October 18, 2024

I'm Not A Monster: A "killer grandma" and the heart of darkness

the true crime that's worth your time

The crime/s
The 2018 murder of David Riess by his wife, Lois, possibly catalyzed by frauds she'd committed against other family members; Lois's flight from Minnesota to Florida, where she murdered Pamela Hutchinson and assumed her identity.

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The story
I'm Not A Monster: The Lois Riess Murders probably isn't the Carr project that's going to get most of the attention this week – that's the Tegan and Sara-focused doc, Fanatical, and we'll get to that one – but I'm Not A Monster is a watchable and thought-provoking three hours that's well worth checking out.

Eve and I talked on this week's episode of the Docket about the hallmarks of an Erin Lee Carr property, and as I watched INAM, I was really struck by how it embodied what we think of as "typical" of Carr's work.

Centers a woman's story without cheerleading

INAM isn't Riess's "version," exactly, although she's interviewed at length in the two-part doc. We're given to understand via her talking-heads and others – local journalists; family members – that Riess "had her reasons" for killing her husband, David, but we're also given to understand that those reasons 1) aren't excuses, and 2) may be bullshit. 

Riess is overcome by emotion in I'm Not A Monster. (HBO)

The opportunistic killing of Pam Hutchinson so that Riess could use Hutchinson's money, car, and identity to continue evading capture is both easier to explain and harder to justify. Carr gives Riess several chances to walk back her laughable "I don't really remember/was in trauma blackout" rationalizing; she also centers Hutchinson, her "never met a stranger" personality and the loss her circle still feels very keenly. 

So, Riess is heard out pretty much in full – but not unquestioningly.

Raises the question of addiction's influence in a crime story but doesn't push a conclusion

My notes, when Riess sighs that "the only thing that made me feel good was gambling": "Ohhhh here we go." I'm not sure I concur with INAM's psych expert on every assertion about Riess's actions and the correlation to her gambling addiction, but INAM is smart about introducing that piece of the puzzle, while not insisting on where it might fit or whether it explains everything.

INAM also hints at the vulnerabilities of the people described by loved ones as liking "to party" or "to have a good time." There's no judgment, or diagnosis, just the suggestion of a certain risk profile among people with lots of "bar friends." INAM can feel at times like it's giving too much time to geographical context or off-topic stories, but by the end, that deliberate build has painted a picture of intertwined isolation, substance-use dysfunction, and mental illness – and how often it hangs in plain sight over the taps at joints called Señor Sippy's.

Acknowledges that we'll never really know everything…and in fact may think that's the most interesting part 

It hadn't really occurred to me until our Docket discussion that this is a feature of Carr's work – and it isn't always, and I could well be talking out my ass, but that not just comfort with but attraction to the uncertainty at the center of so many true-crime stories definitely figures here. We learn why Riess could have killed her husband, but we can't know. If Riess knows, she isn't saying. Her decision to murder Hutchinson is, as noted, more "legible" – but the similarities between the attempts to cover up both killings calls what we think we know about David's murder into question. 

Contemporary news accounts oversimplifying a case? The hell you say! (HBO)

The "what unseen darkness lurks in the hearts of" etc. aspect of this case is evident on the surface in contemporary coverage of the womanhunt for the "killer grandma" – but I think Carr is just as interested in the idea that that describes most cases, that what we most want explained can't be.

I don't want to make it out like INAM is a high-fiber, homework-y sit; it's a well-paced story that teases out some larger issues but isn't effortful about it. If you have Fanatical ahead of this one on your weekend watch list, I get it, but make time for this one too.