José and Kitty's survivors are left reeling when Lyle and Erik confess that they actually did kill their parents...and also why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the excitement about The Menendez Murders , you may have missed that Dick Wolf snuck ANOTHER show onto the schedule: Oxygen's Criminal Confessions , a process-y look at law enforcement's efforts to get suspects to admit their guilt. Uproxx's Alan Sepinwall took a break from new-book promotion to discuss what the show does right, how long it can sustain our interest, and how it stacks up against stylized scripted confession scenes like Homicide: LOTS 's. Later, we played Would You Rather with ...
As Erik finally lets his legal team know what ELSE might be on those tapes of Jerry Oziel's, Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting go over the Star Witnesses (Judalon's boobs; Leslie's hiring of so many women) and Aggravating Factors (Diane Faux-yer; the jacket Julianne Nicholson borrowed from David Silver) in E03 of The Menendez Murders . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Maura Murray's disappearance has preoccupied the internet for years -- and some of the nutballs theories about it have preoccupied Sarah D. Bunting and Stephanie Green for almost as long. Does Oxygen's The Disappearance Of Maura Murray add anything to the case file, or only to our annoyance? Later, our Cold Case section delves into Jake Nolan's attempted murder of his cousin/shrink/possible lover's ex-BF, and whether true-crime shows should be less dated in how they talk about mental illness. Sh...
Welcome to The Blotter Presents: Summary Judgment -- a shorter pod devoted to continuing coverage of a single series we're finding noteworthy. This inaugural episode and the half dozen following will be putting Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders under a microscope -- and in this ep, Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting look at the Star Witnesses (what worked) and Aggravating Factors (what didn't) in the latest ep of the Menendez series. Please admit Wig Cop's evidence, and make YOUR ca...
The long-awaited Dick Wolf take on the verrrrry well-trodden ground of the Menendez case has finally arrived, and Tara Ariano is in for the entire series. What does this property do well that others don't? What is it about this case that producers and actors seem to love? And why is Lyle's wig the best one on the screen? Later, the Cold Case section looks at murderer and serial rapist Russell Williams, and how he escaped suspicion for so long (while looking so similar to an American character ac...
Yance Ford's Strong Island is a, well, actually it's a flinching look at the injustice of grief and loss, and guest Mark Blankenship is here to take us through its elements of Greek tragedy as Ford memorializes his murdered brother. Then we contemplate the life and death of Sam Cooke in two very different shows, American Masters and Mysteries & Scandals . Show Notes The New Yorker 's review of Strong Island Muhammad Ali's rendition of "The Gang's All Here" Learn more about your ad choices. V...
First-time guest Anna Beth Chao joined Sarah D. Bunting in a horrified binge-watch of The Confession Tapes, a new series on old cases that convicted "killers" based on false confessions. How does this keep happening? Why do juries keep believing them? And when we will learn from the West Memphis Three? Later, Unraveled introduces us to better-than-normal re-enactments (and can afford to pay Jim Clemente for talking-head interviews) as we look at the Gary Plauche case out of Baton Rouge. Learn mo...
A&E debuts its life of Biggie Smalls at last, and my Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs co-host, Mark Blankenship, has a few thoughts on Jay-Z, versification, and whether it matters that the film spends only a few minutes on Christopher Wallace's murder. Then we take a detour into the Werner-Herzog weird with a German-TV docu on Italian madrigal composer and melodramatic murderer Carlo Gesualdo. Please watch Death For Five Voices and discuss it with us in the forums, because we feel like we're ...
Oxygen premiered The Disappearance Of Natalee Holloway over the weekend, and Al Lowe Huff is back to talk about the case, new twists on old evidence, whether the miniseries' weird undercover set-up is going to yield new clues, and how mad we'll be if it ends up in a(nother) big nothing. Al also brought a 48 Hours on Charlie Brandt to our Cold Case section -- and we're thinking maybe the show should have expanded its proven template to dig into issues of child psychology and familial liability. W...
