Lupin · Billy Milligan · OMITB
Plus: crowdfunding crimefighting
the true crime that's worth your time
The trailer for the second season of Only Murders in the Building is exactly what I needed today. Elizabeth Held reviewed the first season of the “meta” true-crime series for us last fall, as you might recall…
…and Sarah and I agree that though this is a purely fictional show, it’s so deeply and intelligently informed by true crime podcast tropes that it’s a win for even the folks who prefer their series more docu in nature.
I was also reminded, in watching the 30-second glimpse of the second season, that the show has so much heart. That’s something that’s been in short supply with what I’ve been watching lately, and I’m not just talking about the increasingly unpalatable coverage of the Oscars.
The way OMITB illustrated how mysteries and true crime have the power to bring unconnected, sometimes lonely people together is such an elegant response to the umpteenth hand-wringing article about how “our fascination with true crime is proof that civilization is in decline” or whatever. I’m excited that OMITB is back this summer (July 28, to be exact), and I hope some of you are, too. — EB
Would you prefer to be the Pepsi Generation or the GoFundMe Generation? While the former is actually a Smithsonian-accepted term, I hadn’t heard the latter until Sunday, when the New York Times used the phrase in a piece about crowdfunding homicide investigations.
It’s a wild tale, and one that I was unaware of: apparently, genetics labs are “panhandling on the internet” to get true-crime fans to pay for DNA research, testing, and analysis that local law enforcement can’t or won’t.
“Why just listen to a murder podcast when you can help police comb through genealogical databases for the second cousins of suspected killers and their unidentified victims?” reporter Kashmir Hill asks.
It all makes sense from a business perspective, and it’s a bounty that’s nearly 30 years in the making. We all became DNA experts during the OJ Simpson trial, arguably taking the true-crime genre to the next level. Then the successful capture of the Golden State Killer using forensic genetic genealogy went down, in tandem with Michelle McNamara’s book that took armchair detecting into the mainstream.
Meanwhile, the concept of crowdfunding is going harder than ever, with GoFundMe alone generating over $15 billion since 2010. (The Des Moines Register asks, “So, GoFundMe profits from tragedies?” then answers, “Yes … In 2016, the company projected revenues of $100 million and the company was valued at $600 million.”) And all the while, we’re stuck at home, frustrated and feeling powerless under the weight of the pandemic, the news, etc. If ever there was something that appeared at the right time, this might be it.
But, it’s also kind of gross, isn’t it? After all, these aren’t individuals seeking funds to privately pay for analysis of evidence to solve the death of a loved one — by and large, these are big companies asking for donations to do what they do. And then there’s the matter of private companies building out DNA databases that they say rival those run by law enforcement. Snip:
Mr. Mittelman, Othram’s C.E.O., said his company had received more than $400,000 from philanthropic donors. According to Crunchbase, the start-up has also raised $28.5 million from institutional investors to corner the market around this new investigative technique. Founded in The Woodlands, Texas, in 2018, the company now has 30 employees, said Mr. Mittelman, including five full-time genealogical researchers, and will soon move to a new building, with a lab four times the size of its current one.
Othram’s pitch is simple: Government labs lack the expensive equipment needed to process DNA evidence — cigarette butts, bloodstained fabric, bone — which may be decades old, degraded or mixed with nonhuman materials. For now, private labs must do the work of creating genetic profiles that are compatible with those generated, much more easily, from a consumer’s saliva. Then forensic genetic genealogists must do the time-consuming labor of sorting through third cousins and population records. Finally, another DNA test is typically required to confirm a suspected match.
Othram wants to be the authorities’ one-stop shop for the whole process. “Once they see it, they are never going back,” Mr. Mittelman said.
The company created a site called DNASolves to tell the stories of horrific crimes and tragic John and Jane Does — with catchy names like “Christmas tree lady” and “angel baby” — to encourage people to fund budget-crunched police departments, so that they can hire Othram. A competitor, Parabon NanoLabs, had created a similar site called JusticeDrive, which has raised around $30,000.
The whole story is a fascinating read, even though its mentions of Minority Report are hardly accurate (MI is about enslavement of psychics to arrest people who have yet to commit crimes; all movies about the future are not the same, NYT) and its tangental mention of things like Ashley Flowers’ extremely lucrative non-profit deserve a little more examination IMO. You can read the whole piece here, but I want to know two things:
Have/would you donate to one of these campaigns?
Have/would you submitted your DNA to one of these companies to help solve crimes (or whatever)?
