October 12, 2022

Angela Lansbury · House Arrest · Club 219

Plus: The Serial saga comes to a quiet close for everyone but the victim

the true crime that's worth your time

When a friend sent me this tweet last night, I assumed it was one of those bullshit stories1 that circulates right after a beloved person dies. But apparently it’s not, per a 2014 interview Angela Lansbury did with the Daily Mail that was picked up today by slews of ostensibly legit outlets, like Variety and The Independent. But still, grain of salt: all of today’s headlines are based in this single eight-year-old source, albeit a beloved source the world is mourning today.

(That video isn’t true-crime relevant, but it was the first thing I watched after I heard she died so here you go.)

So here’s the Manson-relevant bit of that Mail interview. Peter is Peter Shaw, Lansbury’s husband, and Anthony and Deidre are their kids.

Tragedy struck in the 60s when Angela and Peter discovered Anthony and Deidre had fallen in with an unsuitable crowd and become heavily involved with drugs - despite being barely in their teens.

It started with cannabis but moved on to heroin. There were factions up in the hills above Malibu that were dedicated to deadly pursuits. It pains me to say it but, at one stage, Deidre was in with a crowd led by Charles Manson. She was one of many youngsters who knew him - and they were fascinated. He was an extraordinary character, charismatic in many ways, no question about it.'

Something had to be done. 'I said to Peter, "We have to leave." So we upped sticks and moved the family to a house I found in County Cork. I was drawn to Ireland because it was the birthplace of my mother and it was also somewhere my children wouldn't be exposed to any more bad influences. I still have a house there which I try and visit at least once a year. So I refused all work for a year and simply kept house. I bought Elizabeth David's books and learnt how to cook properly. It was a wonderful time in my life.'

The effect on the children was just as she and Peter had hoped. 'Anthony pulled right out of his bad habits quite quickly. It took Deidre (now aged 60) a little longer but she finally got married and she and her husband now live in Los Angeles, where they run their own Italian restaurant.’

As you of course know, the Murder She Wrote star died “peacefully in her sleep” at 1:30 yesterday morning at her home on Los Angeles. She would have turned 97 on Oct. 16. — EB

Adnan Syed won’t face another trial. At a press conference Tuesday, Baltimore state attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that all charges have been dropped against the Serial subject, and that he cannot be charged again in the 1999 death of Hae Min Lee.

Per the AP, “additional DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect,” prompting prosecutors to decide against charging him again, just weeks after he was released from prison after serving 23 years.

“This case is over. There are no more appeals necessary,” Mosby said, but her office “will continue to utilize every available resource to prosecute whoever is responsible for the death of Hae Min Lee.”

That said, attorney Steve Kelly, who represents the Lee family, said that they only heard that the case was closed from the news, not from Mosby.

“By rushing to dismiss the criminal charges,” Kelly said in a statement, “the State’s Attorney’s Office sought to silence Hae Min Lee’s family and to prevent the family and the public from understanding why the State so abruptly changed its position of more than 20 years. All this family ever wanted was answers and a voice. Today’s actions robbed them of both.”

We’ve already discussed Serial’s role (or lack thereof) in Syed’s release, but there’s still plenty to talk about — especially, per the tweet above, how they appear to be bowing out of the case. The conversation continues; please do join in. — EB

I think the NYT just gave Anna Sorokin everything she ever wanted. I know I’m not the first person to wonder if being found out was the best thing to ever happen to the Inventing Anna subject, but I don’t think it really, really hit me until I read her recent interview with the New York Times.

Before now, I felt like her rep was scammy but amusing rogue, like Billy McFarland or the Hamburglar. But there’s something about the earnest approach the Times takes to this piece that makes Sorokin’s fame feel completely legitimate. Pre-conviction, she was faking her influence and fame, and the NYT wouldn’t have given her the time of day. Post-conviction, she’s an actual star, posing for photos from her New York apartment. What a world, right?

