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Tag: True Crime
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Massachusetts detective’s affair exposed during investigation into his wife’s shooting death
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It was 1 p.m. on May 8, 2018, when Massachusetts State Police detectives arrived at a farmhouse in Westfield. 51-year-old Amy Fanion lay dead in the dining room from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Amy Fanion’s husband, Brian Fanion, a detective in the Westfield Police Department, had called 911 minutes earlier, reporting that his wife had shot herself.
Det. Mike McNally: Amy was essentially … in a pile of blood that was beginning to congeal under her left side.
The dining room, rearranged to accommodate medical personnel, was in disarray as detectives worked to identify clues of what may have happened.
Det. Mike McNally: There was a … blood spatter around that window frame from that dining room into the breezeway. … There was a pair of glasses that looked like it had some kind of red-brown spatter on it.
Hampden County District Attorney’s Office
And then there was the bullet.
Det. Mike Blanchette: The actual projectile … was in that front … enclosed porch area. … The spent shell casing was still in the dining room.
Det. Mike McNally: We could see the direction that it traveled, through Amy’s head … that round impacted that dresser, came to a rest right around there in the breezeway.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Brian was sitting in a chair with his back to the wall and … he’s with the chief of police from the Westfield police department, who’s talking with him. … Everyone was in a state of shock.
Everyone, including Amy Fanion’s brother, Eric Hansen, who told detectives that he had just finished playing disc golf behind the house when he heard Brian Fanion’s cry for help.
And that’s when he walked into the house, saw Amy Fanion on the floor, a gun next to her, and Brian Fanion holding Amy’s hand.
Det. Mike Blanchette: So he picked up the gun himself and moved it, uh, out of Brian’s reach.
Nikki Battiste: — because he was worried about Brian’s state of mind having just lost his wife.
Det. Mike Blanchette: Yes.
Nikki Battiste: What kind of gun was used?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: A Smith & Wesson, uh, M&P 45. … Brian Fanion’s duty weapon.
Nikki Battiste: That give you any pause that it was Brian Fanion’s weapon?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Yes. It gave me pause … at this point I know that I’m going to really do a detailed investigation.
THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS
To avoid conflict of interest, O’Toole said he decided that his unit, the Massachusetts State Police, would be the sole investigators, and he wanted to get Brian Fanion away from the house to get a statement.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: I asked if he would accompany me to the Massachusetts State Police barracks in Russell. … And … I took a uh, tape recorded statement from him.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police statement): Tuesday May 8th. It’s 2:41 p.m. … I’m with Brian Fanion. Brian, um, do you understand I got a recorder on right now?
BRIAN FANION: Yes.
Brian Fanion told O’Toole that he left his office at the Westfield Police Station around 11:45 a.m. and drove to North Road to meet his wife who was on her way home to prepare their lunch.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police statement): What was she making?
BRIAN FANION: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Brian Fanion said that when he arrived, they continued an argument from the night prior — an argument that had gotten pretty heated that evening.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police statement): When you say heated, I guess what —
BRIAN FANION: Just, uh, I don’t know … She just, uh, was very angry.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: What was the argument about?
BRIAN FANION: Um, I’m retiring soon … We were discussing what each of us expects retirement to be.
Brian Fanion said he told Amy that he didn’t want to spend his retirement maintaining their 200-year-old home, which Amy still loved. They also discussed their aging dog, and his reluctance to get another one.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): I don’t want to be tied down by a dog. … Yeah. … She always wants to have a dog. … I want to travel more than she does.
According to Brian Fanion, that afternoon, during lunch, Amy Fanion told him she had scheduled them to attend a family member’s play on the day Brian wanted to attend a disc golf tournament.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): I just said, “oh I don’t like that stuff. Why would you commit me when — or without asking?”
That’s when, according to Brian Fanion, things soon took a turn for the worse.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): I took my gun out of the holster and put it on our hutch because I had to use the bathroom.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Where is the hutch located?
