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

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.

harbl i am finally listening to trials of frank carson & am totally hooked - did the first 3 eps this morning. really great so far! I love all the primary source material theyre using

casefile last week was really crazy, i had never heard of this case & it stressed me the fuck out - mckenzie family murders 1993 in western australia, keyword ax murder aaaagh

also re Trials of Frank Carson i was driving around this afternoon listening to ep 4 intermittently yelling WHAT THE FUCK to no one

god, i know. literally pulling people off the street to charge them with murder.

it’s crazy. and the interviews the DA gives, shes so confident in the narrative theyve built, like it’s this slam dunk, and its all just complete nonsense! ARGH

why did u do this to me harbl

couple of good/great things i can highly recommend

Netflix doc: The Women & the Murderer
Excellent French doc - highly recommend going in without doing any prior background research.

Podcast: Murdaugh Murders
Man this story is wild.
South Carolina lawyer, local big deal & rich dude Alex Murdaugh & family has been in news a lot lately: unsolved double-murder of his wife & son, son’s involvement in a 2019 drowning, AND Alex was shot last week by unknown assailant on a backroad … this podcast by an independent local journo is maybe the best way to understand any of it. It’s bare bones but she seems to know her stuff & has put a lot of shoe leather into her reporting. Highly recommend.

Murdaugh was just in the news again. Turns out he hired someone to kill him so that his son could collect the insurance. Completely insane.

As in he wanted to commit suicide but knew that there’d be no life insurance for his son. Dude was also stealing from his law firm.

that's funny, i was reading about it and wanted to post about it and thought "it can go in the podcast thread because i'll wait until there's a podcast to learn about this," and lo

this podcast may be the only reliable souce of actual solid info

VG and I have been boggling over this for a few months now. Truly insane case.

And seconding VG on The Women and the Murderer, as I was the one who recommended it to her. (And said not to look up info about it first. Indeed, there's a real, profound sense that the presentation is clearly meant to be in a much different fashion from how the public saw the case at the time; even without that context, the way it IS presented does so in a fashion that becomes more striking the more it continues.)

Meantime, news just broke that Murdaugh is turning himself in, at least

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/us/murdaugh-shooting-arrest/index.html

Oh jeez and there's ANOTHER death:

Wednesday, SLED announced it was opening a criminal investigation into the February 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield and the handling of her estate.
Satterfield was the Murdaugh family housekeeper for more than two decades before dying in 2018 after what was described as a "trip and fall accident" at the Murdaugh home, according to attorney Eric Bland, who is representing her estate.
SLED said it is opening an investigation based upon a request from the Hampton County coroner that highlights inconsistencies in the ruling of Satterfield's manner of death, as well as information gathered during SLED's other ongoing investigations involving Alex Murdaugh.
"The decedent's death was not reported to the Coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed. On the death certificate the manner of death was ruled "Natural," which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident," the coroner's request to SLED said.

yep

there’s still another unsolved death from 2015 that has rumored link to the older son Buster Maurdaugh - investigation recently reopened after originally being closed in 2016

That Murdaugh case is strange as fuck.

I’ve been looking for a new investigative journalism pod so that French one sounds good.

I’ve been enjoying Wicked Words, where the host interviews writers about a case they covered. I like the conversational style.

Oh duh - it’s a doc not a pod.

I read 'We Keep The Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half century of silence" by Becky Cooper, about the Jane Britton cold case from 1969

It's really good, and exhaustive in its search for details and connections. Cooper is a good writer, and puts an impressive amount of shoe leather into her own investigation.
The world of late 60's Harvard and the niche world of archaeology/anthropology becomes incredibly vivid and at times I found myself picturing Britton as an endearing real-life Franny Sinclair
But it also got me thinking about the effect that blogs and livejournal have had on true crime reporting, that is:
the trend of amateur investigations that ultimately intertwines with the inner life of the investigator, ruminations on where their own lives have ended up, diversions into real life relationships, breakups, etc.
On the one hand I like the personal angle when it's done well ... but as someone who still favors old-fashioned journalism over navel-gazing, I'm not sure how well the trend really serves true crime.
I'm not sure that it does.

Also there's some super snarky reviews on Goodreads that got my hackles up -- the case was solved with DNA in 2018. And quite a few reviewers they did not finish the book because "what's the point of even publishing the book if the case was solved in 2018". Which really annoyed me. The author didn't know when she started poking around in 2010 that it would be solved. The end result didn't negate any of her work. I don't believe it did, anyway. Because it was such a thorough excavation of Jane's world and the people she knew, and it shows the ways that a mysterious/unsolved death creates its own narrative. And if anything, the 'solution' raises more questions than it answered! Anyway.

