108: Down City and The FBI Files (Yahweh ben Yahweh)
(Content warning for suicide and addiction issues.) Alex Segura somehow made time amongst his new babies -- a human AND a just-published last book in his Pete Fernandez series -- to talk about Leah Carroll's 2017 Down City, her memoir of her childhood after her mother's murder when Carroll was just four years old. The subject matter, which also includes her alcoholic father's decline, is rough ...
1hr 2m Aug 14, 2019
1hr 2m
107: Free Meek and ReMastered: Who Killed Jam Master Jay?
Why is law enforcement so interested in bringing cases against a hip-hop star when he's alive...and not as interested in solving the case when he's dead? Eve Batey is back to talk about Amazon's Free Meek, which takes on the story of Meek Mill, punitive probation, an activist judge with opinions on remixes, and how "police contact" and the art of rhymes feed each other. But is Free Meek as good...
1hr 1m Aug 07, 2019
1hr 1m
106: No One Saw A Thing and The Doorstep Murder
Sundance continues staking out space in the prestige-true-crime space with No One Saw A Thing, a six-parter on the killing of Ken Rex McElroy in Skidmore, MO in 1981 and what that's meant to the town since then...but although it's well made, Allison and I agreed that both-sides-ism and a certain cynical willingness to let correlation be causation undermined the series overall. Are you better of...
59m Jul 31, 2019
59m
105: Uncovered (The McMartin Family Trials) and Bundyville: The Remnant
Toby Ball and I liked Uncovered: The McMartin Family Trials well enough, but we still wished Oxygen were less whodunnit and more whydunnit in its coverage of this most famous of Satanic-panic cases -- how it got so big and lasted so long. We'll never know what really happened...so why not spend more time on why THIS was allowed to happen? The second season of Bundyville gives us just the Frontl...
1hr 5m Jul 24, 2019
1hr 5m
104: Injustice With Nancy Grace and Who Killed Garrett Phillips?
...Why is Nancy Grace so successful? What is the point of her new Oxygen joint, Injustice With Nancy Grace, a show that complains about the very rushes to judgment in which she usually specializes? Does she make these grand banal pronunciamentos about pure evil at home, like after she walks through a spiderweb or something? Lani Diane Rich is back to help me tackle those questions. Later, we pr...
1hr 23m Jul 17, 2019
1hr 23m
103: I Love You, Now Die and Patty Hearst (1988)
Erin Lee Carr has had a busy year, but I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter proves she's not too busy for nuance. The two-part documentary film, airing this week on HBO, looks at both sides of Conrad Roy III's tragic death, acknowledges the human instinct to find someone to blame, and takes us back to our own gusty teenage girlhoods. "Enjoyable" isn't the right word, but it...
1hr 7m Jul 10, 2019
1hr 7m
102: 16 Shots and The Thin Blue Line
Showtime's 16 Shots looks at the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2014, and why this police-involved shooting galvanized Chicago. Kevin and I talk about the excellent access filmmaker Richard Rowley gets on both sides of the issue; give suggestions for police procedural manuals; and wonder when the "a few bad apples" line of rationalizing will stop getting trotted out. Another police-involved shoot...
1hr 28m Jun 26, 2019
1hr 28m
101: The Old Man & The Gun and Incendiary: The Willingham Case
I'm so glad I could finally welcome Omar G to the TBP guest chair...and that it was to talk about David Lowery's The Old Man And The Gun, a charming joint about a senior bank robber and escape artist, Forrest Tucker, that flew totally under our radar last year. It shouldn't fly under yours, though; it's fun, smart about managing story, and elegantly shot, and an American legend is having the ti...
59m Jun 19, 2019
59m
100: Devil's Knot and All The Queen's Horses
Did we close the door on the centenary episode with a bang, or a whimper? ...Whimper, I'm afraid. Toby Ball kindly made room in a packed day to join me for two Cold Case properties, the first a feature film about the Paradise Lost case, Devil's Knot, that doesn't know who it's for, what it wants to say, or how to fit a Shoah-size story into a feature-size runtime. Also, who just has a picture o...
56m Jun 12, 2019
56m
099: When They See Us and Who Killed Nancy?
Ava DuVernay's four-part masterpiece, When They See Us, hit Netflix last weekend, introducing us to the boys and men who survived getting railroaded for the 1989 "Central Park jogger" attacks; to the outsize acting talents of Jharrel Jerome, Asante Blackk, and many others; and to what it's like to cry when you see Coney Island. Piper and I discussed all that, plus innovations in flashback writi...