BRIAN FANION: In the dining room.
Brian Fanion said he closed the bathroom door, and when he came out, Amy Fanion had the gun in her hand.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): She has the — the gun pointed up to the right side of her head.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: What did you hear her say?
BRIAN FANION: I — I think she said, I guess you don’t want — you don’t want me around or you don’t want to be around me.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Was she seated or —
BRIAN FANION: No. She stood up.
BRENDAN O’TOOLE: She was standing. OK.
According to Brian Fanion, he was four to five feet away when he tried to stop his wife from pulling the trigger.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): I tried to get to her. I almost did. … The gun just exploded. … It was just so quick. She didn’t hesitate at all. … I just went over, and I just held her hands. Tried to — just held her hands (crying).
Brian Fanion called 911 and yelled out to Amy’s brother, Eric Hansen, for help.
Hansen told detectives that Brian Fanion said he and Amy had been having a tense argument.
ERIC HANSEN (police interview): And she grabbed the gun … he just was so distraught.
DET. MIKE BLANCHETTE: Did he say what they were arguing about?
ERIC HANSEN: No. I was just trying to console him, say, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.
Amy’s Fanion’s death had shocked the Westfield community.
Stephanie Barry is a reporter for The Republican in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Stephanie Barry: Amy’s maiden name was Hansen. She came from a fairly large family … She and her sisters … were all known as some of the prettiest girls in school, some of the smartest, and some of the nicest.
It was 1983 when 16-year-old Amy Hansen met 19-year-old Brian Fanion. Fanion came from a long line of police officers and politicians, and in Westfield, the Fanion name was a source of pride.
Stephanie Barry: The Fanions were kind of like the Kennedys of Westfield. They were well regarded.
Firtion Adams Funeral Home
Brian and Amy tied the knot in 1985, and the couple eventually had two children, Travis and Victoria. Amy Fanion’s close friend, Teri Licciardi says Amy loved being a stay-at-home mom.
Teri Licciardi: Amy’s focus was raising her children. … she thought that being a parent was the best job in the whole world.
The Fanions, deeply committed to their faith, dedicated their lives to God and community service, with Brian Fanion serving as a church deacon and working as a missionary to build wells in Mexico.
After 30 years of marriage, the Fanions were planning their next phase of life when those plans derailed.
Nikki Battiste: Is there any knowledge that Amy Fanion had any mental health issues or suffered from depression?
Brendan O’Toole: So, I — I asked Brian … And, um, he mentioned, um, many years earlier … she was having some psychological issues, in which she was on medicine for a period of time … other than that, nothing — nothing recent.
But what Brian Fanion did stress was that his wife had bouts with anger.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): She had a temper, but she hid it well from everyone but me. She only got that angry when we were alone.
Midway into the interview, O’Toole asked Brian Fanion if there were any female friends in his life.
BRIAN FANION (police statement): I have a woman who lives in Pittsfield that I met recently, I did a mission trip to Mexico, and we become good friends.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: What’s that lady’s name?
BRIAN FANION: Cori.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Does she have a last name or —?
BRIAN FANION: Cori Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. You guys aren’t going to contact her. Are you?
BRIAN FANION’S DELETED TEXTS RAISE SUSPICION
For Detective O’Toole, Brian Fanion’s admitted friendship with another woman raised questions.
Fanion had told detectives that Corrine Knowles, known as Cori, was a fellow missionary at a nearby church. The two met in November 2017 on a mission trip in Mexico, and a friendship developed, but it had never gone beyond that.
Hampden County Superior Court
Nikki Battiste: An emotional affair?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: He said there was some flirting, but he qualified it, that it wasn’t —
Nikki Battiste: Sexual?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: — a sexual. It was not a — his term was it was not a friends with benefits.
At the end of the interview, O’Toole asked Fanion to turn over his personal phone.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: I turned off the recorder and that’s when Brian told me … He’s like, you’re going to see some things on there and it’s not what it appears to be.
