Unabomber · Bears · Dr. Oz
Plus: Marilyn Manson sure doesn't help his case
the true crime that's worth your time
It’s not often that you see someone accused of domestic violence sue their accuser. Even folks like this law firm, which clearly penned “Fighting False Allegations of Domestic Abuse” as a search play (hey, it worked!) fail to bring that up as an option, instead recommending that those who dispute allegations “avoid conflict,” among other recommendations.
Clearly, Marilyn Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, got different advice from attorney Howard King. If you are old like me, you think of King as the guy who killed Napster — he was the lead counsel in Metallica’s and Dr. Dre’s turn-of-the-millenium lawsuits against the file-sharing service, which was the first step in ending the whole "colossal CD copying party” (as King put it at the time). So now we have Spotify, etc and everything is great! Good work, all.
Anyway, now King is back in my pop-culture consciousness, leading a lawsuit against Evan Rachel Wood for her work on Phoenix Rising, the two-part HBO doc about domestic violence legislation in California, with Wood’s claims against Warner as the centerpiece.
The Hollywood Reporter says Warner’s suit against Wood was filed Wednesday in LA, and contains some pretty wild accusations:
According to the complaint, Wood and Gore have secretly recruited and pressured prospective accusers to simultaneously emerge with allegations of rape and abuse against Warner. The alleged aim was to rebrand Wood as “an outspoken standard bearer for victims of domestic violence or sexual assault—thereby absolving her reputation for having a wild past and her embarrassment for having been in a long term relationship with Marilyn Manson.”
Manson claims that his accusers were given a checklist of 21 allegedly fabricated acts of abuse to ensure that their claims would mirror each other and create the perception of a pattern of sexual assault. The list includes claims that they were raped, drugged and locked in a room that they were unable to leave.
The lawsuit also alleges that Wood and Gore impersonated an FBI agent by forging a fake letter claiming that Manson’s victims were in danger. The letter stated that there was an ongoing investigation into Manson.
HBO isn’t named in the suit, and King says “they were “duped into distributing the documentary and refused to alter plans to air it when he notified the company” of his client’s claims. The doc doesn’t drop until March 18, but the suit doesn’t try to block it from air (as, say, Carole Baskin attempted in her since-dropped claims against Tiger King 2).
Instead, it only asks “punitive damages” for “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Even if you believe Warner, that’s still kind of hilarious given his intentional personal brand, but you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. As of Friday morning, Wood has yet to publicly respond. — EB
Just in time for the weekend, a new Unabomber movie! Ted K quietly dropped a few years ago, but buzz for it is growing and growing — and if you watch the trailer above, you might see why. Trailers aren’t aways an indication of a movie’s quality, as anyone who has seen the latest Matrix film knows all too painfully, but this one might be one of the tightest, sharpest, most kinetic teases for a film I’ve seen in a long time.
Obviously, this is a dramatic adaptation of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s whole deal [she says, waving hands in the general direction of the earth], which I have gone on record as saying is a position I am not unsympathetic to! Long before everyone with a brain agreed that we have broken the earth, Kaczynski was indeed sounding the alarm. Unfortunately, the way he sounded it was unacceptable.
South African actor Sharlto Copley is in the title role (not Christian Bale, as you might think from that still, right?), and has been singled out for raves in the largely positive reviews of the film (see: NYT, LAT, Variety), with most saying the movie’s good, but it’s not very fun. It’s now available to rent on all the usual streaming services. Depending on how my mood is this weekend, I might check it out — if I feel I have a capacity for grim the next few days, I’m in. — EB
Speaking of people with brains, and those without. It was May of 2019, and Best Evidence was just a teeny baby newsletter, when Sarah failed to object when I announced that I was going to go on a rant about Dr. Oz. I’d learned that the television doctor had a segment called “True Crime Tuesday and Thursday” and it was so bad, y’all, but also, it was corrosive.
