OJ · Matt Gaetz · Carmel Pine Cone
Plus: a doc on sleep murder
the true crime that's worth your time
Hi, how did you get here? Best Evidence had a sudden influx of subscribers over the last few days, and we can’t figure out why. (I checked, Sarah did not get arrested over the weekend, so much for that theory.) Anyway, we’re happy to see all your new faces. Hope you have fun. — EB
Hulu announced a couple upcoming true-crime properties at the summer upfronts. In a press release timed around its presentation at the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour, Hulu said that it is planning to drop a slew of true-crime (and food, but that’s my other job) properties. Some highlights:
Dead Asleep
This doc’s director is Skye Borgman (Abducted In Plain Sight) and is a co-production with Sky, which will air the show on its newish Sky Crime network. It’s about the Randy Herman Jr., a guy who in 2019 was convicted of stabbing his roommate to death. His (unsuccessful) defense was that he suffers from violent parasomnia — basically, that he killed her while sleepwalking. (You might recall that comedian Mike Birbiglia suffers from a similar disorder. He made a movie about this in 2012, and talked about the weird contraption he has to sleep in to avoid harming himself or others in his 2019 Netflix standup show.) The Miami New Times piece tells the story with vintage alt-weekly flair, if you want to know more about the Herman case.
Captive Audience
This one is pretty meta: it’s a docuseries on the impact I Know My First Name Is Steven, the 1989 TV adaptation of the Steven Stayner kidnapping case, had on Stayner and his family. Jessica Dimmock (Unsolved Mysteries) directs this one, and Marvel hit-makers Anthony and Joe Russo are producers. Forgive me, I must quote the overwrought press release for this one:
In 1972, 7-year-old Steven Stayner mysteriously vanished on his way home from school. Nearly a decade later, his dramatic return to his family sparked ‘80s-era “stranger danger” warnings, legal reforms and one iconic [sic] Made-For-TV-Movie2, in which the family’s ordeal was transformed into a prime-time miniseries watched by 70 million Americans. When the credits rolled and the movie ended, it closed one tragic chapter of the family’s life but opened another.
This limited documentary series explores the evolution of true-crime storytelling through the lens of one family’s 50-year journey and two brothers; one deemed a villain and the other a hero. It’s about how truth becomes story and story becomes truth—on TV, in the justice system and in our minds.
Hulu has yet to announce a release date for either, but, sure, I’m down. — EB
The first details are rolling out on Debra Newell’s new book. Newell, who because a true-crime household name after the release of podcast Dirty John, is preparing to release a first-person account of her time with “Dirty” John Meehan. The book’s called Surviving Dirty John: My True Story of Love, Lies, and Murder and it drops on August 31, but the New York Post teased a bit of it Sunday.
Of course, the part that the Post seized upon was Newell’s brush with OJ Simpson, who she says was “one of the most likable and popular celebrities on the planet” when they met in the 1980s. Despite that, though he came on “pretty strong” in his attempts to woo her, she rebuffed his advances.
Speaking with the Post, Newell elaborated: “I’ll be honest with you: I saw right through him. I saw someone with a big ego and somebody that was fairly arrogant and a salesman.” A decade later, as she watched the policer chase his Bronco, Newell says that she thought, “How do I let these men charm their way into my life? … Luckily, I didn’t let O.J., but I did let John.”
No big-name review publications have weighed in yet, but the book is getting fairly unanimous praise from folks at Goodreads who nabbed advance copies. If you all forcen me to read the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood novel, I say we forcen Sarah to read this one. Agreed? [“Challenge accepted.” — SDB] — EB
All this talk of forcening makes me want to get paid. As we say in Best Evidence’s about page, we made most of this publication free when the pandemic began because the last thing any of us needed was to be nickel-and-dimed while trying to avoid COVID-19. But we are still doing this thing on our own time, typing from our stores (Sarah’s, mine) and between our other writing jobs.
Every paid subscription we get helps ensure that we can keep Best Evidence going, that we can increase the pay for our contributors, and that we can keep a solid portion of this publication open to all. So, if you’re not a paid subscriber ($5/month or $55 for a year), won’t you consider signing up today?