As the 15th anniversary of Laci Peterson's disappearance approaches, A&E interrogates the case against her widower Scott with The Murder of Laci Peterson -- and Kim Reed returns to interrogate the rationalizations of Scott's defenders (and make fun of Nancy Grace). Kim's also got another crime tale with a personal connection as we dig into a Forensic Files about a Southern Tier black widow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Good news: neither Eve's nor my dad is the Zodiac! Bad news: True Crime With Aphrodite Jones isn't as skeptical as it could be about claims like that. Later, we look at some local-news takes on the Zodiac case, and the great Forensic Files runs into some story-structure problems in its episode about the east-coast version, Eddie Seda. Dumb profiling, junk science, and the two pairs of glasses everyone wore in the '60s, all in the latest The Blotter Presents! Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...
Chipperish Media/How Story Works chief Lani Diane Rich sat down with me to see which Son Of Sam stories worked -- Investigation Discovery's, Smithsonian's, or the 1985 CBS version starring Martin Sheen -- and the one that's so bad it's good may surprise you. Why do David Berkowitz's crimes still preoccupy us? What's with every single Sam-doc producer having to put several minutes of public-domain disco on the soundtrack? And who decided Eriq LaSalle should only have one line? We'll try to answer...
Monty Ashley joins me this week to take a look at TV's second run at the murders in Chillicothe, Ohio. Paradise Lost's Joe Berlinger comes in with a hot serial-killer theory, then shifts gears -- but not before giving airtime to a grieving aunt's crackpot theory (and wasting some on chopper shots of a cemetery). Will we keep watching? And how does Berlinger's 2014 series on breakdowns in American criminal justice, The System, stack up? All this, plus the supernatural hypothesis Monty hopes Gone ...
Oxygen's four-night "event," The Jury Speaks, debuts this coming weekend, and my husband Dan is "back" to talk about what we learned about Michael Jackson, George Zimmerman, Aphrodite Jones, and the rules of evidence. Later, we look at A&E's Live PD and whether it protects and serves its portrayal of law enforcement. Were our objections overruled? Have a listen and find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Noir novelist and Radio Free Dystopia co-host Toby Ball is back -- and may never come on the pod again after Sarah D. Bunting subjected him to American Ripper and H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer. Is Holmes just too tough a subject for documentaries to cover effectively? Did the creators miss opportunities to explore new angles on The Devil In The White City's already well-told tale? And why must Ripperologist crackpots insist that famous people are also "Saucy Jacky"? All this and muc...
Deadly Women devoted a "Predators" segment to Aileen Wuornos; Chris Huff and I devoted a Cold Case segment to lamenting the "Go Toros!" acting from the day players, before moving on to Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story, which stars Jean Smart and Park Overall in a weirdly elliptical but also very empathetic treatment of Wuornos's life in crime. Boston marriages, honeysuckle accents, gender politics, and Oscar politics, all in Ep 14. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
American Experience's "Jonestown: the Life And Death Of Peoples Temple" and 1980's Guyana Tragedy: The Story Of Jim Jones make up our all-Cold-Case episode this week, as Eve Batey comes back to talk about the Peoples Temple's lasting effect on San Francisco, and California; what Jim Jones's particular breed of amoral manipulation and surreal paranoia can tell us about today's headlines; and who we'd have cast as the late Congressman Leo Ryan instead of Ned Beatty. Which property is more effectiv...
Alex Collins joins Sarah D. Bunting for a riot grrrrl, Bill Kurtis, and two VERY unhappy families. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Charter member of the Virtual True Crime Book Club Kim Reed reunites to talk about The National Enquirer Investigates's take on the Bill Cosby allegations as they go to trial this week. What is his wife's role in all this? Has he gotten a fair trial in the court of public opinion -- and is that because of his race? And would you be better off listening to WHYY's pod on the story instead? Later, we dig into Dateline and 48 HRS's differing takes on Syracuse OB/GYN Robert Neulander, whether he kill...