58m Jun 05, 2019
58m
098: Two on Rebecca Zahau and Two American Experiences
Recording on Memorial Day, I went guestless to talk about two takes on the contested death of Rebecca Zahau: ID's Murder Mystery version, and a limited series from Oxygen called Death At The Mansion featuring Loni Coombs, Paul Holes, and Billy Jensen. Is either one worth your time? Does the nature of the case mean no TV show about it can maintain any momentum? And what is with the lingering sho...
27m May 29, 2019
27m
097: Who The Hell Is Hamish? and The Woman Who Wasn't There
It’s taking all my strength to resist making a “throw another con on the barbie” joke, so why fight it: today Eve and I are talking about tragedy vampires on today’s episode, starting with the latest limited series from The Australian: Who The Hell Is Hamish?. How did Hamish Watson con so many people? Where did all that money go? And what makes Greg Bearup and The Australian's narrative constru...
1hr 10m May 22, 2019
1hr 10m
096: Extremely Wicked... and In Cold Blood (1996)
Did Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile live up to the hype? ...Not quite. Jeb rejoined me to discuss Berlinger's scripted take on Ted Bundy, or more accurately Bundy's corrosive effect on one of his living victims, his longtime girlfriend Liz Kendall. Did the film do what it set out to, or was the dark gravitational pull of the killer himself too strong? Should Terrence Malick have tak...
1hr 5m May 08, 2019
1hr 5m
095: At The Heart Of Gold and Cold
Stephanie Early Green was here to talk about Believed in Episode 077, and somehow made it through Erin Lee Carr's excellent but harrowing At The Heart Of Gold also...though we both wept at various points. The film comes to HBO May 3, but you can listen to our discussion about the importance of testimony, the miasma of guilt and responsibility around Nassar, and our admiration for Judge Aquilina...
1hr May 01, 2019
1hr
094: Kids Behind Bars and A Crime To Remember (the Looking For Mr. Goodbar case)
The name is a little glib, but A&E's Kids Behind Bars: Life Or Parole looks at the Supreme Court decision that forced the resentencing of juveniles given life without parole as teenagers, and Piper is back to look at the eight-episode series: the incarcerated "former kids" it chooses to focus on, the way each story is built, the perspectives of law enforcement and victims' families, and the con...
1hr 5m Apr 24, 2019
1hr 5m
093: We Are Columbine and Most Notorious on Adolph Coors III
Director and Columbine High School graduate Laura Farber made a very personal look at living with the 1999 massacre, featuring a handful of her classmates, and Toby is back to talk about the emotional terrain it covers, how it chose its subjects, and the ways survivors live with trauma. In the Cold Case section, my attempt to impose a Colorado theme backfired somewhat with a Most Notorious epis...
1hr 4m Apr 17, 2019
1hr 4m
092: The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann and Who Took Johnny
Netflix's eight-part review of the Madeleine McCann case, The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann, is journalistically rigorous -- but is it rigorous to a fault? Eve returns to look at the series, its organizing principles, its indictment of tabloid media's role in the case, and how we think the case would "play" if Madeleine disappeared today. The bleak possible outcomes continue in the Cold Cas...
1hr 20m Apr 10, 2019
1hr 20m
091: Screwball and 30 For 30: No Crossover: The Trial Of Allen Iverson
You may not remember much about the Alex Rodriguez/Biogenesis flap from a few years back; you may not care about it now. But Billy Corben's weird, withering Screwball is the best kind of documentary: the kind that works even for people who don't think they care about the topic. Mike Dunn returns to the podcast to discuss the bizarre, yet perfect, re-enactments by Little Leaguers, the snarky sou...
1hr 9m Apr 03, 2019
1hr 9m
090: The Act and History Detectives
Is Hulu trying to make its own American Crime Story with anthology true-crime series The Act? Maybe; Tara Ariano and I agree they're off to a good start with the eight-part Gypsy Blanchard limited series co-created by Michelle Dean. Good production design, good performances, and a good sense of the claustrophobia in Gypsy and DeeDee's relationship make for a compelling look at a case full of co...
58m Mar 27, 2019
58m
Brief 42: To Live And Die In L.A.
A flawed but compelling investigation into the disappearance of Adea Shabani.