Reading her conversation with Emily Palmer, who covered Sorokin’s trial, I felt that same poised on a knife’s edgeness I remember feeling when Charlie Sheen first started speaking candidly with the media — like things could go either way with this arguably unpredictable person. For Sheen, they careened into car-crash obscurity (let’s face it, anyone who non-ironically crows “#winning” these days is flying a massive red flag), but perhaps Sorokin is more strategic? Let’s take a look at the piece and see:

When we spoke earlier this year, you said that you had changed a lot since the crimes you committed in your mid-20s. But the judge’s order doesn’t seem convinced of your remorse.
I definitely have a way different perspective now than I did when I came out the first time last February. It’s just impossible to have been through what I’ve been through without changing. I learned so much being in jail. There’s a very well-documented arc about how I’ve felt about everything. It wouldn’t be right if I were just to switch in one day. That would be very disingenuous. It’s a process. I am regretful about the way things played out. The way I’ve tried to see my experience is to learn from it: Who I am today is because of the decisions I made in the past.

You got the news you could leave Wednesday morning, but you didn’t have an apartment. Fast-forward to Friday night, and here we are sitting in your living room. In this New York market, I’ve got to ask: How did you find an apartment so quickly, Anna?
John [Sandweg], my lawyer, found it for me. I obviously wasn’t able to do anything from jail. I have a great team around me, so it was all thanks to them.

You post bail, pay three months’ rent on a six-month lease for a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village. Where’s all the money coming from?
I guess you’ll have to ask the government.

According to Sorokin, she’s working on a podcast, and “then there’s my book. I’d love to do something with criminal-justice reform to kind of highlight the struggles of other girls.” I guess the big question is if she can sustain her momentum, and turn it into something real — or will she transition into a dinner party oddity like Jordan Belfort? People can change, right? — EB

Dahmer is reportedly on top of the Netflix charts. It’s funny to think about how, when DAHMER: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story first came out, we wondered if its lack of marketing suggested that the series failed to earn Netflix’s confidence. Now, as The Hollywood Reporter reports, its “the second most-watched English language title in the platform’s history,” second only to Stranger Things.

It’s not lost on me that both shows have a similar nostalgic thing going: Dahmer was active from 1978-1991, while Stranger Things is set firmly in the mid-1980s. One has to wonder if the combination of scares with Reagan-era sentimentality that buoys Stranger Things also fuels what THR reports is “205.33 million hours of viewing time worldwide” for Dahmer, “ranking first for the third week in a row.”

In other words, I’m wondering if folks are looking at this show as standard Halloween-adjacent entertainment, with the based-on-truth element mainly forgotten. This is certainly a theory Sarah touched on last week, and one that’s supported by news items like this one on the newfound popularity of a Milwaukee-area bar that the Netflix series noted was a Dahmer hangout.

As of summer 2022, it's the Wall Street Stock Bar, but decades ago, it was Club 219, infamous for being frequented by Dahmer himself as he looked for victims.

The Netflix show has drawn true crime tourists, some even asking for a "Dahmer drink," which is not something you’ll find there. "I knew this was a place Jeffrey had found a few of his victims," said Charese Gardner, owner of Wall Street Stock Bar.

Gardner keeps that name out of her bar, instead highlighting iconic people of the stock market, not the building’s most infamous customer.

"We’re not doing a drink," said Gardner. "We’re not doing a mural."

Gardner said ever since the Netflix show profiling serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was released in September, a lot more people have been trying to get a glimpse at the path Dahmer took.

"I have face marks on my mirrors outside because people are like, trying to look inside," said Gardner. "I don’t really understand the obsession with walking on a place he walked at."

I’ll pause here for you to debate who’s wrought more misery on the earth: the wolves of Wall Street or Dahmer, before noting that Gardner’s complaints remind me a lot of folks frustrated by pilgrimages to the Full House house, or the house from Mrs. Doubtfire, and here’s where I was going to mention the problems faced by folks who lived in the Buffalo Bill house from Silence of the Lambs until I saw that they finally leaned into the location’s popularity and it’s now a short-term rental.

If you look hard enough, you can find a horrible history in any property that’s been around for a bit — think about, for example, the slave auction houses turned farmers markets in many southern towns, or the spots that blithely commemorate bloody battles between colonizers and the actual owners of North American lands. These are the stuff of field trips and TV movies we were shown in schools. Perhaps its no surprise that that blurred line between history, entertainment and real estate now plays out the way it does. — EB

Thursday on Best Evidence: The devil’s in the details for Devil in the White City.

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