Amber Alerts · Idaho Misinfo · WWE
Plus: A true crime podcaster who is ducking the spotlight
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A new Peacock documentary wants to explain one of crime’s biggest — and arguably least understood — household names. We all know the phrase “Amber Alert,” but if pressed, I think few of us could explain its origins. That’s something Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert wants to change, a press release from the NBC-oriented streaming service claims. From the blurb:
“Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert offers a deep dive into the tragic case of 9-year-old Amber Rene Hagerman, the catalyst to the Amber Alert –the emergency alert system we are all familiar with but perhaps don’t know the origins of,” said Stephanie Steele SVP, Unscripted Current Production NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. “Through hours of raw, never-before-seen footage of Amber’s family leading up to and after her disappearance, Peacock’s latest Original documentary gives viewers a better understanding of the vibrant and loving young spirit that was Amber and the life-saving alert created in her name."
Unlike most of the Amber Alerts we receive, the Hagerman case has never been solved. Per a Dallas Morning News report from 2021, Hagerman disappeared on January 13, 1996, and was found dead four days later. Though investigators said on her slaying’s 25th anniversary that they had new DNA evidence that “that someday — with new technology that has solved other high-profile cold cases — could be the key to finding her killer” (forensic DNA techniques, it sounds like) — there hasn’t been any apparent movement in the case.
Arlington police declined to provide details about what physical evidence exists in Amber’s case because it is information only the killer would know. They want to prevent false confessions.
It’s unclear what would have been preserved from the original crime scene; Amber’s body was found after heavy rains that could have washed away evidence.
“The only thing that we’re saying at this point is we’ve maintained evidence this whole time, and we still have all of our evidence maintained that can be used,” [the cold case cop assigned to the Hagerman case] said.
Shows like Amber: The Girl Behind the Alert sometimes have a way of shaking new evidence loose, especially when we’re talking about a crime that’s left the main stage — but then again, we’re talking about a doc that will run only on Peacock, a platform that has struggled to find a subscriber base beyond (as of this coming spring) folks traveling via JetBlue. I don’t know that interest in the story behind the Alert will be enough to drive folks to sign up for Peacock, so this might end up being a well-intentioned doc that falls through the cracks. In any case, it will be available to Peacock users as of January 17. — EB
And now for some cases we’ve been following:
Danny Masterson Set to Learn If He’ll Face Second Rape Trial [Los Angeles Magazine]
The Scientologist/actor returns to court today, six weeks after a jury deadlocked in his high-profile rape case. In a motion filed Friday, Masterson’s defense team quotes that jury’s foreman in saying no jury would convict their client of all charges. Now it’s up to LA DA George Gascon to decide if his office wants to take another run at the case, and up to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo to decide if she’ll allow that possible second attempt. — EB
WWE Stunner: Vince McMahon Says He Plans to Rejoin Board of Directors as Company Pursues Possible Sale [Hollywood Reporter]
McMahon retired from the company he helped found last year after a multitude of sexual assault allegations and an admitted near-$20 million in payouts to his accusers. A few months later, rumors began to surface that McMahon was preparing a return, with the WSJ reporting that he “has said that he received bad advice from people close to him to step down and that he now believes the allegations and investigations would have blown over had he stayed.”
Those rumors became fact last week, when McMahon “told the WWE board of directors that he plans to name himself and two former executives, George Barrios and Michelle Wilson, as new board members” and “asked to be named executive chairman of the company,” THR reports. Statements from McMahon and the WWE on his return did not mention the many claims against him. — EB
Harvey Weinstein’s sentencing on Los Angeles rape conviction delayed [The Guardian]
After a second set of convictions (he’s already serving a 23-year sentence for his New York rape convictions) in LA, the former film producer saw his second sentencing rescheduled to February 23 in a hearing Monday. He could receive up to 18 additional years in prison, a sentence that might seem extraneous — I mean, have you seen pictures of this guy lately? — but is seen as critical by prosecutors given the (albeit, slim) possibility that his ongoing appeal in his NY case could succeed, as Bill Cosby’s did last year. — EB
This Vanity Fair profile of Chris Lambert is poised to launch a fleet of true-crime podcasters. By now, we all know the story of Your Own Backyard and its reported role in the conviction in the long-cold Kristin Smart case. I’ve certainly linked to other pieces on the podcast and its impact on the investigation and trial here, and Lambert has become a familiar face in coverage as Paul Flores wound his way through the Monterey County court system last year.