8m Mar 25, 2019
8m
Brief 41: Roll Red Roll
A new documentary revisits the Steubenville rape case. What is it trying to say?
9m Mar 22, 2019
9m
089: The Inventor and Children Of The Snow
It's yet another take on the rise and fall of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, so of course I had to invite Stephanie Early Green back to talk about The Inventor. Neither of us can ever resist variations on this story...but does the Alex Gibney documentary make too many allowances for Holmes's initial good intentions? Should it have been a limited series instead of a two-hour film? A...
59m Mar 20, 2019
59m
Brief 40: Manhunt
ITV's popular three-parter brings its bracing lack of contrived melodrama to Acorn.
6m Mar 18, 2019
6m
088: The Case Against Adnan Syed and 30 For 30 Bikram
Another look at the case Serial made super-famous, plus a podcast about a predator guru Adnan Syed's case is back in the headlines (if we can say it's ever really left, post-Serial), and back in the true-crime-review discussion with HBO's four-part series The Case Against Adnan Syed. Eve Batey joins me to talk about the Amy Berg-directed docuseries, which, while it's well made, seemed to have a...
1hr 10m Mar 13, 2019
1hr 10m
087: Leaving Neverland and the Skye Borgman Interview
Leaving Neverland is the HBO doc everyone's talking about, and Piper Weiss is back to discuss it. We had our problems with it (the length, the score) but we had things we admired about it too (the room it left Robson and Safechuck to feel however they needed to about Michael Jackson, even to miss him), even as we wished someone would make MJ: Made In America and take on the larger cultural phen...
1hr 17m Mar 06, 2019
1hr 17m
Brief 39: Ministry Of Evil
Sundance's four-part series on Tony and Susan Alamo's Christian-cult empire is solid and familiar...but is it TOO familiar?
8m Feb 27, 2019
8m
Brief 38: It's A Hard Truth Ain't It
Thirteen incarcerated men at Pendleton Correctional Facility collaborate with each other and director Madeleine Sackler on the stories of...well, their stories.
8m Feb 25, 2019
8m
Brief 37: Detainment
The controversial Oscar-nominated short raises questions about an entire genre.
11m Feb 22, 2019
11m
086: The Onion Field
Kevin Smokler returns to discuss Joseph Wambaugh's canonical account(s) of the murder of Ian Campbell On the Rushmore of true-crime classics, there's one face Kevin and I hadn't contemplated yet: Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, which narrates the fateful kidnapping of LAPD officers Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, the murder of Campbell, and the precursors and aftermaths of that night in the...
1hr 14m Feb 20, 2019
1hr 14m
Brief 36: Abducted In Plain Sight
The 2017 docu took Netflix by storm. Does it deliver on its promise, or should it push harder?
10m Feb 18, 2019
10m
Brief 35: Over My Dead Body
The story of Dan Markel's power-couple marriage, hideous divorce, and death is another Pringles-for-the-ear outing from Wondery.
7m Feb 15, 2019
7m
085: Lorena And Talked To Death: The Dark Side Of TV Talk Shows
Amazon Prime's Jordan Peele-produced Lorena drops Friday, February 15, and Piper Weiss is back to talk about what we missed in the Lorena Bobbitt story the first time around; why the focus seemed to be on the violence done to John Wayne Bobbitt's penis and not to his wife, by him; who crime stories should "belong to"; and the enduring repellence of the word "panties." Next, it's an early HBO do...
1hr 14m Feb 13, 2019
1hr 14m
Brief 34: ReMastered: The Two Killings Of Sam Cooke
The Netflix series interrogates the circumstances surrounding the demise of the soul singer and activist.
7m Feb 08, 2019
7m
084: A Very English Scandal And The Scandal Story
Mark Blankenship returns to discuss TWO eminently English scandals from the middle of the last century. Mark brought Amazon's three-part take on the Jeremy Thorpe "business," A Very English Scandal, up for discussion, and we contemplated -- as Toby and I did last week -- how outlawing human behavior turns a whole bunch of humans into criminals, and creates more problems than it solves. We also ...
1hr 3m Feb 06, 2019
1hr 3m
Brief 33: Monster: The Zodiac Killer
The Atlanta Monster team takes on the Zodiac, with mixed results.
10m Feb 04, 2019
10m
083: Murder Mountain And The Weather Underground
Toby Ball returns to discuss the clashes between two sets of sixties ideals and one implacable system, capitalism, in the latest podcast. We led off with Netflix's six-part series on the changing times in Humboldt County, CA, Murder Mountain, and its heady blend (so to speak) of true crime and subcultural documentation. How does it stack up with Josh Zeman's other projects? Did it need another ...