Nikki Battiste: Red flag for you?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Yeah. … There’s several red flags … as a — an investigator … you have to keep an open mind.
Within a week of Brian Fanion’s interview, on May 14, 2018, Amy Fanion’s wake was held.
Brian Fanion planted a tree in nearby Stanley Park in his wife’s memory, but the investigation into her sudden death was just beginning.
Detectives recovered a treasure trove of deleted text messages from Brian Fanion’s phone including these exchanges on May 4 and 5:
MAY 4, 2018:
CORI KNOWLES | 9:42 AM: Mmmmm … To feel your hot breath on my skin!!!
CORI KNOWLES | 9:48 AM: Have I told you that I love being your Angel? …
BRIAN FANION | 9:59 AM: I swear God made you for me …
CORI KNOWLES | 1:11 PM: I so need to hear your voice … I love you!!!
BRIAN FANION | 1:19 PM: Amy is still being attentive and clingy …
BRIAN FANION | 9:08 PM: Thank You for being you, the most amazing woman that I have ever known.
MAY 5, 2018:
CORI KNOWLES | 4:31 PM: My heart belongs to you…
BRIAN FANION | 4:26 PM: … I would be lost without you :):):):) I am eternally yours.
BRIAN FANION | 7:39 PM: I love you Cori!!!
CORI KNOWLES | 7:43 PM: I love you so much Brian!!!!!
Det. Mike Blanchette: There were just hundreds of texts that expanded on the relationship that he was having with Cori.
On May 7, the day before Amy Fanion died, Brian Fanion and Knowles exchanged 72 text messages until 9:47 p.m. that evening.
In one exchange at 9:23 p.m., Brian Fanion writes, “Good night my love!!! I hope you have wonderful dreams of amazing days and nights to come:):):):).”
At 10:33 p.m. Knowles responds, “Good night My love … I will dream of you and all that they (sic) future holds for us!”
The next morning at 10:30 a.m., Knowles texts, “When can I hold you again?????”
To which Brian Fanion responds, “… not soon enough. Turning into a very long morning.
Nikki Battiste: And within an hour or two, Amy Fanion is dead.
Det. Mike Blanchette: Yes.
At 12:47 p.m. on May 8, Brian Fanion texts Knowles, “Please don’t call or text for a while. I’ll call when I can really bad pray for my family please.”
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Brian has not been entirely truthful to us at this point. And so we want to speak with him again.
Hampden County Superior Court
On May 17, 2018, three days after Amy Fanion’s wake, Brian Fanion arrived at the District Attorney’s State Police Office for another round of questioning.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): So we just needed to, you know, uh, clarify some things. … you know your Miranda rights, but I — I’m going to read them off this form.
BRIAN FANION: Now — the other day you didn’t do this. Has something changed?…
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: You’re not, you’re not under arrest or anything.
BRIAN FANION: Well, I know that.
And on that same day, across town, detectives met with Cori Knowles to learn more about her involvement with Brian Fanion.
DET. MIKE MCNALLY (police interview): If somebody was to say, who’s Cori, who are you?
Cori Knowles, a 48-year-old wife, grandmother, and member of her church’s choir, told detectives that Brian Fanion’s friendship helped her work through a troubled second marriage.
CORI KNOWLES: Brian is very easy to talk to. … nothing but affirmation and love, and I’m here for you.
But over time, their relationship moved from friendship to flirtation.
CORI KNOWLES (police interview): Did I feel passion for him? Absolutely.
By April 16, 2018, five months into Brian Fanion and Knowles’ relationship, their texting gave way to something more intimate when Knowles visited Fanion’s house before they left for volunteer work.
DET. MIKE MCNALLY (police interview): Was that the first time you were intimate that you kissed, at, on that April day, the 16th?
CORI KNOWLES: Yeah.
DET. MIKE MCNALLY (police interview): And then where was that?