The VF piece, from Kate Storey, takes the Lambert mythology to the next level, though, and it’s hard to imagine that it won’t inspire a lot of independent investigations/podcasts just by making it all sound so damn easy. All you need is a good mic and some obsessive traits:
“Kristin Smart,” he typed. He clicked on a 2006 Los Angeles Times story: A Cold Case, a Haunting Mystery. It was long. He kept the tab open and kept coming back to it over the course of two days. When he got to the end, about the latest failed search for Kristin’s body, he searched around for an update or a documentary about Kristin. He went onto iTunes to look for a podcast about her case. There was nothing. A crazy idea popped into his head, What if I made a documentary? He’d never made a documentary, had no formal training, had no idea where to even start. But he emailed his girlfriend a link to the LA Times story and wrote, “I’m going to solve this case.”
It isn’t until way down in the story that Storey admits that “It’s hard to tell just how much Your Own Backyard kick-started the investigation which had been ongoing since Kristin’s disappearance—it was never officially a cold case, though, to the public, investigators didn’t seem to be making much progress until Lambert came along.” Smart was killed in 1996, and Flores’s arrest and trial came on the heels of the wildly popular podcast, though — so is correlation causation in this case, or just coincidence?
That’s almost immaterial, I guess, and that’s not really what Storey’s piece is about. Instead, Lambert comes across as slightly bewildered by his show’s success and the subsequent spotlight (he turned down an offer to turn the pod into a streaming series, citing “the ethical issue of making money off of the Smart family’s tragedy”), a likable guy a little stunned at the way things have played out.
That’s my takeaway, as someone who actually knows how much time and work Lambert must have put into his show (podcasting is hard when done right, folks), but I suspect others will roll straight past that to try to figure out how they can be the next Chris Lambert, widely cited as the person who helped solve the next big cold case.
And though I started writing this item thinking “and that is not a great thing!” as I typed, I had a change of heart. What if, instead of all these drink beer/wine and jokily recap Wikipedia entries on various past crimes podcasts, we had more hosts interview folks who actually know things shows? Maybe their motive — and the purity thereof — isn’t important, if that means fewer unattributed crime-recap podcasts out in the world. — EB
The University of Idaho mass slaying has generated a near-unprecedented level of misinformation. This, from a former colleague who now works as a social-media fact checker (yes, they do exist), and based on my own experience. If I had a dollar for every time in the last 10 days that I’ve had a casual conversation where someone stated as fact something completely inaccurate about the case, then said they “heard it somewhere” when questioned, it would mean we’d never ask for your paid BE subscription ever again.
But a spin through Google news-ranked content will give anyone a remarkable amount of bullshit in this case, from anonymous-source “witnesses” to unethical broadcast speculation to flat-out fabrications sadly common in the UK press. People spouting nonsense likely did hear it somewhere!
So in service of that — and because I know you’re all as annoyed by true-crime misinformation as I am — here’s a handy reading list to pass to anyone who seems like they need to be fed more facts about the Nov. 13 case.
10 Key Revelations in Idaho Murder Case [NYT] The hed is listicle-adjacent, but this is a good recap of the most important points in the newly unsealed court docs used to secure Bryan Kohberger as a suspect.
Everything We Know About the Idaho Murders So Far [Time] A concise timeline with abundant links not just to coverage but to the correct fundraisers for the victim families.
TikTokers Are Vilifying The Idaho Stabbing Victims’ Roommate For Not Getting Help Immediately After Seeing The Suspect, But Others Are Pointing Out She Deserves Empathy [BuzzFeed] This is the one for the tween/teen in your extended social circle who is suddenly a crime-scene expert as a result of Tik Toks on the case. Includes nice debunks on a lot of faked audio and video currently in circulation.
We should expect another wave of coverage this week, when Kohberger returns to court for a pretrial hearing on January 12. But the above links should help for now — and we’ll keep working on debunks and on getting you the facts as long as you’re interested. — EB
PS While researching this item, I discovered that the University of Idaho created branded graphics it encourages folks to use to “show support through social media.” They are pretty wild, and the decision to offer that just feels…odd. Any thoughts?
Wednesday on Best Evidence: Stupid crime tricks.
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