1hr 18m Jan 30, 2019
1hr 18m
Brief 32: I Am The Night
Another day, another take on the Black Dahlia that tries to do too much and loses me early on.
9m Jan 28, 2019
9m
Brief 31: The Drop Out: The Rise And Fall Of Elizabeth Holmes's Theranos
For those of us who wished Bad Blood would never end, it's a new podcast from ABC Radio.
8m Jan 25, 2019
8m
082: The Ted Bundy Tapes And Cathy Evelyn Smith
Sometimes I feel like I should retitle this podcast The Joe Berlinger Review Hour, because he's back on Netflix with Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and first-time guest Piper Weiss joins me to discuss the male gaze of the miniseries; Carol DaRonch's bitchin' Camaro; and the things about Bundy that it's not possible for us to understand. Later, we dug into the death of John Be...
1hr 17m Jan 23, 2019
1hr 17m
Brief 30: Smiley Face Killers
Oxygen's new series, on hundreds of possibly connected possible drowning deaths, sounds crazy...but it just might work. (My kookballoons idea for a "let happy-hour bar patrons try to crack unsolved cases" podcast, not s'much.)
11m Jan 19, 2019
11m
Brief 29: Untouchable
David Feige's 2016 documentary interrogates sex-offender registry statutes, but may not have questioned its own edit closely enough.
8m Jan 18, 2019
8m
081: The Skies Belong To Us And The New Yorker's "A Cold Case"
First-time guest Alex Segura joints me to talk about The Skies Belong To Us, a page-turner that made a bunch of 2013's best-of lists -- and with good reason, as each of us only needed a day to finish it. But it did leave us wanting more of some subjects, and not necessarily in a pleasing way. Later, we go back even further in time with a New Yorker piece from 2000 on the crimes and disappearanc...
56m Jan 16, 2019
56m
Brief 28: Dirty John, The Dirty Truth
Revenge Of Return Of Even More Dirty John Meehan, tonight on Oxygen.
5m Jan 14, 2019
5m
080: Surviving R. Kelly and Behind The Music
Mark Blankenship on Lifetime's wrenching, but imperfect, Surviving R. Kelly: the power of the first four episodes, and the weirdness of the last two; the "tradition" of fetishizing teenage girls in rock music; the voices we heard for the first time, and the ones we still haven't heard; and whose time is up next. Then we move on to a vintage Behind The Music that's both very typical of VH1's leg...
1hr 19m Jan 09, 2019
1hr 19m
Brief 27: 60 Days In, Season 5
A&E's undercover show heads to Arizona, and raises the stakes. Is it worth revisiting?
9m Jan 07, 2019
9m
Brief 26: Broken Harts
Two moms, six adopted kids, one terrible crash...and a somewhat amateurish podcast that's still compelling.
10m Jan 04, 2019
10m
Brief 25: Murderville
The Intercept's investigation of a wrongful conviction in Georgia is a sadly familiar story -- in more ways than one.
9m Jan 02, 2019
9m
Brief 24: The Lake Erie Murders
Will ID's event series on a notorious 1989 Ohio abduction hold your attention?
7m Dec 28, 2018
7m
Blotter's 11: The Best Of 2018 True Crime
Three reads, three listens, and five watches that made my best-of list for the last year. SHOW NOTES Bad Blood, Episode 70 (https://theblotterpresents.fireside.fm/070) Jessica Pressler on Anna Delvey, The Summer Of Scam (https://theblotterpresents.fireside.fm/70) Kathleen Hale, "Living With Slenderman" (https://hazlitt.net/longreads/living-slenderman) Last Seen, Brief 1 (https://theblotterprese...
14m Dec 26, 2018
14m
Brief 23: Magical Unsolved Mysteries Tour
Listener Scott J. tasked me with a line-up of noteworthy Unsolved Mysteries segments; I ranked all five, from ghostly hecklers to NKOTB video mysteries and everything in between. SHOW NOTES Season 1 Episode 22 (https://www.amazon.com/Episode-1/dp/B01NBWXMY5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1545397439&sr=8-1&keywords=unsolved+mysteries) Season 1 Episode 24 (https://www.amazon.com/Episode-1/dp/B01NBWXMY5/r...
24m Dec 24, 2018
24m