Harvard Yard · Stanford University · Jussie Smollett
Plus: Mulling the Delphi murders
the true crime that's worth your time
Forget St. Patrick’s Day, it’s Boston Strangler day! There’s something a little shady about Hulu’s decision to drop BS on this arguably most Boston of days — that is, if you associate aggressive and possibly questionable self-identification as Irish as a Boston value. But here we are, pinching people who fail to wear green all day, getting hammered on green beer tonight, and settling in to watch Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon figure out a serial set of slayings from bed tomorrow.
(OK, I’m actually only doing one of those three things, I’ll let you guess which.)
As previously mentioned, a friend of BE/film critic told us that they found the Hulu show on the 1960s-era case was serving She Said meets Zodiac vibes. Which is not a bad thing! Now we have a couple more reviews out there; let’s take a spin:
‘Boston Strangler’ Review: Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon Are Pitch-Perfect in a Noir-Tinged Look at a Historic Crime [The Hollywood Reporter] “Within the gray streets and the drab, smoky newsroom, this is a story of life against death, fueled by the rage and wisdom of tough dames seeking answers in a man’s world, entering places where women aren’t invited: the paper’s crime desk, the police precinct, the local watering hole.”
‘Boston Strangler’ review: Keira Knightley shines in true crime movie [Boston.com] “At a time when seemingly every streaming services debuts new true-crime programming on a weekly basis, ‘Boston Strangler’ stands far above the crowd.”
'Boston Strangler' review: This girlbossed 'Zodiac' is a true-crime miss [Mashable] Mainly including this one because it is very weird — as you might have guessed from use of terms like “girlbossed” — and seems to really hate women! If you have time for a scorn read this might be it, otherwise skip.
If you’re still on the fence, some coverage that might help make your decision:
Why Boston Strangler stars Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon 'can't watch' true crime anymore [EW] Knightley: "Since having children, completely can't watch it. Totally terrified."
Why Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon Were Not 'Allowed' to Do Boston Accents in 'Boston Strangler' [People] Coon: “Matt Ruskin, our writer/director, is from Boston and very insistent that anybody who is not from Boston was not going to be doing an accent, because he claims he's from Boston and he doesn't have an accent. But he does.”
(And now I must insert the SNL sketch I think of any time a Boston accent comes up.)
ANYWAY. If you feel like making it a Boston Strangler weekend, there’s also the dude heavy (aka “boybossed,” ha ha) 1968 adaptation starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis, look at that poster art. It’s available for Amazon Prime rental for a rock-bottom $1.49, and the DVD version ($16.98) delivers pretty fast. And there are loads of other BS properties out there to read, watch, and listen to — if you have a Boston Strangler playlist to propose for the weekend — or other true crime plans you want to share — the comment line is open. — EB
A wild story out of Stanford University seems ripe for adaptation — but my worry is that the “wrong” folks will take this one on. The story of Jennifer Ann Gries just hit the local news cycle this week, so we can likely expect a deeper take later on, but here’s the gist: Last August and again in October, Gries reported that she’d been attacked and sexually assaulted on Stanford’s campus.
The incidents prompted a notable protest last fall, with hundreds of protesters claiming that the two alleged assaults — both of which were reported on by the Stanford Daily — were indicative of an overall lack of concern over rapes by school officials.
But according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, neither assault ever happened. In a statement issued Wednesday, the DA’s office says Gries “told county sexual assault forensic exam nurses in August that she had been attacked by a Black man in a campus garage. Two months later, Gries reported being attacked again by a Black man in a storage closet.”
However, “Evidence shows that the Gries made up the stories due to being angry at a co-worker,” and that the assault reports were false. She’s been charged with “two felony counts of perjury and two misdemeanor counts of making a false crime report.”
According to the East Bay Times, the claims were an attempt to harm a co-worker. Now, buckle in, here’s where it gets even more intense:
An investigative summary accompanying the criminal complaint filed Tuesday indicates that Gries felt romantically spurned by a co-worker and generally described him — a Black man in his late 20s — as her purported assailant.
She was also the source of an earlier human resources complaint involving a claim she became pregnant with, then miscarried, the man’s twins after he raped her, all of which was deemed unfounded. Her resentment also appeared in text messages to another co-worker that were reviewed by police in which she discussed trying to make the man’s life “a living hell” and that “I’m coming up with a plan. That way he’s (expletive) his pants for multiple days.”
Authorities say the man was never romantically involved with Gries, and that forensic exam kits collected after the two rape claims yielded no corroborating evidence. Months later, in late January, DA Investigator Sheena Woodland contended that Gries, in a recorded police interview, “admitted to lying about the rapes and wrote an apology letter to the target of the false allegations.”
Gries also said “she was upset with the victim because she felt he gave her ‘false intention’ and turned her friends against her.”
According to the Stanford Daily Gries is a Neighborhood Housing Service Center Supervisor, overseeing the Wilbur Hall residential complex. In a statement, Stanford Vice Provost Patrick Dunkley and public safety director Laura Wilson said the school “will be reviewing” her employment in light of the news.
If you’re like me, any time you see reports of hoax crime reports you cringe, and that cringe becomes full-body when they’re related to allegations that already face skepticism when reported. There’s no doubt that conservative commentators are falling on the story of a worker at a “woke” (ha ha) Bay Area private college lying about rape, with the added dog whistle plot twist of rape in the mix. I’m bracing for that now.