CORI KNOWLES: I wanna say the kitchen. … ’cause I got there before Amy got home.
Knowles told detectives that by late April, she and Brian Fanion were having passionate make-out sessions in her truck.
At 5:29 p.m. on April 23, 2018, Knowles texts Brian Fanion, “I can feel your … lips on mine!!!! LOVE that Memory!!!:):):)
At 5:34 p. m., Brian Fanion replies, “… I’m thinking of the one with your legs around my waist … Oh my … “
Det. Mike McNally: Brian left work early, met up with Cori in Westfield at Stanley Park and they made out … there was, some sexual touching.
But according to Knowles, Brian Fanion could not perform.
CORI KNOWLES (police interview): It was more like because I’m still married to — to Amy —
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): We’ve seen the text messages. In all honesty, Brian, it looks like it’s a lot more than a friendship. You know.
BRIAN FANION: I know it escalated … and I’m completely embarrassed by it, ashamed of it and shouldn’t happen.
Nikki Battiste: But a lot of people have affairs and —
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Correct.
Nikki Battiste: — don’t kill their wife.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Correct.
O’Toole then asks Brian Fanion to go back over his statement of what happened, beginning at the moment when Fanion said he placed his gun on the hutch and went inside the bathroom.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): All right. So, you come out of the bathroom, right, and she’s at the table. Where — where just indicate like where —
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Between the table and the hutch?
BRIAN FANION: Yeah.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: In — in a chair right there?
BRIAN FANION: I don’t know if she was sitting or standing. I think she was standing. I mean, um, shoot — I think she was sitting.
Det. Mike Blanchette: Now, when we were trying to get these, step-by-step details, he seemed to be wavering.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: So, you come out of the bathroom. OK? … And then what’s the first thing that happens?
BRIAN FANION: I just remember her saying that — that you obviously don’t want me around.
And then O’Toole asks Brian Fanion to demonstrate what Amy Fanion did with the gun.
BRIAN FANION: I just remember seeing her hand come up with the gun.
DET. MIKE BLANCHETTE: Towards her head?
BRIAN FANION: Yeah.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: So, she puts it to the side of her head?
BRIAN FANION: Yes.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: OK.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: And — and where was the gun when it went off? Was it in the same —
BRIAN FANION: Right to her head.
But there is a problem. What Brian Fanion did not know was that a CSI report and Amy Fanion’s autopsy results had arrived.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: … the gunshot entrance wound was not consistent with a self-inflicted wound.
Nikki Battiste: Fair to say it took this case in a whole new direction?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Yes.
QUESTIONING BRIAN FANION’S STORY
During the second interview with Brian Fanion, O’Toole And Blanchette found themselves facing a challenge that tested their experience as investigators.
Det. Brendan O’Toole: This is not a — a normal interview for myself and Mike. We’ve done thousands of interviews. You know, we’re pretty good at it, but it’s hard when it’s a police officer, because he knows exactly how we work … it was … a difficult interview.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): There’s a problem. I’ll be straight up …
Detectives laid out with what they considered to be crucial evidence in their investigation.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): There’s no indication – whatsoever, so far that she had a gun close to the side of her head.
BRIAN FANION: Well, then you’re wrong ’cause she did. ‘Cause I saw it and it happened.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: You — you know
BRIAN FANION: How do you say there’s no indication?
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Well, I mean, that’s what — that’s what, you know, that’s what it’s showing us right now.
The medical examiner listed Amy Fanion’s manner of death as undetermined. And combined with CSI findings, investigators did not believe that she died of a self-inflicted wound.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): I mean, there’s no doubt she — was shot was, but the question is, from what distance?
BRIAN FANION: It was right freaking there. I’m telling you. . . well do what you need to but I’m telling you it was right there.
In Amy’s case, distance mattered. This is because with self-inflicted gunshot wounds, debris, known as gunshot residue, is expelled from the firearm. It leaves a distinct pattern on and inside the wound known as stippling.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE (police interview): Like, if Brian, you — you understand like guns and stippling and all that stuff?