Casting is shaping up for Apple+’s Billy Milligan series. The show is called Crowded Room, and we mentioned it back in August, saying then that it was supposed to wrap by the end of 2021.
Well, between delta and omicron, that sure didn’t happen, and instead, we’re still getting word on casting for the 10-parter based on The Minds of Billy Milligan, Daniel Keyes’ (Flowers for Algernon) book on the Milligan’s dissociative identity defense when he was accused of rape. For more of a Milligan backstory:
Tom Holland still plays Milligan, only he’s named Danny Sullivan, in the series. (Am I ready for the cutest lil’ Spider-Man to play a rapist? Unclear!) Joining him are…
Emmy Rossum, who plays Candy, Sullivan’s mom. Deadline notes that she is “less than 9 years 8.5 months older than Holland,” which is an oddly precise side note. That publication characterizes the role thusly: “Through their struggles in life, she dreams of salvation in the form of someone else,” while The Hollywood Reporter describes it as “always looking for a man to fulfill her dreams of salvation.” So that’s that.
We’ve also got Amanda Seyfried, fresh off her The Dropout triumph. She plays “a clinical psychologist faced with the most challenging case of her career, who is also trying to balance her life as a single mother,” THR reports, and yes that sound you heard were my eyes rolling out of my skull. Deadline says her name is “Rya,” which could be a first or last name, who knows.
Kornél Mundruczó will direct all 10 episodes in Season 1 — much of his work was done in his native Hungary, and he also directed 2020’s child loss drama Pieces of a Woman, which was arguably overshadowed by the abuse allegations against co-star Shia LeBeouf.
It’s also worth noting that, per a press release, Apple describes the series as a “seasonal anthology” that “will explore inspirational stories of those who have struggled, and learned to successfully live with, mental illness.”
I will direct you again to my roundup of the Milligan case. Even if someone is deemed not guilty by reason of insanity of three rapes, as Milligan was, three people were still raped. The optics on calling that “inspirational” are debatable! — EB
Seven people have been arrested for a heist on the set of Lupin. Lupin, as you likely know, is a French series about a lifelong master thief whose life work is a combination of homage to fictional thief Arsène Lupin (meta layer one) and revenge for his wronged father.
I gulped down the first season during the pandemic (don’t watch the dubbed version presented in this trailer — go for the subs. As if I need to tell you lot that!) and the second season as soon as it dropped; both are Netflix co-productions so I didn’t have to hop on a single international flight to get it.
So here’s the second layer of meta in this tale: According to Le Parisien, on February 25th, the series was filming in Nanterre (a Parisian suburb) when it was robbed by (per the NYT) “20 young men wearing balaclavas.”
The thieves launched “fireworks onto the set to sow havoc,” The Hollywood Reporter says, and stole about $330,000 worth of equipment and cast/crew members’ personal belongings. I gotta give you a witness snip because it just feels so French:
“That’s a big word, ‘heist,'” laughs Brahim Rochdi, owner of Le 35, the restaurant in which a scene was being filmed that day. “You use that word for a bank robbery,” he says in an interview conducted in French. “What I saw was kids with firecrackers that showed up, that’s all.”
Rochdi, whose restaurant serves standard brasserie fare as well as North African specialties, was inside Le 35 when he heard pops going off on the sidewalk. “I didn’t realize [what was going on] at first,” he says. “I thought it was in the movie.” But for those outside, Rochdi says, it was “general panic.”
When he stepped out, Rochdi heard “fireworks going off left and right.” He rushed to bring the cast and crew inside Le 35. “The actor” — as Rochdi refers to the series’ lead, Omar Sy (The Intouchables, Jurassic World), perhaps France’s biggest movie star — “went into my office. He was safe in my office.”
Last week, officials announced that seven of the alleged thieves had been nabbed, a group of folks aged 13-21, the BBC reports. They “now face charges of armed robbery as part of an organised gang and receiving stolen goods,” and “Police say they are still looking for more of the assailants, and have recovered some of the stolen equipment.”
So, we have a real-life heist, on the set of a heist series, that’s about a thief who’s patterned his life after a thief from…a series of books? That’s not an ouroboros, that’s a spiral, and I’m kind of here for it. Someone please take this tale, blow it out, and adapt it, please. — EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: When does true crime cross into crass?
What is this thing? This should help. Follow Best Evidence @bestevidencefyi on Twitter and Instagram. You can also call or text us any time at 919-75-CRIME.