However, it also seems like this is a strange and grabby enough story that a TV or film take — either as a docuseries about Santa Clara, Stanford, reactions to rapes (Brock Turner is never far from my mind when Stanford and rape are mentioned) or as a straight dramatic telling — is likely to happen. I do think there is a way forward that allows this tale to be told responsibly and engagingly, but it requires the right team and a laser-sharp focus on intentions. Given that, who would you choose to take this story on, or would you rather wave a magic wand and make it all go away? — EB
While we’re on the topic of hoax claims…I’m unlikely to watch Jussie Smollett: Anatomy Of A Hoax, a Fox News production that even in its trailer raised my hackles for its smirking and dog-whistle approach to hate-crime reporting. (And that the trailer’s caption characterizes Fox News as presenting “unapologetically patriotic content” makes me want to ralph.)
However, this isn’t me hate-writing about a show none of us will watch! Instead, it’s a warning: a podcast “companion” to the right-leaning series isn't as, um, unapologetically open about its relationship to the anti-Black broadcast company, and is being fed to us as something in which we might be interested. Look out!
“Attacking Jussie” is the name of the podcast, and if you look at its cover art you’ll just see “Lionsgate” as the producer, a company that doesn’t raise any red flags. It’s a show that’s been suggested to me by multiple podcast platform algorithms in the last few days, and I’ve seen it promoted in podcast newsletters like this one. I had it on our doc as a show to check out for days, unaware of its origins.
I don’t necessarily blame my apps or these newsletters for missing the podcast’s roots. It’s not until you get into the show’s details that you’ll see that it’s a collab with Pilgrim Media Group, the folks behind Fox’s Smollett show and other disposable dreck like Zombie House Flipping and (alleged domestic abuser, among other things) Stone Cold Takes on America.
The frustrating thing is that this podcast, which claims to give voice to Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, the men accused of attacking Smollett before the alleged plot to fake the incident was revealed, might actually have something useful and important to say — in fact, it might even help clarify a lot of the more confounding aspects of the case. But since it’s affiliated with the doubtlessly problematic Fox Nation show, I’ll never know — I’m not going to engage in any behaviors that might benefit that network, from buying a My Pillow to putting an affiliated podcast into my ears. I’ll be sitting this one out, but if you find yourself listening and want to tell me what I’m missing, I’d be happy to hear. — EB
And before I let you go for the weekend, a longread. Vox’s Aja Romano has a meaty and meta look at where things stand with the Delphi murders, a case they say “points the way toward the complicated future of true crime itself.”
If you’re deeply familiar with the complicated case, you can likely afford to scroll for a bit, until you reach the header “A cold trail gets hot online.” As many of the details of the 2017 slaying of Liberty German and Abigail Williams were not top of mind for me, I appreciate the first big chunk of recap; it was a well-sourced and linked recap of the earliest events of the case.
And then, Romano takes us into the real inside baseball stuff: Reddit back-and-forths, podcast rivalries and drama, and the amateur sleuth class system. Snip:
One of the most polarizing constituents is The Murder Sheet, a podcast by a husband-and-wife team who originally met and bonded over true crime. Áine Cain, a former senior retail reporter at Insider, and Kevin Greenlee, an attorney, wanted to bring their professional roles to the podcast. In an interview, Cain says the show focuses on journalism that “furthers your understanding of the case.” They’ve arguably been successful; they’ve gotten several exclusives, like excavating the 2017 search warrant of the property where the girls were found. (Suspicions against the property owner, Ronald Logan, have lingered and continue to run rampant; Logan was never named a person of interest and reportedly died in 2022.)
Online, however, despite Cain’s long journalism career, and perhaps because they began as true crime fans, some sleuths see them as little more than glorified redditors. Then there’s the issue of money. The podcast is self-sustaining (“just barely”), and Cain and Greenlee have recently gone full-time. That move, in turn, invites criticism that the podcasters are exploiting tragedy for personal gain.
Yet The Murder Sheet is far from the only monetized true crime project focused on this case. One forum advertises a secretive community with exclusive access to private information from law enforcement ($20 to join; the owner told Vox he has made over $5,000 from the entry fees alone). The massive growth of the true crime industry means more people than ever are engaging in the space — and not always ethically. One popular podcast courted controversy when it aired a series of episodes in which the hosts put forth speculation about a random Delphi resident with no known connection to the crime.
There’s just enough “how the true crime sausage is made” in Romano’s longread to keep me from feeling frustrated that, even now, the case remains unsolved. Many of those same amateur investigators are skeptical that Richard Allen, who was arrested last fall in the case, is a viable suspect, and Kegan Kline — another potential suspect — doesn’t head to court in an unrelated case until May.
In fact, here’s the latest on Kline, and look who’s copiously quoted here as experts — it’s The Murder Sheet’s Cain and Greenlee. Like Romano said, the Delphi case has generated a “true crime ecosystem of communities,” one that’s now bleeding over into even legacy institutions like local broadcast TV. — EB
Next week on Best Evidence: Sarah’s off for her birthday, Eve’s holding down the fort, and we’re having a sale!
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