooh thx!