Jerks · Backstories · Sports
It's the January budget doc sweep post
the true crime that's worth your time
I’m trying something a little different this month! As opposed to the usual random grab bag of items that you get from our monthly budget sweep, this time around they’ve fallen into handy categories. Not to mansplain how to read things, but that was you can scroll past the ton of content you’re uninterested in and head straight to the stuff that keeps you reading this thing. — EB
But speaking of reading this thing…Just a reminder that Sarah and I put a chunk of time into Best Evidence every day, even though we’ve got a lot going on (other work, we both own shops, Sarah has a burgeoning podcast empire, and on and on). We started Best Evidence because we love it — and because few other folks are doing what we do — and we’re able to keep it going only if we have paid subscribers to justify that investment of time and energy.
To those of you who pay to keep BE going, our gratitude is endless. And for those of you have considered a paid subscription and remain on the fence, please ask yourself if you’d miss BE if it were gone? If the answer is “yes,” look into your heart and
Jerks
Prince Andrew Has Reportedly Been Kicked Out of His Palace “Bachelor Pad” [Vanity Fair]
It appears Charles did what his mother could not, and booted the verified pal of Jeffrey Epstein and credibly accused participant in Epstein’s exploitation of underaged women. “The King has made it clear that Buckingham Palace is no place for Prince Andrew,” a source told UK tabloid The Sun. “First, his office closed last year and now his sleeping quarters.” Andrew still has plenty of places to hang his hat, but if true, this seems to be a notable step toward even more distancing by his fam.
Mike Pompeo criticizes journalist Jamal Khashoggi as an 'activist' who received too much media sympathy [NBC]
The former secretary of state, who recently wrote a book I shall not be reading, apparently shat on the attacked and dismembered journalist for the Washington Post, writing that he was incorrectly presented as “a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward who was martyred for bravely criticizing the Saudi royal family through his opinion articles in the Washington Post” but was actually an “activist.” It takes a special kind of person to go out of their way to trash a guy who was brutally murdered because of his work as a journalist, then to claim that he wasn’t a journalist after all. What a peach.
Backstories
The True-Crime Classic That Inspired HBO Max’s Forthcoming ‘Love and Death’ [Texas Monthly]
We don’t have a release date for HBO’s take on the Candy Montgomery story quite yet (“spring 2023” is the best I could find), but TM is getting ahead of the SEO game by dropping a little background with 1984’s “Love and Death in Silicon Prairie,” the first part in what would become several items on the slaying of Betty Gore.
In the Wake of ‘Dahmer,’ FX Bosses Explain What Sets Their True Crime Dramatizations Apart [Decider]
FX heads John Landgraf, Nick Grad, and Gina Balian spoke with Decider at this years first TCA, and said that their differentiating factor is that you won’t see, say, Monster: The Idaho College Killings* from their studio this March. Per Solberg: there’s generally a long window of time between when the events took place and when we actually start the show. So that’s one difference. Historically it was always like, “Let’s get it at the end of the year. Let’s rush to get it on the air.”
“Abducted In Plain Sight” Director Skye Borgman Said She Tries To Unravel The Layers Of True Crime Cases In Her Documentaries [BuzzFeed]
Borgman talks about a lot of her work (not just AIPS) in this broad-ranging interview, but she also puts paid to rumors of a part two for the lauded docuseries. “I feel that Abducted in Plain Sight was a complete story and captured so much of what the Broberg family was going through in the 1970s,” she says, “the telling of this story feels well explored and at this moment in time I can’t see a follow-up documentary in the tea leaves.”
*I made this title up! But it sure feels possible, huh?
Podcasts
'It's everywhere': New podcast uncovers prolific global catfishing networks [CBC]
Podcast Love, Janessa isn’t about those engaging — but ultimately repetitive — stories of someone who fell in love with an online figure who wasn’t who they claimed to be (see: Sweet Bobby, the Catfish TV show, and on and on). Instead, it focuses on organized scams run for cold hard cash that “are actually full-time jobs for some of the criminals,” producer Laura Regehr says. The show is two episodes in, so it’s easy to catch up on.
