How it is already time for the June budget sweep?
This month's is so big we had to subdivide
the true crime that's worth your time
Hey folks, anything happen in June? Ha ha ha even in this funhouse mirror we’ve lived in since 2016 or so, this past month seemed overstuffed, and not in that fun upholstery-or-pizza way. As a result, we ended up with a lot more content than usual that never made it into Best Evidence — and, we suspect, a lot of great stuff might have slipped past you.
For this month’s budget doc cleanup, I’ve subdivided the items into general categories to make things feel more manageable, and to make it easier to skip right past things that you just can’t with right now. But, as always, we encourage you to hang onto this issue for a rainy day — there are always gems lurking here that will keep you entertained through a commute, while in a waiting room, or during the less compelling bits of Snowflake Island.
Well done to all of us for making it though another month. May July be better for everyone. — EB
IRL
The news we’ve been tracking, the “characters” we follow, etc
Sonny Barger, Face of the Hells Angels, Dies at 83 News orgs scrambled to cover the death of the Hells Angels IP litigant/convicted felon Thursday, after his death was announced on his Facebook page. Barger, the author of Hell’s Angel — The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, was described as “smart and he’s crafty, and he has a kind of wild animal cunning,” by Hunter S. Thompson in his Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. [Washington Post] [USA Today] [NYT]
R. Kelly Is Sentenced to 30 Years for Scheme to Lure Children Into Sex [BBC]
"There wasn't a day in my life up until this moment that I actually believed that the judicial system would come through for black and brown girls," former backup singer Jovante Cunningham told reporters. Kelly now faces “further legal action in August, when he goes on trial again, this time in Chicago on child sex images and obstruction charges. He is also due to face sex abuse charges in courts in Illinois and Minnesota.”
A slap or a pat? Adams accuses Giuliani of false report [Gothamist]
”New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani … exchanged barbs and accusations on Tuesday over the arrest of a man accused of ‘slapping’ the former mayor on the back.”
Alec Baldwin Set to Interview Woody Allen [The Hollywood Reporter]
It’s amazing how unable some men are to read a room, or is it that they just don’t care?
Civil jury finds Bill Cosby sexually abused teen in 1975, awards $500K in damages [USA Today]
“Huth filed her lawsuit in 2014, saying that her son turning 15 — the age she initially remembered being when she went to the mansion — and a surge of dozens of other women accusing Cosby of similar acts brought fresh trauma over what she had been through as a teenager.”
On the media
Metacomment on content and coverage
“Canceled at 17” criticism, continued Sarah was one of the earliest voices to break down the problematic elements of Elizabeth Weil’s controversial NY Mag piece on why we should all be nicer to men who show their friends privately shared, nude pictures of women they’re dating. Since her coverage, many others have joined the fray, including Gawker and Slate. Here’s a roundup:
New York magazine’s ‘Canceled at 17’ isn’t just an article – it’s ammunition [Guardian]
New York Mag Had Good Reason To Cancel The 'Canceled Teen' Story [Gawker]
What to Make of All the Drama Surrounding New York Magazine’s “Canceled at 17” [Slate]
Unpacking NY Mag’s Teen Cancel Culture Piece [The Waves podcast]
TL;DR: Weil’s kids attended the school at which the story took place (this was not disclosed in the story); in a statement, Weil characterizes criticism of the report as “Gawker is being Gawker.” Yikes.
How the Financial Times Exposed a Billion-Dollar Fraud [GIJ]
“How do you tackle a fraudulent, blue-chip corporation that has the means and intent to deploy teams of lawyers, private investigators, hackers, and even foreign spies to stop your investigation?”
The “Split-Second Decision” Trope: Why Every Media Outlet Does the Exact Same Police Puff Piece on Shooter Simulators [The Column]
“In the scores of media examples reviewed by The Column, not one showed a scenario where the reporter talked down or peacefully detained a “suspect.” They were all either tased or shot. Because the point is to say to the viewing public: See, you too, if faced with this made-up and loaded scenario, would also shoot the unarmed suspect.”
Property watch
Shows we’ll probably check out/listen to
Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi Netflix, drops July 20
Unlike most true crime shows, the trailer for this docuseries doesn’t actually say what case it’s about. The New Indian Express has us covered, though, connecting the dots to say it looks like it’s about Chandrakant Jha, a serial killer active in west Delhi between 1998-2007, and who, per Wikipedia, “took pleasure in taunting the police by leaving dismembered body parts around the city and outside the Tihar Jail with notes daring the police to catch him.”
Netflix’s logline on the show needs to, like, calm down though. I mean, get this: “Brace yourself for the most bone-chilling, blood curdling true crime story you’ll ever see. Because this time, evil is closer than you thought it would be.” If I wanted true crime word salad, Netflix, I’d go to Sweetgreen.
Project Unabom
Our Unabomber summer continues with Project Unabom, a newly-launched Apple Original podcast that “takes an in-depth look back at the Unabomber saga and Ted Kaczynski's legacy from the perspective of FBI agents who worked to solve the case, his brother who turned him in, and Ted’s very own writings.” The first three episodes just dropped Monday, and more are to come.
