Millionaire Dog · Dr. Phil · Ashton Kutcher
It's the February budget sweep!
the true crime that's worth your time
I’m so glad Sarah mentioned that I’d be doing the budget sweep in yesterday’s issue. Somehow, it escaped me that the month was ending today (don’t worry, I already paid the rent), so I’d tended our story list even more sloppily than usual — as a result, today’s roundup of all the links we might have gotten to but didn’t is an even more random grab bag of stuff than usual. It has defied all my efforts to organize it, so I’m just delivering it to you as-is. Thank you, as always, for your indulgence. — EB
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Inside the Trump grand jury that probed election meddling [Associated Press]
When I put this Feb. 21 report in the BE budget, my thinking was less about the former president (news and commentary about whom I generally avoid because life is too fucking short) than because I was interested in the inside grand jury baseball it offered.
The secretive nature of these courtrooms has obsessed me since my then-colleagues Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada faced prison after reporting information from inside a San Francisco grand jury during the BALCO steroids investigation, so I thought it would be a fun thing to include. But in the week since the AP story’s publication, juror Emily Kohrs, the primary voice in the report, has gained the nation’s attention. A roundup:
Take it from a former prosecutor: Emily Kohrs' media tour is reckless [MSNBC]
Could Georgia grand juror Emily Kohrs’s candid interviews have an impact on potential charges? [AP]
Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Recommended Multiple Indictments, Forewoman Says [NYT]
One of the ‘random people’ chosen to investigate Trump goes public [CNN]
Has Trump’s ‘giggling’ Georgia grand jury foreperson Emily Kohrs blown the case? [The Independent]
‘SNL’ Opens With Trump and His New BFF Grand Jury Foreperson Emily Kohrs [The Daily Beast]
I don’t have a good wrap-up here (this is why the link lingered on the doc!), but I’m struggling to think of a situation — grand jury, simple criminal case, or civil proceeding — when the juror who agrees to speak out isn’t pilloried in the end. If I end up as a juror on any case, big or small, you won’t hear a peep out of me. Probably. Maybe? — EB
Interview: Rebecca Lavoie Of NHPR [Inside Podcasting]
BE bff and founder of The Squeeze, Skye Pillsbury, was the founding editor of Inside Podcasting, and when she’d go on vacation, I’d often fill in. Though Inside.com is very different than it was when we worked there, I still read Inside Podcasting on the regular out of a sentimental attachment — and I’m glad I do, because this interview with Rebecca Lavoie about Bear Brook’s second season (which Sarah reviewed yesterday) is nicely done.
“What makes me the most excited” about the true crime podcasting genre, Lavoie says, “is the continued trend of looking at the deep flaws in our criminal justice system, including wrongful convictions, prosecutorial and police misconduct, and the gross disparity of injustices committed against people of color.” — EB
Missing Romance Novelist Found After Disappearing Following Her Release from Wyoming Jail [People]
Faleena Hopkins, the author of the Cocker Brothers series of romance novels, made headlines earlier this month after allegedly leading police on a high-speed chase through Grand Teton National Park, that scenic Jackson, Wyoming attraction also known as the site of Gabby Petito’s death.
Local coverage is unclear on why she was in Jackson or why she allegedly fled from law enforcement; after her release from local jail she disappeared for a little more than two weeks but was eventually found (officials haven’t said where). According to her family, there haven’t been any events or issues leading up to the incident, but many of the details are exceedingly odd — for example, she reportedly surrendered her dog to a Jackson shelter, and had swapped her cell phone for a burner. She’s due in federal court today for her arraignment, and if they’re smart, folks involved in true crime content creation are watching this case. — EB
True Crime Is Murdering Documentaries [The Town]
Here’s the logline: “Matt is joined by New York Magazine features writer Reeves Wiedeman to discuss his latest piece, about the complicated state of documentaries right now. Reeves talks about how the true crime genre and the celebrity-produced documentary space have dominated the market for buyers, leaving little room for more traditional works of art and journalism to poke through. They discuss the ease with which these glorified reality TV or public-relations exercises can be made, why streamers continue to spend more and more on acquiring these projects, and whether or not this bubble will burst.”
