The O'Jays and OJ
Oh how I wish I could find an "Oh, Jay" story to add to that subject line
the true crime that's worth your time
Iconic R&B group the O’Jays is at the heart of a newly revived cold case. The group behind objectively great songs like “For the Love of Money” (I write as the non-pop music podcaster on Best Evidence’s masthead) was started by a group of Ohio friends in 1958. Frank “Frankie” Little, Jr. joined the band a couple years later, and reportedly had a significant hand in some of its earlier hits.
The band eventually moved to LA, as bands so often do. According to founding member Walter Williams, Little left that the band a few years after that, telling Rolling Stone that “Frankie was a guitarist and songwriter in the very early O’Jays. He came with us when we first ventured out of Cleveland and traveled to Los Angeles, but he also was in love with a woman in Cleveland that he missed so much that he soon returned back to Cleveland after a short amount of time.”
It’s not immediately clear what happened in Little’s life after that, living in Ohio as the band he left started to rack up hit after hit. “He was last known to live in the area of East 105th Street and Superior Avenue in Cleveland and it is believed he was alive into at least the mid-1970s,” the Akron Beacon Journal reports. But at some point, he disappeared.
In 1982, a skull was found in the woods near Twinsburg, a rural area between Akron and Cleveland. A search of the area revealed a garbage bag with more remains, which forensics teams said had been there for 2-4 years. No one knew who it was, and the case was eventually filed away.
Inspired by how DNA evidence was used to find the Golden State Killer, Twinsburg detective Eric Hendershott contacted the DNA Doe Project in 2019, and researchers there used information from two public genealogy databases to see if they could figure out who this long-dead person might be. This week, the remains were identified as Little’s, and the case has officially been reopened as a homicide.
I strongly suspect that since this case now has this celebrity angle, it’s going to be up for multiple true-crime adaptations shortly. The Akron Beacon Journal’s report on the case is quite thorough, and worth a read — it’s exactly the kind of yarn that might act as a neutral discussion topic during a holiday dinner with family. After all, everyone loves “For the Love of Money.” — EB
Elizabeth Holmes’s trial is almost over. Closing arguments begin today, and “are expected to spill into Friday,” ABC reports. Then the case goes to the jury for deliberations — a discussion they likely want to wrap up before the holidays. So I guess what I’m saying is that we’ll probably get a verdict for Christmas.
While we wait, a couple Holmes-related matters to tide us over:
See Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu Theranos drama The Dropout [Cnet]
You don’t necessarily need to click through on this SEO-friendly piece that seeks to recap two of the four stills from The Dropout shared by Hulu on Wednesday. The show doesn’t stream until March 3, so there’s still plenty to look forward to — like a trailer where we can all discuss how well Seyfried captures Holmes’s distinctive tones. I do like the shade of red lipstick she’s wearing in that top left photo!
The magazine story that made Elizabeth Holmes famous could now help send her to prison [Washington Post]
They say all press is good press, and when the press is as unequivocally glowing as Fortune’s glowing 2014 cover story on Theranos and Holmes, “good” becomes great. But according to folks Post media writer Paul Farhi spoke with, that great coverage (as well as puff pieces from other tech outlets) might also be Holmes’s downfall.
Fortune reporter Roger Parloff has maintained for years that Holmes misled him, but that doesn’t keep Farhi from taking him to task, writing that he “quoted without challenge Holmes’ vague and enigmatic pronouncements about the company’s methods.” Now that article is “a key part of the state’s case against Holmes, as [is] testimony and interview recordings supplied by Roger Parloff.”
The Elizabeth Holmes Trial With Rebecca Jarvis of ‘The Dropout’ Podcast [The Ringer]
This week’s episode of Ringer podcast Plain English features Rebecca Jarvis, the ABC business, technology and economics correspondent behind The Dropout (the podcast, not the Hulu show). She will “review the most jaw-dropping evidence in the case, the cringiest text messages, the biggest wins for the prosecution, the best moments for the defense, and the larger meaning of the tech trial of the century,” the episode description reads.
The Juice is officially loose. OJ Simpson is a “completely free man,” the Associated Press reports, as he was “granted good behavior credits and discharged from parole effective Dec. 1,” a spokesperson with the Nevada State Police said.
Simpson was sentenced to 33 years for his role in a 2008 Las Vegas armed robbery and kidnapping. He was granted parole in 2017. Here’s the full statement from Nevada’s Parole Board:
On Nov. 30, 2021, upon the written recommendation of the Division of Parole and Probation and in accordance with NRS 213.1543, the Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners conducted an Early Discharge hearing for Mr. Simpson. A decision to grant early discharge from parole was ratified on Dec. 6, 2021.
During interviews with the parole board prior to his release, Simpson said that he’d serve the rest of his time in Las Vegas, then would move to Florida to be closer to family. From the AP’s report at the time:
“I could easily stay in Nevada, but I don’t think you guys want me here,” he joked at one point.
“No comment, sir,” board chairwoman Connie Bisbee replied.
The rest of his sentence will now be reduced to “time served.” Meanwhile, Simpson is still on the hook for over $60 million in judgements related to the 1994 slaying of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Over the summer, attorneys for Simpson said that he “lives on pensions” and did not have funds to dedicate to those civil judgements. — EB
The Shrink Next Door is the focus of a new lawsuit. The Apple TV show has been streaming for about a month, now (if you haven’t listened, Sarah and the rest of the Extra Hot Great operation discuss it here), but all is not well for Joe Nocera, the guy who started it all.
Per the Washington Post, Nocera, who created the wildly popular podcast based on his real-life Hamptons neighbors, was recently fired by Bloomberg News — the company for which he worked when he did the show. This week, Nocera filed a suit against Bloomberg, saying that he “was robbed of the profits” from the property.
What follows is a twisty tale. For its part, Bloomberg says that “Mr. Nocera was treated fairly in all of his dealings with Bloomberg. We have honored and will continue to honor all of our contractual obligations with him.” Nocera says that as he came to the relationship with Bloomberg with the story (which began as a spiked NYT Magazine yarn).
Nocera was eventually fired over matters unrelated to the podcast (they’re interesting from a media perspective — especially given the discussion of Theranos’s coverage, above) — and then this happened:
He was told that Bloomberg’s stance was that journalists were not entitled to a share of advertising revenue generated by an adaptation and that none would be included in his agreement. Nocera’s lawsuit alleges that this flies in the face of the “all revenue” language in the contract. He’s also asking for an accounting of all the money that Bloomberg has earned from “The Shrink Next Door.”
According to the complaint, Bloomberg acknowledged that MRC owed Nocera $322,500 but that the bulk of that money had been paid out and the outstanding balance of what Nocera would get was $35,000. Bloomberg said it would pay Nocera that money when it received it from MRC. Nocera claims he is owed much more. Jayaram, his attorney, said that Nocera would be suing even if he were still employed by Bloomberg: “He’d be enforcing his rights under either circumstance.”
There’s a lot to unpack in the Post piece, but it raises some good questions about who owns what when a story blows up into a phenomenon — something that seems to happen more and more these days, as the public appetite for new true crime continues to grow. — EB
Friday on Best Evidence: The gift of true crime. It’s a discussion thread, not a call to action for paid subscriptions…but while we have you, don’t you think Best Evidence is an awesome gift? Just saying.
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