Manson Reading List · R. Kelly · Finland
Plus: A Confession
the true crime that's worth your time
Will our Summer of Manson ever end? I suppose it must, and then I will be complaining about something else. And, obviously, I’m in the minority, here -- if people didn’t remain obsessed with the 50-year-old (or older, depending) crimes, there wouldn’t be so much #content out there about it.
Never one to miss a trend, the NYT’s book desk has issued a Manson-related reading list. My guess is that most of you have read them all, but I could be wrong. Here’s their list -- are there any that you would have cut? Any Family-related tomes that you would add? -- EB
A new British true crime drama series is looking at a complicated case involving multiple murders and a problematic interrogation. The show’s called A Confession, and it’s about the disappearance of Sian O'Callaghan, who disappeared from outside a bar in South West England. The subsequent questioning of the man who was eventually convicted of killing her cost senior investigating officer Steve Fulcher his job, but, in a conversation with the Guardian in 2017, Fulcher said he’d do it all again.
The six-part adaptation stars Martin Freeman as Fulcher and Imelda Staunton as the mother of another alleged victim. At a Q&A for the show last week, Freeman was his normal charming self (that’s a joke -- that dude is always so sour!), saying “The writing is really good but you can also f*** up good writing and I didn’t want anything to do with trying to wrench an emotion from an audience and make them cry and all that shit.” An air date for the show has not been announced, with press materials promising a broadcast at some point this month. -- EB
Dream Hampton has penned a piece for the Hollywood Reporter on how she took R. Kelly down. The woman behind Surviving R. Kelly explains how she got on the case in 2000 (my god, think about that -- 19 years ago) when, while writing a profile of Kelly for Vibe, she was told not to ask about his rumored marriage to Aaliyah, who at the time of the nuptials was reportedly 15. In the op-ed, she gives loads of credit to reporter Jim DeRogatis, whose coverage “seemed like screams into the void” as the allegations against Kelly continued to mount. A snip:
I knew our series would shift the conversation when I monitored Twitter its first night. I recognized the serious way black women in particular were talking — not just about R. Kelly but about the ways justice is denied to black women victims of gender and sexual violence. What I didn't know was that Chicago District Attorney Kim Foxx and federal agents also were watching.
On Monday, Kelly was hit with a third set of charges, this time in Minnesota. Reuters reports that after a 17-year-old fan sought an autograph from Kelly in 2001, he allegedly paid her $200 to remove her clothing and dance for him, then engaged in sexual contact with the woman. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman says that Kelly now faces counts including prostitution and solicitation, in addition to his cases in Chicago and New York.
If you haven’t gotten enough of Sarah’s opinions of No One Saw A Thing, we have one more piece for you. Not only did she review the book on which the Sundance series is based here, but last week’s The Blotter Presents podcast covered the series, she also wrote about it for Primetimer. Here’s a snip:
Any case that inspires terms like "vigilantism" and "outside the law" is ripe for editorial analysis. Here, then, is where the series faces a narrative choice: to try to solve the mystery in good faith; to investigate what brought Skidmore to this grievous moment; or to look forward instead of backward, and theorize about the fallout of this incident, attributing the town's present day struggles to a single event on July 10, 1981. That is the angle No One Saw A Thing chooses to explore, but it shouldn't have.
You can read her full piece on the series here. -- EB
A Finnish true crime event is the target of critics who say it’s unethical. Before you get all “oh, the delicate people of Finland,” check this out: The event, which was planned for this month, was co-organized by Janne Raninen, a convicted double-murderer who was reportedly planning to lead a guided tour of one of his homicide sites.
Since the flap over the format, the crime con has been revamped to include a crime journo panel as well as rap performance “and an address by a victim support official,”
Uutiset reports. According to Raninen, the point of the event was to prevent crime, not glorify it, saying “I hope that young people don’t make the same mistakes that I did and cause suffering to the victims and their families.” -- EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: It’s The Blotter Presents Episode 107, in which Sarah and I will discuss Free Meek and ReMastered: Who Killed Jam Master Jay?
What is this thing? This should help.
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