Even MORE Bundy · Lord Lucan · Darlie Routier
Plus, too many true-crime premieres, and next month's book review
the true crime that's worth your time
Yeah, him again. Leading the pack of genre programming dropping in the next week (and confidential to limited-series programmers: it’s okay to hold a couple things until March and give me a chance to breathe!) is Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer on Amazon Prime. I didn’t get screeners for it, but I wrote for Primetimer about why we as a culture will never tire of Bundy. (One of my theories: he’s a lot of people’s “first.” I’d love to get hard data on this, but I’d bet you a scratch-off ticket The Stranger Beside Me is the first true crime a majority of “fans” read or consumed.) That series, and my piece on it, drops tomorrow on Primetimer.
In the meantime, “enjoy” what a Google-hole led me to on the subject: a hacky joint from the New York Post last November on what a network-TV Bundy would look like. Some of the loglines are cringily insensitive — the “Ted’s Sorority House” concept, for one — and the drive-by on Jane Fonda and Elizabeth Warren is typical Post lib-baiting. But Robert Rorke’s pitch for a season of American Crime Story is probably the only other treatment of the topic I’d tune in for, though I don’t think his casting is quite right (Finn Wittrock, maybe it could work).
Also dropping tomorrow: I Am A Killer’s second season. I wrote that up for Primetimer as well — not the second season (struck out on screeners again), but why the first one is worthwhile. Here’s the short version: despite a title that’s both vague and crass, the show unpacks everything that led a given episode’s subject to death row…and all the emotional detritus he (and, in S2, a couple of shes) left in the wake of the murder(s). Not sure it’s for you? S01.E08, “Hunted,” is an indicative episode to start with.
ALSO also dropping tomorrow: my subscribers-only review of The Poisoner’s Handbook. But you’ve still got to pick me a book to review next month, so please vote; there’s a three-way tie at the moment!
And speaking of Wiki-holes…is Lord Lucan alive? Every time I’m Googling around for the latest crackpot news on DB Cooper or Maura Murray (or wondering in passing if poor Hannah Upp has turned up), I end up marinating in Wikipedia’s “people declared dead in absentia” section. It’s a far harder trick to disappear today, versus a hundred years ago, or nearly fifty, or even twenty years ago, but it’s still fascinating to me — and sad, the way we’ll try to fill the space that’s left with theories, most of which center on the person leaving, not dying.
The Lord Lucan case isn’t bittersweet in that way — it’s fairly clear Lucan, who was at one time considered for the film role of James Bond, was decompensating due to losing a custody battle with his estranged wife, not to mention mounting gambling debts, and he did something, though it may have been accidental. Based on notes left behind, one theory is that Lucan took his own life shortly after fleeing, as the Daily Mail notes: “Lord Lucan's blood-stained car was found abandoned in East Sussex, but he was never successfully traced, and despite sightings in countries all over the globe the most likely theory was that he committed suicide by scuttling the powerboat he kept at Newhaven and jumping in the sea with rocks in his pockets.”
But the son of the woman Lucan (allegedly, I suppose we have to say) murdered in 1974 now swears Lucan is living in Australia…as a Buddhist monk. Sound like typical tab garbage? I thought the same, but evidently Scotland Yard thinks it’s a credible lead, and plans to interview Neil Berriman, whose mother, Sandra Rivett, Lucan allegedly killed. Berriman claims he’s tracked the 85-year-old down and can provide the numerous aliases he’s using Down Under. Lucan’s son George Bingham, the 8th Earl of Lucan, had his father declared dead in 2016 and is predictably skeptical about Berriman’s assertions.
Do you know anything about this case? Have you watched the documentary featuring Lucan’s ex-wife on Amazon Prime? (It looks awful, but I’ll review it if you insist.) Am I right in recalling that Vanity Fair used to obsess over cases like this, and fugitive rapist Alex Kelly, back in the eighties?
A 16-year-old blogger is trying to crack the Darlie Routier case. A Dallas-area NBC affiliate reports that teen true-crime blogger Ryan Kester has spent “thousands of hours” investigating Routier — currently on death row following her conviction for the murder of one of her two young sons, Routier continues to maintain her innocence — and is now requesting access to the case files.
A judge denied Kester’s request last week, but Kester will receive copies of some evidence photos, the better to see the case the way the jury saw it, which he says is “important.” Kester was disappointed, but seemed very focused on not having an immature reaction to losing his motion: “I did not come home and lock myself into a room and throw a fit, partially because that [would] just be playing into people’s perceptions of me.” Kester is described as an aspiring lawyer, and impressed Routier’s lawyer, Steve Cooper (that Kester believes Routier is innocent may have some bearing on that opinion).
I talked about ABC’s look at Routier’s case, The Last Defense, back in Ep 061. Whether or not you’re not familiar with the case, TLD was a compelling sit, and you can watch it here…or read the great Skip Hollandsworth’s piece from 2002 in Texas Monthly. In fact, start with the Hollandsworth; as a general rule, if you have a choice between literally any other outlet and Hollandworth or Colloff for Texas Monthly, always go TM.
Speaking of rad publications, why not give this one to your Valentine? It’s just $5 a month to share our love of reviewing true crime with someone you love. And if we get 2000 paid subscribers by summer, we’ll attend the trial of someone we all love to hate, Elizabeth Holmes.
Friday on Best Evidence: The Poisoner’s Handbook, Falling For the latest Bundy project in our Friday discussion thread, and more!
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