My non-carnal life partner Tara Ariano comes on TBP for a look at Netflix's The Keepers. Does it work as a true-crime tale? Does it need to? And will we ever learn who killed Sister Cathy? Later, we make a markedly less depressing return to Tara's childhood with Love & Hate, a Canadian miniseries about the stalking and murder of JoAnn Thatcher by her scumbag ex-husband Colin. Take a break from your "urban existence" and give the latest The Blotter Presents a listen! Learn more about your ad ...
My esteemed colleague Stephanie Green is back for Erin Lee Carr's Mommy Dead And Dearest, which investigates Gypsy Lee Blanchard's murder of her con-artist mother, Dee Dee, and whether it was justified. Should Gypsy's father have done more? Is Gypsy's cousin the real star of the doc? And what's going to become of Gypsy when she's paroled? Our Cold Case is an Australian crime show's look at John Bunting (no relation), his horrible crimes, and the perils of casting a guy who looks like Jack Black ...
Kevin Smokler and Sarah D. Bunting talk about a not-so-hot take on Boulder's most notorious cold case, plus the granddaddy of TV true crime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Special Guest: Kevin Smokler.
Is Dick Wolf's new USA joint, INSIDE THE FBI, worth a look? Sarah's husband Dan Brady rates it on a scale of one to Great British Baking Show, and may change her mind in the process. Plus, a discush of our favorite lighthearted crime show, CAMPUS PD, takes a serious turn as we wonder how our take on its bratty millennials has changed in a post-Ferguson world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A lot of networks have special-event programming commemorating the 25th "anniversary" of the post-Rodney-King-verdict uprising; Sarah D. Bunting guessed Showtime's and NatGeo's entries looked good. And she guessed right; Burn Motherf*cker, Burn and LA 92 complement each other and dig deep into the history of racial conflict in the City of Angels -- but don't feel like homework. Documentarian and recent-ish Angeleno John Ramos discussed music cues, cringey contemporary interviews, and Danny Bakew...
Investigation Discovery's three-night Casey Anthony event is our lead topic this week as Crime Writers On's Toby Ball and I consider misleading quotes, goofy re-enactments, and the court of public opinion. We also talked about the first chapter of the Paradise Lost documentaries, how the film's aged, and what makes an outsider. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Special Guest: Toby Ball.
Showtime Sports's Disgraced looks at the murder of Patrick Dennehy and how Baylor hoops coach Dave Bliss made it all about him. I'm joined by Allison Lowe Huff to talk about the labyrinth of secondary crimes one student-athlete's murder laid bare. Our Cold Case this week is a 48 Hours from early in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, what we've learned since then, and what coverage of the case maybe should have focused on instead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Who Killed Jane Doe joined Investigation Discovery's roster last month, and while it's better than you'd expect, it's still not quite good...Leah Kwan joined me to discuss re-enactments, shows that should be podcasts, and Karl Malden's Emmy-winning performance as Freddy Kassab in hall-of-fame crime mini Fatal Vision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As Spike joins the list of networks looking to make their marks with high-end true-crime series, Sarah D. Bunting and Eve Batey talk about Time: The Kalief Browder Story, the value of name producers, and cases cities remember as "theirs." Our Cold Case segment this week lets slip the dogs of...a polyamorous relationship with a jailhouse Aryan? American Justice is vague on the deets but Eve has some reading to recommend, plus some drive-by snark on 60 Days In -- all in a brand-new TBP. Learn more...
Our new podcast revisits an old favorite rebooted in our first episode: Cold Case Files , which has not exactly improved on the original by adding Danny Glover and a bunch of out-of-focus re-enactments. Plus, we celebrate OJ: Made In America 's Oscar win by revisiting it -- and, if you just don't have time to watch "the Shoah of OJ content," a shorter alternative from 30 For 30 . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