BRIAN FANION: I do and I can’t —
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: There’s none on her, Brian. There’s none on her!
BRIAN FANION: There has to be ’cause the gun was the — right freaking there!
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: There’s none on her.
BRIAN FANION: Then they’re wrong. I’m telling you they’re — they’re flat out wrong, ’cause it was right freaking there.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: The other option is you got pissed and you’re a foot — or a few feet away and you shot her in the head —
BRIAN FANION: No, no.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: — when she’s sitting eating a peanut butter sandwich.
BRIAN FANION: Didn’t happen.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Didn’t happen?
BRIAN FANION: Did not happen.
DET. BRENDAN O’TOOLE: Alright.
With Brian Fanion’s affair exposed and CSI reports in hand, detectives suspected Fanion had likely shot his wife, but they still needed more evidence.
On May 24, 2018, detectives obtained a search warrant for Fanion’s home, and when detectives arrived —
Det. Brendan O’Toole: Brian … asked if I was there to arrest him. And I told him I wasn’t. And then he asked me if I thought he did it.
Nikki Battiste: Were you surprised he asked you that?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: I was noting it. I didn’t know how to feel … and I didn’t answer his question.
Detectives took additional measurements to analyze the trajectory of the bullet.
Fanion’s home electronics were confiscated. And at the same time, his desktop computer and laptop at the Westfield Police Station were seized for data extraction.
Nikki Battiste: Did you see any signs that Brian Fanion planned to kill his wife? Any evidence that points to that?
Det. Brendan O’Toole: We see a totality of all the evidence here. … Um, we’re not the fact finders. Um, we’re, we’re detectives, so we, we collect all this information and then … it’s going to be presented … and someone else is going to make a determination on that.
And that someone would be Hampden County Assistant District Attorney Mary Sandstrom. New to the homicide division, Sandstrom had arrived in Massachusetts by way of New York.
Nikki Battiste: Is it fair to say you were a fish out of water a bit?
Mary Sandstrom (laughs): It’s always hard not being from the area in which you prosecute. … uh, it’s a very small, very intimately connected town. … So, yes, you’re never at an advantage where you don’t know everybody by name.
Nikki Battiste: Adding to the difficulty, Brian Fanion is a detective. … And respected.
Mary Sandstrom: Very much in — in that community.
As spring gave way to summer, Knowles ended her relationship with Brian Fanion. By early 2019, Fanion retired from the police force.
The investigation into Amy Fanion’s death continued.
Mary Sandstrom: We’re still trying to get some testing done … because we wanna have a strong case as possible before we go in before the grand jury.
And a complication in the form of a letter was among the case files.
Amy Fanion’s family members expressed their “unfailing support” of Brian Fanion, saying “we are certain Amy took her own life.” The letter was signed by Amy’s siblings, and even her own mother.
Nikki Battiste: That’s gotta be tough for you.
Mary Sandstrom: It’s an awkward position for a prosecutor, where your victim family isn’t supporting you. … It was an odd spot to be in.
An odd spot, perhaps, but not a deterrent. On Nov. 6, 2019, 17 months after Amy Fanion died, detectives arrived at Brian Fanion’s door.
Det. Mike McNally: Brian … came to the dining room door … pretty quickly as I recall it, and he said something to the effect of, come in. … Then Mike Blanchette began to describe to Brian, “Brian, we have an arrest warrant for you.”
NEWS REPORT|WBTZ: Police say Brian Fanion told them that his wife shot herself with his gun while he was at home on a lunch break last year.
Det. Mike McNally: I remember telling him, put your hands behind your back. I took out my handcuffs.
NEWS REPORT: AUDREY RUSSO | WESTERN MASS NEWS: … through their investigation, they only solidified their suspicion that Brian pulled the trigger.
Det. Mike McNally: He was eating … assorted nuts … just popping some in his mouth … And as he put his hands behind his back, he let them drop to the floor.
