Sarah Lawrence · Houston · Second Seasons
Plus: should "conventionally attractive men" play killers?
the true crime that's worth your time
“One more and it’s a NYT trend piece.” That’s a quip a lot of journalists use when they notice a confluence of similar stories, a play on the “rule of threes” that often determines of an article pitch lives or dies.
The confluence here is college-related properties: last week we touched on Hulu’s Death in the Dorms, and while it’s not a property yet, we’re sure the race to debut a series on the University of Idaho slayings is going full speed ahead. And then there’s Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, another uni-set docuseries from Hulu, this one on the Larry Ray case.
We’ve talked about Ray here before, when we recommended The Cut’s 2019 longread “The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.” Ray, the parent of a student at the prestigious school, moved into his daughter’s dorm and started a cult, as one does. (As announced by the DoJ last year, Ray was eventually convicted of “racketeering conspiracy, a violent crime in aid of racketeering, extortion, sex trafficking, forced labor, tax evasion, and money laundering.” (He’s currently cooling his heels in a Brooklyn jail, as his sentencing has been pushed to Jan. 20, so I can’t end this sentence with the usual capper on where he’s incarcerated and for how long, sorry!)
If the Ray case sounds familiar beyond the NY Mag report, you might have caught Peacock’s Sex, Lies and the College Cult, which dropped on the streamer last fall. As I vaguely recall, it was a responsible and fine recap of the wild allegations against Ray and subsequent trial, a workman-like retelling of the matter that neither offended nor amazed.
Given how thorough federal prosecutors were at Ray’s trial, there isn’t much more to uncover, so I’m on the fence on if this new telling is worth a visit. According to its press materials, Stolen Youth has “unprecedented access” (bold claim) and “excerpts striking first-hand interviews with conman Larry Ray’s victims and incorporates personal audio tapes and video recordings.” So perhaps the idea is that it’s more victim-centric and less investigation-focused than the Peacock take?
That’s just speculation, though, tea-leaf reading of a press release that really serves no one. So I’ll just finish by saying that all three episodes of Stolen Youth drop on February 9 — and by then, if court calendars cooperate, we’ll know Ray’s sentencing fate. — EB
Side note: Given a choice between watching a show called Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence or Sex, Lies and the College Cult, I feel more drawn to the latter. How about you?
I don’t bug you with every single “is true crime ruining society” article that crosses my desk. If I did, that’s basically all I’d cover here, as the cottage SEO industry of outrage over true crime seems to be at al all time high.
This piece from Washington’s Spokesman-Review is a little different, though. Clearly spurred by the high-profile University of Idaho case just across its border, the experts reporter Emma Epperly interviews seem to be bracing for how lead suspect Bryan Kohberger will be cast in the (inevitable?) dramatic adaptation.
As casting is something we talk about here a lot, a passage in the piece gave me pause. The speaker here is Danielle Slakoff, a criminal justice prof with Sacramento State.
"We're in a really weird time where people like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer are not only being played on mainstream networks and (streaming) services, but being played by people that are conventionally attractive men," Slakoff said.
Zac Efron, known for his roles in the "High School Musical" franchise and more recently "Baywatch," played Bundy in 2019 and Evan Peters played Dahmer in a Netflix series released in 2022.
"One of the challenges with a case like this is that often the perpetrator does become the main focus and almost become a pseudo-celebrity," Slakoff said.
Above and beyond the “conventionally handsome” issue is, I think, the problem that the people who are cast on TV shows and movies are the kind of people who are cast on TV shows and movies — not just better looking than most of us, but also blessed with more charisma and that “x-factor” so used by most casting agents that it became the name of a talent competition. That draw that gets these folks roles while the multitudes of other attractive people seeking Hollywood stardom work temp jobs.
An example of this might be Brian Dennehy in To Catch A Killer, the 1992 TV movie in which Dennehy plays John Wayne Gacy. I’m not here to debate Dennehy’s 1990s-era attractiveness, but I think we can all agree that he’s not a Zac Efron type. However, as anyone who has even been in a room with Dennehy knows, he was a completely magnetic personality, even when not on the clock. The guy felt like a star when he was just walking around. (Folks say Gacy was also charming and engaging, but my guess is that he was no BD.)
So what’s the solution? Do creatives only cast local theater company actors as killers to keep the personality factor dim? When a killer is as much of an arguable looker as Bundy, does the responsible adapter still cast a real uggo just to keep their side of the street clean?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that Slakoff’s remarks got me thinking more than the usual true crime pundits’ do. If you have a proposed solution (or maybe you don’t even think we need one? Reasonable folks can disagree!), I’d love to hear it before the casting announcement for the untitled U of I series hits Deadline. — EB
Good news for fans of the Up and Vanished, To Live and Die in LA, and Culpable podcasts. While many production houses are pruning and canceling their offerings, Audacy-owned Cadence 13 is announcing some renewals relevant to those interested in true crime.
According to a press release issued earlier this week, cold case disappearance podcast Up and Vanished will receive a fourth season and To Live and Die in LA — which is also a disappearance podcast, and like UaV tackles one case a season — will get a third. Unsolved case podcast Culpable will get a third. Release dates or topics for all those seasons have yet to be announced. — EB
And now, for a somewhat inspiring longread. This multi-byline Houston Chronicle piece is about 55-year-old Demetrius Johnson, who was released from prison in October after a homicide conviction when he was 17.
In jail for nearly 40 years, Johnson emerged to a world that was barely recognizable — and in addition to the rapid changes society’s seen in the last four decades, there’s the culture shock of freedom after so long behind bars. Snip:
He had been convicted of capital murder, and the world had moved on without him. His first day out, someone called a relative and handed Johnson the phone. “Can you see me?” he said loudly, holding the screen to his mouth like a walkie talkie. When his friends laughed, Johnson looked at them. “I thought all phones had cameras these days.”
When he asked for a washboard, his friends shook their heads. When he did the dirty slide, they told him it was now called the tootsie roll. After church, he looked forward to the fried foods of his childhood, only to learn that his friend had baked lamb and roasted vegetables. Though it was 90 degrees out, he was unused to the chill of an air conditioner – the majority of Texas prisons do not have air conditioning for inmates – and quickly caught a cold. Wearing a beanie indoors, he asked a friend to buy him Vicks VapoRub, a luxury he had only seen in commercials.
And when his childhood girlfriend Marilyn Jones came by to reconnect, he listened as she told him about her marriage, her job, her recent divorce, her home in The Woodlands. He had been locked up during the years when most men get married, and he hadn’t been in a relationship since he was in high school. As she talked, he could see in her face the girl she had once been, when they hung out all night in her bedroom listening to the Gap Band on the radio. He began talking to her on the phone every day.
Sometimes when he spoke, he felt short of breath. In the free world, he always felt as if he’d been running.
It’s a humanizing, engaging, and eye-opening report on life behind bars, and why freedom can be as much as a challenge as life in prison, but it’s surprisingly uplifting and life-affirming. I felt slightly better about the world after I read it, and I think you might, too. — EB
Friday on Best Evidence: Your weekend watches, and a time machine.
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