How to Hire a Hitman
(Everyone make a note of this item if my google searches end up evidence in a trial, OK?) This series on the UK’s Channel 4 will take a little travel for me to enjoy, but I definitely want to see anything loglined thusly: “True crime fan Yinka Bokinni dives deep into the dark web's murder-for-hire sites. Can you really order someone's death online? And can she save a man with a contract on his head?” Two eps are out now, flights leave for England daily from most regional airports.
My Old School Theaters, July 22
Indiewire has the details on this very very strange film:
My Old School centers on Brandon Lee, a seemingly 16-year-old prodigy who enrolls himself at a prestigious high school outside of Glasgow, Scotland after claiming to have been privately tutored in Canada. The catch: Lee has multiple passports, like “retro” music, and physically stands out from his peers.
Director Jono McLeod interviewed the real-life Lee who set 1990s Scotland ablaze following a nationwide scandal. However, Lee refused to be filmed for the documentary, so his interview was lip-synced by famed actor Alan Cumming, who portrays Lee in the film.
Reviews are mixed, but this is Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal bizarre, so I think I gotta give this one a try.
On the horizon
Properties we’ll vaguely remember when they come to fruition, and forget if they don’t
Dawn Porter Explores Supreme Court In Showtime Docuseries ‘Confirmed’ [Deadline]
Porter’s show is set to run in 2023, here’s hoping the Supremes’ conservative majority hasn’t made this place uninhabitable by then.
Octavia Spencer Partners With ID and Discovery+ To Develop True Crime Projects Starting with Oregon ‘Highway 20’ Docuseries [Variety]
“The three-episode documentary series begins with the case of a missing 13-year-old girl and expands to examine a stretch of Oregon’s U.S. Highway 20 where many women and girls went missing or were raped or murdered between the 1970s and 1990s. As the discovery of numerous unsolved crimes sparks fear in the local community, the series focuses on the possibility that a serial killer has been roaming the highway for decades, asking poignant questions of our society’s treatment of women.”
Longreads
Settle in with these juicy yarns
In 1992, she came forward publicly to accuse Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the iron-willed owner of the WWF, of raping her in the summer of 1986. However, the statute of limitations for rape had already run out by then, so no charges were brought against McMahon. What’s more, the accusation came out while the WWF was mired in a number of unrelated scandals, and it got lost in the shuffle.
Since then, her story was whispered about and occasionally cited by wrestling journalists bold enough to risk earning McMahon’s ire. But such occasions have been rare.
The nation’s death investigation system, a patchwork of medical examiners, freelance experts and elected coroners who may have no medical training, is responsible for examining suspicious and unexplained deaths. Wrapped in a mantle of scientific authority, its practitioners translate the complexities of disease, decomposition, toxicology and physics into simple categories like accident, homicide or death by natural causes, setting in motion the legal system’s gravest cases and wielding tremendous influence over juries.
Yet these experts are far from infallible. As forensic science of all kinds faces scrutiny about its reliability, with blood spatter patterns, hair matching and even fingerprints no longer regarded as the irrefutable evidence they once were, the science of death has been roiled over the past year with questions about whether the work of medical examiners is affected by racial bias, preconceived expectations and the powerful influence of law enforcement.
What’s really important is emphasizing that it [can also happen] to intelligent, accomplished women. Maliciously controlling relationships is a thing, and that can happen to anybody. It’s happened to people who are attorneys, prosecutors — incredibly independent, strong women. Being strong, intelligent and independent is by no means something that’s going to protect you. What’s going to protect you is eyes-wide-open awareness and being very cautious about who you allow into your life.
In rural counties, where ties between police and locals are often less fraught, officials say the reasons for the rising violence are hard to pinpoint. They speculate that the breakdown of deeply rooted social connections that bind together many small communities, coupled with the stress of the pandemic, played a role.
I was on The First 48. Your true-crime obsession is based on lies. [Scalawag]
I didn't know I was going to be on TV. I found out when I called home from the county jail in 2010, and my moms said I was on a show called The First 48. I never signed anything or saw a camera crew—nothing. I felt stamped: This is what you are. And I wasn't allowed to change my image because I am a prisoner.
The First 48 follows a falsified true-crime formula: A murder transforms into something that feels more like a dramatic sitcom. Tired, witty homicide detectives have two days to find a suspect—as the opening sequence reminds viewers, after 48 hours, the chance of solving a murder decreases by half. "The clock starts ticking the moment they are called," the intro narration says.
Since my incarceration in 2010, I've learned how to cope with the show airing. By this point, I've seen myself on TV more than 100 times. The reactions never change. People see me and point, "I saw you on TV, fool!" or, "You're a crazy m'fucka," followed by, "Why did you turn yourself in?" But the one that pulls me down a rabbit hole, with furrows and twisted roots, is: "Damn, why you kill your friend? Why? What he do?"
Friday on Best Evidence: Sarah kicks off the month with a clean slate.
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