Big recommendation for the Firebug podcast here. You may already know the story about the Glendale, CA FD arson investigator who was convicted of setting thousands of fires around California in the 80s and 90s (Joseph Wambaugh wrote a book about it. Ray Liotta played him in a HBO movie). It's an interesting and disturbing story and the podcast

Interview with Firebug's host here, but if you're unfamiliar with the story just dive into the podcast.
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/greater-la/street-serial-arson-oc/firebug-points-of-origin-podcast

i havent started this yet but the Wambaugh book is excellent & v disturbing

I lived just up the street from that Ole's, but moved about a year before the fire.

oh wow :(

I think the fire hit the paint section and then really exploded, and the people killed were blocked by the flames from getting to the exit. I also think one or both of the employees that died were trying to save the grandmother and child.

when i lived in australia i worked w a guy at a commercial laundry who i swear to this day was an arsonist

he was a volunteer firefighter with an uncontrollable temper & zero social skills
he was never, ever on shift when there were fires even when he wasn’t on call (we had a lot of bushfires in our region, much like california). ppl who knew him said he was at at least two huge local fires *before* the crews had even arrived, and he lived the complete opposite direction. i personally saw him leave work a full hour before his shift was over & there was a fire that afternoon. unsurprsingly he got fired for fucking off early, but still… i always wondered

there was more to it than that

arsonists are so heinous to me & .. baffling in upsetting ways. the most awful combination of cowardice & malice

I'm sure this one will be coming to Dateline, 20/20, 48 Hours or a crime podcast soon, if not already being talked about.

This is a very 2022 crime. You got right wing paranoia with guns and the end of the world. A rich politician who has built a prepper doomsday bunker only leading it to be advertised in selling this crazy 6.5 million dollar house and end up getting his daughter killed in a shootout. World is a f'n weird place.

https://foxlexington.com/news/local/jordan-morgan-case-what-we-know-so-far/

not exactly true crime, but still

Molly Lambert (Night Call) has a new podcast that went up today - Heidi World: The Heidi Fleiss Story - also doubles as a history of Los Angeles during that time ie LA’s symbiotic relationship btw underworld + “over world” etc

it’s done in the style of some of the You Must Remember This episodes, with actors/podcasters/friends etc doing the voices of the people involved in the story - it’s pulling mainly from primary source material at the time so lots of direct quotes from all the main players.

Annie Hamilton does the voice of Fleiss - perfectly cast, gives a v good Heidi vibe

first ep’s a little clunky in its structure but i dont care, love that this story is being told

should be a good (cough) deep dive

Am two episodes into Mind Over Murder on HBOMax and it is really unique & well done

Examines a 1985 murder in a tiny town in Nebraska where 6 people were somehow charged & later exonerated … while the director also stages a community theater “documentary play” in the town, with the townfolk, based on the trial & interview transcripts etc

dunno where the heck its going but i like it

No love for Phoebe Judge's Criminal?

I used to like Truth & Justice, when it was about trying to undo wrongful convictions. Now, it's pretty much all about unsolved murders, and while I admired Bob Ruff's work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted, he's just not that good a host.

i enjoy Criminal! phoebe is great

I'm totally into Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Her voice is enchanting.

Brand new this week: “The Sunshine Place”: New podcast that goes deep into Synanon (produced by RDJ & his wife)

I’ve listened to the first 2 eps and am impressed by the amount of detail & it’s use of mainly primary sources. Long interviews with members & family members. Host is daughter of a Synanon couple.

Incldes interview w a 95 year old (!) survivor, who joined Synanon all the way back in 1960. Maybe the only one left from that time. She’s remarkable, and so lucid - she truly sounds like she’s about half that age irl.

Hoping for something in the general vicinity of the Heaven’s Gate series by Glynn Washington? Maybe that’s a big ask, idk. That for for me is still the only series about a cult that felt different, and interesting, and like it was saying something new. We’ll see.

Synanon has a lot of interesting & weird aspects to it & a lot of just straight bugfuck nuts stuff (snakes in the mail!) so i’m already intrigued by the inside stories from ppl who were in it rather than just “OMG THIS IS SO CRAZY” secondhand retellings of wikipedia articles