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

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!

dmac i started that Gibney podcast & it’s great - thx for the tip

Netflix just added a Night Stalker four-part docuseries & it’s v good so far. Solely focused on firsthand interviews w the irl homicide detectives, victim’s families, eyewitnesses etc -

Downside: Production values are OTT compared to the seriousness of the reporting which is a bummer but you get used to it. transitional editing is heavyhanded & corny at times ... at one point they cut btw a gun barrel & a backlit goldfish bowl so many times you’re like...he shot a goldfish?

but the actual interviews are really impactful & well worth if you are inclined to watch

lots of crime scene imagery cut into the eps so def visually disturbing at times — and the crimes are beyond awful so even the recounting can be upsetting. def not for everyone.

But in its favor, it’s not padded with bullshit from nonessential talking heads, very little is focused on Ramirez himself which is a huge plus, and the 4 ep length allows space in the interviews to get more emotional depth & context.

Recommended if you care to watch such things.

I wondered about that one - the trailer made it look v sensationalized compared to the Yorkshire ripper doc

yeah the look is kinda misleading: its worth it!

Launching into now

Really, really good. Two lads were absolutely amazing, straight outta seventies/eighties cop buddy cliché.

Right? Salerno is kinda legendary, hes like the LA equivalent of SF’s Dave Toschi (Zodiac)

I like how they brought in the other cop’s wife & the personal aspects of how the case affected their marriage.

Cannot stop thinking about that one survivor, the woman who was the 6 year old girl. That image of her reducing a room full of homicide cops to tears was pretty incredible. Her story in general too. My god. <3

oh and this moment

My favourite part from the Night Stalker doc on Netflix. What an absolute icon Ester Perschar is pic.twitter.com/y2C7DbQkLw

— Sophia Link (@milkbeforehoney) January 15, 2021

Yes to both!

I like how the entire show was basically the two boys laying in the long grass to call the entirety of the SF justice apparatus out as stupid, backward, craven nogoods

Even the lad they had on from SFPD was a class below the two boys and was v much allowed to show himself up as such imo

sfpd guy even admits to beating a confession out of the informant!

on another tip:

Criminal behavioural analyst Laura Richards of Real Crime Profile has a new podcast & it’s excellent

It’s called Crime Analyst, and she’s digging into the Peter Sutcliffe/Yorkshire Ripper case. 2nd episode is almost a full hour interview w Wilma McCann’s son Richard. It’s really affecting, and shows how media reporting affects victim famillies in really far-reaching unexpected ways.

They talk a little bit about the netflix series, and how the ripper name is v traumatizing to families- netflix changed the name at the last minute from Once Upon a Time in Yorkshire to The Ripper :( really had never thought about it until their discussion, gave me a lot of food for thought

Laura is one of my favorite experts & her level of compassion is sadly unique in her field.

Pembrokeshire murders just finished a three episode run on ITV here, dunno where youd get it but its low key, unshowy, simple and i was pleasantly surprised

Wire vibes at times too, if you can imagine luke evans running a murder investigation in wales transposing to their op centre at the port that time

Finally got around to “Who Killed Malcolm X” on Netflix

It’s really good! But w the caveat that it is def tooooo long by half & over edited to an inch of its life ie that ongoing Netflix-disease that drives me crazy. but the shoe leather this guy puts into exploring the case, the efforts to meet & interview witnesses & getting people on the record is really compelling. It’s crazy how much of a known secret the identities of the other shooters were/are.

i mean, it isnt crazy in one sense knowing how this kinda shit happens SO much ... and the NYPD & FBI being so in cahoots as to bowtie the case the way they did etc

but just seeing it laid out is def jarring

i feel there's maybe 12 minutes of worthwhile content in the 4 x 4hr doc abt elisa lam and the cecil hotal

and 4 mins of that is the famous spooky vid of her in the lift (we see it abt 15 times)

everyone interviewed -- guest or "youtuber" or detective -- is a total blathering idiot who cant be concise yet wont stop yakking, tho i feel mildly sorry for the still-stressed former hotel manager tasked with keeping the hotel's rep slightly less besmirched than it was always going to end up being

i read the recent book by jake anderson on it, ratio-wise the bk prob had less than 12 / 240 minutes worthwhile content if you convert to pages, it was trash

i kind of want to watch it but as much as I ove true crime i mostly hate armchair sleuthing
but i love that creepy fkn hotel so

in other news, How To Fix A Drug Scandal on Netflix is really, REALLY good (tho as usual a bit too long & kinda repetitive). Looks at the huge Massachusetts drug lab fuckup of the 00’s - faked results, skimming test samples & testing while high, AG office cover-up resulting in thousands of overturned convictions ... the whole nine yards.