You can read my whole nearly three-year-old take here, but — at the risk of being wildly self-indulgent — I want to pull out my central accusation against Oz here now:
One of the reasons Oz is my nemesis is because I believe that his show trades in fear and misinformation. It’s vile enough that he’s exploited our fears that our body is about to turn on us for so many years, but now he’s taking advantage of our external vulnerabilities -- especially in These Troubled Times -- by playing into the psychological syndrome known as “mean world,” the same phenomenon that makes you feel paranoid after looking at NextDoor for too long or installing Citizen on your phone. When Oz presents segments like “I Had No Idea My Loved One Was A Serial Killer,” he’s making a calculated play on the fears of his audience, he’s not seeking to investigate, intrigue, or even provoke.
Now, allow me to show you a tweet from this week, ostensibly penned by Oz, who is now — as you know — a failing far-right Senate candidate in a state he doesn’t even live in.
(On the off chance that Twitter does indeed delete it — as they said they’d do for misinformation — I screencapped it; the original is here.)
Look, I’m not saying that Dr. Oz Is A Shithead was a thrillingly original observation in 2019, but even then, I wouldn’t have thought he’d be overtly and publicly racist. I also would not have assumed that he would be a vocal denier of the climate crisis.
All this to say that Best Evidence’s archives are pretty good and you should go read them if you’re in the mood — and that I was more right about Dr. Oz than even I could have predicted. Call me the Ted K of Oprah’s televised spawn! — EB
And now for an important Best Evidence retraction. In our February 23 discussion thread, “You can't spell 'criminal' without 'animal,’” I wrote, “every story about this bear doing bear things in Northern California keeps referring to its behavior as a “crime spree.” As though this bear is rejecting the norms taught him by the folks who raised him! Come on, folks. THIS IS A BEAR.”
I was writing about 500lb black bear Hank the Tank, who at the time was believed to have broken into multiple homes in South Lake Tahoe, prompting calls for his execution.
But according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, at least two other area bears were responsible for some of the damage attributed to Hank.
Given the new evidence, officials say they are no longer planning to euthanize Hank if captured. Instead, wildlife experts say their plan is to "trap, tag and work to relocate habituated bears."
"All of these efforts are focused on keeping residents safe, and enabling safe and healthy conditions for these bears," the agency said.
The issue of Hank’s alleged inquisitions and the proposed penalty for his crimes (death!) became such a flashpoint in the region that the South Lake Tahoe Police Department had to ask residents to stop calling the department to share their piece. On Facebook, the SLTPD wrote:
it's time to have a talk:
Please stop calling SLTPD to give your opinions about Hank.
Our dispatchers are being inundated with these calls about Hank. It's affecting their ability to give their full attention to emergency calls.
So I can't stress this enough:
The SLTPD does not have a say in where Hank lands. Our local wildlife agencies are working together to find the best option for Hank. No one wants to see him euthanized. They are searching for an option that will be good for Hank's mental/physical health, and the safety of our local residents.
In light of this new evidence, which official say implicates a number of bears, Best Evidence would like to apologize to Hank for assuming that he was the sole suspect doing what we referred to as “bear things.” We regret our error. — EB
And finally, a Friday longread. That Lost Highway, David Lynch’s influential crime/horror/whatever film, is 25 years old kind of makes me want to retire, but as Sarah just noted to me in Slack, I haven’t won the Powerball yet. So here we are. I say the movie in the theater when it came out in 1997 and haven’t given it a ton of thought since, but film and pop culture writer Zach Vasquez clearly has.
In a piece on Crime Reads headlined “Nothing Can Stay Hidden Forever: The True Crime Legacy Of Lost Highway,” Vasquez notes “the involvement of three cast members in real-life murder cases” (yeah, that is Robert Blake all over the trailer!), and claims that “Lost Highway remains one of, if not the most disturbing movie David Lynch has ever made, not only for what he put in front of the camera, but for what all occurred beyond it.”
What follows is a breakdown of the many crime-related connections to the film. There’s so much to unravel, in fact, that Vasquez doesn’t even get to star Balthazar Getty, whose dad was famously kidnapped in 1973, spawning films like All The Money in the World. The Getty family has a whole web of crime-related content, in fact, a list of which would be far longer than Vasquez’s Lost Highway longread, which you can enjoy here. — EB
Monday on Best Evidence: The Thing About Pam reviewed, plus a BetCrap!
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