November 22, 2023

George Santos · JFK · Celebrity Stylist

Plus: new true crime for the long weekend

the true crime that's worth your time

Does true crime mix well with Thanksgiving? Of course I think it does — as do many of you, based on the responses to yesterday’s discussion thread. But programming schedulers might not agree, as though it’s a long weekend, the list of new true crime that’s dropping is pretty slim. Maybe everyone really does watch football all weekend, after all?1

I’ve never listened to the Preacher Boys podcast, have you? The show, which also has a notable YouTube arm, is focused on the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, which we’ve seen discussed in recent docs like Shiny Happy People, among others.

Host Eric Skwarczynski is one of the highest-profile voices in Let Us Prey: A Ministry of Scandals, a four-part docuseries that drops over two nights on ID; it’ll also be released for streaming via Max. Expect first-hand accounts from IFB “survivors, church defectors and activists,” its director is Sharon Liese, whose resume suggests wide-ranging interests but little direct experience with this troubling — and allegedly abusive — religious movement. I’m definitely going to give the first episode a shot. Docs like this can get a bit repetitive, though, so I can’t promise more than that.

Columbian franchise Crime Diaries has done a decent job adapting some cases that we didn’t hear much about in the US, including 2019’s Crime Diaries: The Candidate (on assassinated Mexican politician Luis Donaldo Colosio) and Night Out (a strange Halloween slaying in Bogota). Both of those ended up on Netflix, as will Crime Diaries: The Celebrity Stylist, which drops on the streamer today.

Unlike some of the other Crime Diaries properties, this is a one-and-doner at a tight 71 minutes. (Night Out, by comparison, was eight freakin’ episodes…) It’s about the death of high profile hair guy Mauricio Leal, who was initially believed to be part of a mother-son murder-suicide before investigators switched course. (If you are cool with spoilers, this El Pais piece on the case covers all the twists and turns.)

That Netflix hasn’t pushed out a trailer suggests they don’t have a lot of confidence in the property, but I am a sucker for fashion-adjacent crime cases. Based on its logline (“a detective only has 20 days to solve the case”?) there are clearly some…liberties being taken with this adaptation, so purists might want to sit this one out.

Though it dropped in February, I have yet to check out Murder in Bighorn. The three-part docuseries on three Indigenous women found dead in Big Horn County was only available via Showtime, and I just couldn’t justify another streaming subscription.

However, its first episode just went up as free on Prime — and a so-called Black Friday deal of $3.99/month means I might dip briefly in to watch this (and anything else on Showtime I’ve missed…is there anything else?) well-regarded series that, in my opinion, could potentially benefit from the buzz around Killers of the Flower Moon. No, it’s not the same case, but the same themes are there, when it comes to Indigenous people whose deaths go un- or under-investigated. And given the origins of the holiday we’re gearing up for in the U.S., it also feels quote timely. — EB

Hearsay

The Call Center Where George Santos Learned to Con [New York]
I’m gonna give you the first two grafs, and if you don’t want to keep reading after this, I don’t know what to tell you.

The Dish Network call center in College Point, Queens, was not regarded as a particularly luxurious outpost. It was situated in a squat little building underneath the flight path from La Guardia airport, where smoke breakers struggled to hear their own gossip over the rip-rip of planes. The hardly decorated exterior was sandwiched between Home Depot and a Con Ed gas and power. An industrial yard with piles of dirt glowered nearby, full of machinery belching dust that would sometimes settle onto the call center’s windows and the cars.

Which is not to complain about the setting per se — there were plenty of things that workers in or out of the smoking circle might want to complain about, the jobsite and its distance from public transit merely being one of them. But certainly this location and basically just the regularity of everything around clashed strangely with what Barbara Hurdas heard on her first day on the job in 2011, when she sat next to George Santos in the training class and he started bragging about the money his family came from in Brazil.

That it’s the Dish Network is just the cherry on top of the sundae. — EB

Today’s the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a case that launched the kind of conspiracy theories that are, arguably, less divisive than pretty much any that we’re grappling with today. I haven’t watched JFK: One Day in America yet, but what I hear has all been neutral to positive.

Gold Derby, the website dedicated to various awards races and odds on properties to win nominations, did a lo-fi interview with doc producer Charlotte Rodrigues, who was either using the Cybill Shepherd on Moonlighting filter or who touched her camera while eating some buttery toast. She does a nice job of navigating the question of if there’s anything left to say, but I am still not completely convinced. Has anyone here watched the NatGeo doc yet and has an opinion? — EB

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Erin Patterson shared details of her ‘horrible upbringing’ in revealing 2019 text messages [News.com.au]
Did you think I’d let you go without a food-related story on this, the eve of America’s biggest food holiday? Erin Patterson, the alleged mushroom poisoner of Victoria, was arrested and charged earlier this month after three people died after eating lunch at her home.

Now we’re at the stage in the news cycle where former friends, neighbors, and co-workers are speaking to the press, all offering dribs and drabs of information to keep the stories going until she returns to court on May 3, 2024. In the meantime, investigators are apparently pouring over her computer and other devices, presumably to see if she went to NYT Cooking or Bon Appetit with searches like “poison mushrooms that taste good” or the like. — EB

Tomorrow on Best Evidence: We’ll be off for the holiday; see you back here on Monday!