including but not limited to a drug tester
high on lab’s supply
cooking crack
at work
at her desk

fuckin WILD.

ooooh cecil hotel is cursed, its haunted! No, its a flopshack full of crims and junkies of course people are going to come to grief.

i know the word "privilege" is worth being careful with but if ever you wanted a bunch of folk entirely unaware of how much they don't know -- and how little pressure life has to date put on them to be more alert to this -- then here they are being interviewed as the narrative drivers of this doc (insofar as as it even has a narrative or can be described as driven)

"when things are different than i expected or remembered i call it the mandela effect!" <-- same energy

OK i had only watched 3 of the 4 cecil hotel eps when i posted before

ep 4 doesn't really pull it back much in terms of valuable content but it DOES get round to trashing all the web sleuths and such (and requiring them to disavow their earlier very dumb contributions)

i hate hate HATE this nick broomfield-style approach to a documentary: making an entire fake meal of pretending you are going on the journey of discovery from early goofy misgrasp of the situation thru to "oh it;s not at all what i set you up to believe", and on the way making a drama of the authorities or the accused somehow not responding to yr enquiries so there must be a COVER UP (when actually the authorities just think yr an idiot or a pest or both) (the broomfield technique is to act the stupid pest to create the non-response and be able to call this a cover-up)

fvck nick broomfield they shd have executed him and set aileen wuornos free

er anyway this doc is bad and annoying bcz insanely too long and stupidly focused on "web sleuths" who are idiots but not as bad as nick broomfield to be clear

i am right there with you on Broomfield & all that he hath wrought. Hate his entire schtick, dude is the fucking WORST

I listened to the new Casefile podcast epidode about “The Family” murders in Adelaide late 70’s early 80’s

jeeeeeeeeesus christ i had no idea about any of it and I am deeply shooketh

Murder Among The Mormons on Netflix

I already knew the story going in, so much great footage, v well done - highly recommended for anyone going in cold, it has a lot of twists & turns

Anyone watching Sons of Sam?

no but i kinda hate these kinds of fishing expeditons, they really try my patience. i feel ok believing berkowitz did it alone & the multiple assailant theory is baloney.

but hey i might end up watching regardless lol

have you watched it? does it hold any amount of water?

Two episodes in...outside of the theory itself, kind of ordinary so far; I found the Mindhunter Berkowitz scenes more compelling. (I don't much about the case.)

"know much"

“Mindhunter” Berkowitz was so good because they leaned so hard into what a pathetic mook he is irl. Exactly the type to commit that kind of crime.

He seemed to enjoyed the notoriety because of how afraid everyone was of him at the time, but somehow he conflated that with HIM being terrifying rather than the act

which is par for the course with most killers are dumb egomaniac cowards obv but Berkowitz is def a case of a killer believing his own press

Third episode gets into some stuff on the Process Church and Ed Sanders that's pretty interesting.

the trials of frank carson podcast is insane. it's taking everything i have not to google to find out what happened.

say no more, i’m in

“The Devil Within”, about the 1988 murder of Betty Sullivan by her 14yo son is absolute garbage. I thought it was an investigative-journalism series but it’s actually about demonic possession. It totally sensationalizes the crime, doesn’t cite any sources*. I only listened to the first episode but the tag line stated they would finally “uncover the truth” so I skipped to the last episode and... the host is describing Thomas’s last day as if it’s fact and not 100% speculation - what he was dreaming about, how he was feeling, his so-called spiritual wake up.

The whole thing seems incredibly offensive and exploitative, and I don’t think the brother or father had any part in it.

*the murderer, Thomas, apparently hacked at his wrist repeatedly, only to sever a bunch of tenders so badly his hand was bent all the way back on his wrist; when that failed to kill him, he slit his own throat so deeply he almost decapitated himself. All with a 3.5” scout pocket knife. The podcast just states this as fact but no news article mention the wounds being this impossibly severe.