I finally listened to this last weekend, it’s a good inside-industry discussion, but one that might be overstating the “crisis”; content trends rise and fall and even I can’t believe that true crime will be an all-encompassing market force forever. — EB
Inside the Implosion of Justin Roiland’s Animation Empire [The Hollywood Reporter]
How much of my interest in the Justin Roiland domestic abuse case is based on my true crime leanings, and how much in based on how tiresome I find Rick and Morty’s most fervent fans? My fear that the latter was my driving source kept me from aggregating this in the daily, but it’s still worth a read; here’s a snip:
By season three, Rick and Morty had hired its first batch of female writers, which didn’t stop Roiland and others from doodling penis monsters and other vulgar characters on the office whiteboards. As one show source recalls, Roiland could still be highly engaged and appropriately silly, though too often he was “surly, petulant, uncommunicative and grouchy, like he always wished he was doing something else.” According to another show source, he was easily distracted, too; the writers would regularly walk over to a Toys R Us, where they would buy action figures or Nerf guns, and “then he played with them the rest of the day and we couldn’t get any work done.” Other show sources say he’d derail pitches and interrupt with sophomoric non sequiturs like, “What if his brains were on the outside?” It reached a point where multiple sources say it was easier when Roiland wasn’t in the room.
At some point during the third season of Rick and Morty, multiple sources say Roiland simply stopped showing up — and when he did turn up in the Burbank offices, he’d typically avoid the writers room. In fact, Roiland’s colleagues often knew he was there only because they could hear his dogs. Or they’d hear his remote-control toy car, which had a microphone on top of it, zooming around the office. At least once, Roiland sent it into the writers room, says a source. “You wouldn’t have seen him in weeks, and then you’d see the car come in, which was insane.” (A source close to Roiland points out that many showrunners step away from successful shows once they’ve been established to tackle other projects.) Roiland would make exceptions to bring through famous fans, of which Rick and Morty has legions; at various points, his visitors included Kanye West, the comedians on Impractical Jokers and porn star Riley Reid, who gifted the room a succulent.
New Crime Streaming Service Launches [Press Release]
Last time I thought about Chris Hansen, he was in court over alleged check kiting. Now he’s entered the already-packed streaming market with a channel called TruBlue, which made its debut in November (the release went out right as January closed). The selection of shows appears…pretty limited given its $4.99/monthly subscription price, and based on this interview with East Idaho News, it seems like the network might just be a delivery system for Hansen to revive To Catch A Predator on his own terms. But if someone gets their hands on a copy of Firehouse Dining, sure, I’ll take a look. — EB
Ashton Kutcher Has Been Through It [Esquire]
I think we all know better than to listen to Ashton Kutcher regarding anything, but his comments on Masterson’s alleged pattern of serial rape are somewhat aggravating.
Masterson’s legal battle is hard for Kutcher to watch. Even after Kutcher left the show, Masterson remained a mentor of his. And when the rape accusations were first made public in 2017, Masterson was costarring with Kutcher in The Ranch, a Netflix sitcom that ran from 2016 to 2020. (Netflix soon wrote Masterson’s character off and fired him.) He and Kutcher remain in touch. Kutcher speaks to Masterson’s brother often. He says he thinks about Masterson’s child and how the Internet lives forever. “Someday, his kid is going to read about this,” says Kutcher. At the same time, Kutcher is an advocate for those who’ve been or are being abused. “I wholesale feel for anybody who feels like they were violated in any way.”
What Kutcher wants, he says, is for Masterson “to be found innocent of the charges brought against him.” Which is not, crucially, the same as Kutcher wanting his friend to get off the hook. He wants this man who was an example of how to handle yourself at a crucial time in his own life to actually be that example. To be innocent.
“Ultimately, I can’t know,” says Kutcher of what the answer is or should be in this moment. “I’m not the judge. I’m not the jury. I’m not the DA. I’m not the victim. And I’m not the accused. And so, in that case, I don’t have a space to comment.” He pauses. “I just don’t know.”
