Brett Favre · The Watcher · Ezra Miller
It's the September budget sweep, fall break edition!
the true crime that's worth your time
It’s almost the last day of September…and it’s also the last day of our fall break. That means you only have one more day to get BE for a full year at $50, a 10 percent price cut:
On Monday, we’ll be back to our regular schedule of content. Thanks for rolling with us this week, it was fun!
In the meantime, we have a bustin’-full budget doc to clean up. Since
…I’m going to make this a bit more bullet-point, rat-a-tat than usual. There’s a lot of good stuff here! I hope you enjoy it. — EB
Brett Favre podcast, radio show suspended amid welfare scandal [The Hill] and Texts: Favre also sought welfare money for football facility [AP]
Sarah covered the earliest headlines from this scandal last week; now the snake oil salesman is feeling the pinch (but don’t worry, his snake oil employer is “sticking by” him).
Lawyers for Alleged Hollywood Con Queen Detail Plan to Block Extradition [The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest chapter in the podcast-famous catfish-and-more case.
My brother was murdered by Jeffrey Dahmer. Here's what it was like watching the Netflix show that recreated the emotional statement I gave in court. [Insider]
”I was never contacted about the show. I feel like Netflix should've asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn't ask me anything. They just did it.”
Ryan Murphy’s New True Crime ‘The Watcher’ Unveils Terrifying Haunted House [The Daily Beast]
The definition of “true crime” gets pushed to new limits with this film, based on NY Mag’s famously weird (and arguable true crime) story about creepy letters sent to a New Jersey home. I suspect this movie is bunk; but will watch when it drops on Oct. 13 just to marvel at Cannavale’s glorious mop of hair.
The Tylenol murders: A Tribune investigation and podcast series [Chicago Tribune]
The 1982 case that prompted what we know know as “temper-evident packaging” gets a fresh look from the Trib.
Ezra Miller’s “Messiah” Delusions: Inside The Flash Star’s Dark Spiral [Vanity Fair]
I came away from this comprehensive account of the allegations against Miller suspecting that the system is failing them — and, also, that their victims are getting short shrift in the maelstrom.
‘Cops’ Revival at Fox Nation to Debut in September [Variety]
If we were on the clock this week we’d have a lot more to say about this, but since we’re off I’ll just drop this bit of badge-lickery:
The new season of “Cops” will debut with three episodes on Sept. 30, followed by weekly drops on Fridays. In support of the launch, Fox Nation will offer free one-year subscriptions to all first responders, including police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics (EMS personnel)
And will remind you that Running from Cops is a great podcast.
CIA Launches First Podcast, 'The Langley Files,' to Dispel Misconceptions [CNet]
Speaking of copaganda, right? “The podcast's first guest is CIA Director Bill Burns,” who is taken to task by hosts Dee and Walter lol jk jk.
“The Holly” author, Oscar-winner Adam McKay hit with Denver lawsuit over book and documentary [Denver Post]
The movie, which is making waves at film fests, is based on Julian Rubenstein’s The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood. Two folks from the book say they were incorrectly described as gang members, hence the suit.
It’s time to choose the October bonus review. Sarah has set this month’s poll up already; as always, the winner will get her gimlet eye — and a review that goes to paid subscribers only. Another reason to hop on that sale while you can!
How vigilante ‘predator catchers’ are infiltrating the criminal justice system [Washington Post]
We’ve talked about these aspiring viral videographers who mask their ambition with claims of righteousness before; this time the content creators are Predator Catchers Indianapolis, which claims it is “Exposing as many online preds as we can.”
When Family Secrets Turn Deadly [Air Mail]
”A pedophilia-fueled murder in an idyllic town shocks France” is the dek to this longread about a slaying in the Alps.
Murder at Sutton Place [Vanity Fair]
“When the surrogate son—and alleged lover—of New York's "jeweler to the stars" was involved in a brutal killing, some of the city's rich and powerful were entangled in a tabloid drama of sex, drugs, and betrayal that landed three men behind bars. But what really happened the night of Joey Comunale's murder?”
Black students say school district is trying to ‘steal’ their podcast [Washington Post]
This isn’t an issue of a school system trying to shut down a racial justice podcast started by a student group: instead, a lawsuit alleges, the school is attempting to appropriate their work.
The Manti Te’o documentary led me to recall a scheme that upended my own life. I didn’t react like he did. [Slate]
This freelance catfish tale reads way more like Sweet Bobby than the Te’o story, but SEO gotta SEO.
The Mystery Behind the Crime Wave at 312 Riverside Drive [NY Times]
”For years, the police have received thousands of 911 calls reporting fights, murders, bombs and hostage situations at the same address. But officers never find victims or make arrests. Why?”
The tiny murder scenes of forensic scientist Frances Glessner Lee [Al Jazeera]
If you read 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics, you likely know everything in this piece already. If not, this longread might whet your appetite.
Why editors must avoid carceral voyeurism [Poynter]
”As a published incarcerated writer myself, I yearn for the connection that writing creates between people, inside and out. In a place that takes so much and gives nothing back, it’s humanizing to be recognized for one’s merit outside the prison walls. But, too often I encounter publications demanding sensational content with shock value about events inside the prison walls.”
How some true-crime YouTubers are trying to solve cases, rather than just talking about them [Business Insider]
I probably should have paired this with that Post piece on the so-called predator catchers, but oh well.
A police shooting in the Bronx, bodycam footage, and conflicting interpretations of what is captured [Gothamist]
“The varied reactions to the analysis of the police footage proved a larger point … The way one views body-worn camera footage is reflective of how they view cops.”
Missing people, buried bones at center of Oklahoma mystery [Washington Post] “A dozen or more people … have disappeared in recent years from the wooded, unincorporated terrain outside the Oklahoma City metro area, a rural haven for drug traffickers. Some families said they’re scared to call police or even to put up ‘missing person’ signs because they suspect the involvement of violent white-supremacist prison gangs.”
Inside the Fight Between Texas’s Most Infamous Prison and Almost One Million Bats [Texas Monthly]
“The city block–long warehouse, originally built in the 1930s to house cotton and other dry goods produced by prisoners, is a decrepit carcass of a building, with dead trees rising out of its crumbling roof. It would be an eyesore were it not for the 750,000-plus Mexican free-tailed bats spending their summers there, who stream out of the broken windows every night around eight.”
Why NJ still pays pensions to nearly 100 disgraced officials, at a cost of millions [Gothamist]
I can’t top Sarah’s note re this story in our doc: “this hed is hilarious; what do you mean ‘why,’ it's Jersey.”
Next week on Best Evidence: October!
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