Sports
White Sox pitcher Mike Clevinger under investigation by MLB after domestic violence allegations [The Athletic]
”Olivia Finestead, the 24-year-old mother of Clevinger’s child, told The Athletic on Tuesday that she has been in contact with individuals from MLB’s Department of Investigations since this summer.” She said he engaged in “physical, verbal and emotional abuse, including an incident from last June in which Finestead said Clevinger choked her, and another about two weeks later when she said Clevinger slapped her in a hotel room when the team was playing the Dodgers and threw used chewing tobacco on their child.” Clevinger, who was playing with the Padres at the time, denies the accusations, and his current team said that they didn’t know abotu the allegations when they signed him and that it “will refrain from comment until MLB’s investigative process has reached its conclusion.”
San Francisco 49ers’ Charles Omenihu arrested after domestic violence allegation in San Jose [East Bay Times]
”A woman told arriving officers that Omenihu is her boyfriend and that he ‘pushed her to the ground during an argument,’” he “was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence,” but reportedly still played for the Niners in Sunday’s NFC championship game, which the team lost. “We are aware of the matter involving Charles Omenihu and are in the process of gathering further information.” the team said prior to the game.
Coming soon
Netflix unveils romance, sci-fi and true crime in huge Korean slate [TBI Vision]
On March 3, In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal, will drop on Netflix, “an eight-episode true-crime documentary that explores the self-proclaimed ‘messiahs’ in modern Korean history and the shocking events behind them.”
Anchor, Blumhouse true crime docuseries heads to Sundance TV, AMC+ [C21Media]
On May 4, watch for Look into my Eyes, “a four-part true crime docuseries about a Florida school principal who hypnotised his students and the tragedy that followed.” The principal is George Kenney, who, per an NPR report from 2014 “hypnotized between 70 and 75 students since 2006,” seemingly with parental permission. At least three of those students died after sessions with Kenney, but a firm link between the hypnosis and their death is unclear.
Documentary film ‘Brinlee’ set for premiere weekend at two historic theaters [Cherokee Phoenix]
Here’s the doc’s logline: “Threats, witness intimidation, bombings, and murder aren't acts those moving to or living in a small town expect to experience. In the mid-1960s the residents Tahlequah, Oklahoma, found out that big-city crime could invade the walls of safety and security that a small town -- presumably -- provides. It happened when one man, Rex Brinlee, moved to a northeast Oklahoma city and brought a level of crime that the residents of Tahlequah had only seen on the big screen.” Its directors, both members of the Cherokee Nation, will attend screenings in Tahlequah this weekend; then it will be available to stream after Feb. 6 via its website.
Lifetime Announces Air Dates For Ann Rule True Crime Adaptions [TV Shows Ace]
A Rose For Her Grave: The Randy Roth Story goes on Feb. 18, and 12 Desperate Hours — which, I note with raised brow, was directed by Bound and Showgirls star Gina Gershon — drops Feb. 25. The former is based on a case in Rule’s 1993 Crime Files installment A Rose For Her Grave & Other True Cases, the latter is based on a case from another Crime Files compendium, Last Chance, Last Dance.
Longreads
The Montreal Mafia Murders: Blood, Gore, Cannolis, and Hockey Bags [Vanity Fair]
The subhead is “A Fargo-esque tale of hapless hit men, Mob moles, and two naive pawns who were lured into their web,” and if that doesn’t sell you, nothing I write here will.
Social media and online music content is being prejudicially mined for evidence in criminal trials. Over the last two years, I've been challenging it [All City]
”A Metropolitan Police officer had written a witness statement in which violent rap lyrics – those of the defendant and others – were misinterpreted as literal, specific and written in the first-person, as opposed to figurative, generic and written as a narrator. The officer had referenced what they believed to be the defendant’s masked appearance in music videos on YouTube. They’d contextualised their conclusions about the defendant’s gang membership with poorly-researched prose about the evolution of drill music – the kind you might expect to read in an A-Level sociology essay, at best.”
After critics called Texas prison food 'pig slop,' state plans to get rid of worst meals [The Marshall Project via the Houston Chronicle]
”In theory, the [meals] include a bland breakfast — something like boiled eggs, dry cereal and raisins — while lunch and dinner are usually two sandwiches each, sometimes with a side of prunes or corn bread. But what actually arrives in the cell door is not always identifiable and sometimes includes odd combinations, such as a single hot dog with no bun, a tortilla, a cup of mush and a raw potato. Prisoners report that there’s rarely a fresh vegetable in sight, the peanut butter is sometimes watered down with cooking oil, and the portions are paltry.”
Later this week on Best Evidence: The Riders Come Out at Night, reviewed.
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