Here’s an idea: start with the “I don’t have a space to comment” part, then stop. Don’t blame the internet for theoretically upsetting Masterson’s kid with the news, don’t express your wish that he didn’t rape people (guess what, we all wish that no one would ever commit any crimes!), just say you’re in no position to comment when asked about your friend the alleged multiple rapist. I know it’s hard, you’re a middle-aged white man with money and you feel obligated to share your deep thoughts with the world, but you can do it. — EB
Netflix’s Millionaire Dog Documentary Is Secretly A True Crime Story [Screen Rant]
Look past the content farm display-ad padding of this item — or wait, just don’t click, I’ll give you the arguable nut graf:
The documentary series supposedly tells the story of how the titular dog, Gunther, inherited a trust fund from his owner, a countess, and how his handler went on to manage that money through Gunther’s descendants. But as the episodes of Gunther’s Millions progress, the show reveals the increasingly bizarre usage of Gunther’s money, eventually digging down to its purpose in producing the potentially dangerous Netflix documentary. Unsurprisingly, the documentary exposes the many inconsistencies in Gunther’s money and the people surrounding him.
I know, even that is a tough read, but it made me more interested in this docuseries than I’d be otherwise — its marketing suggests (see the trailer above) it’s a shaggy dog story, but it’s apparently…not?
Slate details some of the crimes apparently at play, and the show’s reportedly unsatisfying resolution:
Gunther’s Millions is fun—at one point, Italy’s more salacious version of Perez Hilton comes into the series claiming that he is God—I will certainly give it that. But, of all the lies Gunther’s Millions tells, the biggest one is that we won’t know from the beginning how it all ends. To traipse through all of the sex-cult allegations, Vatican baby-theft worries, and more sex-cult allegations just to end up where we first started is annoying to say the least. This isn’t to say that Gunther’s Millions is a waste of time, more that it prioritizes an experience it doesn’t deliver on—the crown jewel of true crime media: the ultimate “gotcha!” moment—instead of focusing on the ones it does.
Did anyone here watch Gunther’s Millions? Is it worth the time? — EB
Colin Kaepernick-produced Killing County, a three-part docuseries about corruption in the Bakersfield, CA police department, dropped earlier this month on Hulu to middling reviews. This BuzzFeed piece posted a day or two before it dropped and only addresses the trailer; author Mychal Thompson is Black, queer, and from Bakersfield. Though its slender in that typical BuzzFeed/SEO way, this graf can’t help but transcend that:
I'm that young Black man nervously avoiding saying the wrong thing while I watch the officers reach for their guns during a "routine traffic stop" that would result in me thankfully driving away with no ticket because I passed their "test" with flying colors. In other words, I kept my "aggression" in check.
Here’s ABC’s release on Killing County; it contains a potentially triggering level of detail on how the folks from the show died while in police custody, important information but also stuff that challenges one’s mental wellness. Even without being from Bakersfield, you can see why Killing Country might be too hard to watch for many folks. — EB
Phil McGraw, America's TV shrink, plans to end 'Dr. Phil' after 21 seasons [NPR]
In recent years, McGraw (like fellow Oprah-elevated TV personality Mehmet Oz) has devoted more and more of his airtime to true crime; he even does a podcast on the topic. His next move, he said, is a "strategic, prime-time partnership [with CBS Media Ventures], scheduled for an early 2024 launch, which will expand his reach and increase his impact on television and viewers” as he “has ‘grave concerns for the American family’ and is ‘determined to help restore a clarity of purpose as well as our core values.’"
Of course, everything in those quotes suggests that my worst fears about the unlicensed psychology degree holder are about to be fulfilled, which the world certainly doesn’t need — but if that means he’s not fostering mean world syndrome on the daily to an audience of millions, I’ll take that win. — EB
Aaaah Substack is giving me the awards stage version of the music play-off, an angry red bar that says this email is getting way too long. So here’s a lightning round of headlines, commentary free:
How US police use digital data to prosecute abortions [TechCrunch]
Celeb Prosecutor’s Own Kidnapping Is Now a True Crime Fiasco [The Daily Beast]
A class that brings Manhattan prosecutors together with incarcerated men [Gothamist]
LA Bishop O'Connell died by 'murder,' sheriff says [The Pillar] (Sarah’s doc note: “promises to get turned into histrionic SVU in 3…2…”)
Wednesday on Best Evidence: It’s the first discussion thread of March 2023!
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