Chris Porco lost his lawsuit against Lifetime. Porco, an alleged eBay and car loan scammer who — per prosecutors — attacked his parents with an ax in 2004, killing his dad and seriously injuring his mom, has been fighting Lifetime about Romeo Killer: The Chris Porco Story for nearly a decade. After a judge’s ruling in 2013, the show aired, but a subsequent New York legal battle over the statutory right of privacy kept courts occupied for years.
But in late June, a ruling from the Appellate Division, Third Department court in Albany appeared to seal the deal. Law.com reports that Porco and his co-plaintiff Joan Porco (that’s right, his mom and alleged victim) have since 2014 “sought damages under the misappropriation-focused Civil Rights privacy law.” But in the June decision, Justice Molly Reynolds wrote that “to ultimately prevail … plaintiffs [Christopher Porco and Joan Porco] must demonstrate that the film in question rises to the level of a ‘materially and substantially fictitious biography where a knowing fictionalization amounts to an all-pervasive use of imaginary incidents,’ culminating in ‘a biography that is nothing more than an attempt to trade on the persona of the plaintiff.’”
According to Reynolds, the laws the Porcos have been suing under apply to things like using a likeness for advertising, but not to “reports of newsworthy events or matters of public interest, even if the reports were produced with profit in mind.”
A lawyer for the Porcos simply says that “The decision is clearly erroneous,” and that he plans to appeal. But overall, the decision is arguably a relief to true-crime producers who worry that a litigious subject could stymie their property. And thank goodness, now there’s nothing to stop us from watching Romeo Killer but a lack of interest in spending five bucks (you can own it forever for only $10). Based on that trailer, I think I got the gist of it, but I won’t stop you if you want to watch and tell us all about it. — EB
Yes, Matt Gaetz has a podcast. No, it’s not new. Publications as disparate as the Washington Examiner and Vice have reported in recent days that the Florida congressman/alleged sex offender had just launched a new podcast to defend himself from the rapidly mounting allegations against him, but that’s not quite true.
According to the Ex, a right-leaning paper that has often found itself on the same side as Gaetz, struck a surprisingly adversarial tone, writing that “Gaetz premiered a podcast on Thursday on which he spent more than 15 minutes defending himself against allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, poking holes in news stories, and painting a picture of a conspiracy to take him down while at the same time avoiding key details from reports about the investigation.”
Meanwhile, Vice (lefty, as you know) writes that “Gaetz’s ‘Firebrand’ podcast posted its first episode on Thursday, and features Gaetz whining about Fox News, denying the aforementioned sex crimes, and interviewing fellow far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Both of these stories present a narrative that Gaetz launched this show expressly to defend himself against the claims against him, but that’s just not true, I learned when I decided to stunt-listen to this podcast for y’all over the weekend. (I’ll remind you that the subscribe button is just a quick scroll up.)
Look, I thought it would be interesting to listen to the show and tell you about it, maybe as a jumping-off point for how other folks facing allegations might use the medium. (Wednesday is our discussion thread day, after all.) But when I destroyed all my street cred, subscribed to the show, and probably did something terrible to my recommendations forever, I learned that the show is on its 154th episode, so, no, I will not be doing this.
I get why these folks were confused: the most recent episode is presented as “episode one,” but even in the show notes they just call it a “season premiere,” not a podcast premiere. It’s true that some of Gaetz’s YouTube promotions make it look like it’s a new effort from the politician, but this guy’s been ranting into a mic for well over a year, as anyone who clicks on a link to the podcast might see. So, sorry to rain on everyone’s parade, but while publications on both sides seem to view Gaetz as a likely sex offender/crackpot, they’re wrong in saying he launched a podcast solely to take on his accusers. — EB
Allow me to cleanse your Gaetz-soured palate with the Carmel Pine Cone. This isn’t a weird new ice cream, it’s a local paper serving California’s Monterey Peninsula. Aware that my greatest joy on road trips is the local paper — and aware that I have not taken a road trip for far too long —a traveling friend just brought me the August 6-12 edition. And, folks, they illustrate their crime blotter.
Here’s a photo; let’s figure out how we can get more papers to do this. It’s fantastic.
Wednesday on Best Evidence: Maybe we should still do that suspect-podcast discussion thread, even without Gaetz?
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