Det. Mike McNally: We transported Brian to the Russell State Police barracks. … he’s processed. Photographed. Fingerprinted.
NEWS REPORT | CHRIS PISANO | WESTERN MASS NEWS: … stands accused of killing his wife in what was originally reported as …
Det. Mike McNally: I assessed a feeling of despair on Brian’s face, like … I can’t believe this is happening.
FORMER DETECTIVE GOES ON TRIAL FOR MURDER
Stephanie Barry, a crime reporter at The Republican newspaper, recalls the unusual scene that played out 15 miles away, in Springfield, Massachusetts, inside the Hampden County Superior Court in early November 2019.
Stephanie Barry: There’s no one who spent any amount of time in Westfield who didn’t know who Brian Fanion was.
Stephanie Barry: It was a pretty full house. And the kind of palpable shock remained throughout the entire proceeding.
Hampden District Attorney’s Office
Brian Fanion, who appeared for his initial arraignment, entered a plea of not guilty. And sitting right behind him were members of both Brian’s and Amy Fanion’s family.
Stephanie Barry: I can’t think of another instance when I’ve seen the family of a victim … sticking up for the accused murderer of their loved one.
And despite the absence of support from members of Amy Fanion’s family, ADA Sandstrom continued to build her case.
Court exhibit
Nikki Battiste: What was Amy Fanion like?
Mary Sandstrom: She sounds like a fairytale. … giving, selfless. … completely dedicated to her family.
According to Sandstrom, the night before Amy Fanion died, she was making a gift for an upcoming baby shower that she planned to attend, and was texting her daughter, Victoria.
Nikki Battiste: Did anyone ever say that Amy was ever suicidal?
Mary Sandstrom: She wasn’t a person who was ready to die. … Amy was healthy. She was happy.
Nikki Battiste: What do you think Brian Fanion’s motive was?
Mary Sandstrom: He was ready to start a new chapter of his life that did not include Amy Fanion. … He’s chosen his life partner in Cori. Amy is the only thing standing in the way now.
Nikki Battiste: And that’s always the million-dollar question. Why not divorce?
Mary Sandstrom: He can’t divorce Amy for how he is going … to be seen in this community. … divorce is public. But, in his mind, murder doesn’t have to be.
On Feb. 23, 2023 – in what would be Westfield’s most publicized case, Brian Fanion’s trial began. He faced a life sentence for the first-degree murder of his wife.
“48 Hours” made several interview requests to Brian Fanion, his attorney, Jeffrey Brown, as well as family members of both Amy and Brian, but never received a response.
Nikki Battiste: This is a big case, a lot of attention. … How are you feeling?
Mary Sandstrom: For any trial, you’re always nervous. And … this was probably the most high-profile case I’ve ever done.
Opening statements revealed conflicting accounts of the circumstances surrounding Amy Fanion’s death.
MARY SANDSTROM (in court): The defendant was a deacon at Wyben Union Church and an officer for the Westfield Police Department … The evidence will show that while the defendant was repulsed by continuing his marriage with Amy. He couldn’t divorce her either. … Leaving him trapped. … And once that evidence is before you, I will ask you to find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.
Brian Fanion’s defense focused on Amy Fanion’s anger issues and claimed she suffered from anxiety. Brown alleged that on the day of Amy’s death, an argument over Brian’s retirement plans and his refusal to attend a family member’s play pushed her over the edge.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): In the days before Amy shot herself, Amy was very mad at Brian. … You had to tread lightly around Amy for fear of setting her off.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): And at the conclusion of the evidence in this case, I’ll ask that we find Brian Fanion not guilty. Thank you.
Anna Hansen, Amy’s younger sister, was the first witness for the prosecution. She was the only family member who signed the letter of support that willingly testified against Brian Fanion.
Pool
Anna Hansen stated that during the investigation into Amy’s death, her brother-in-law confided that he was worried about searches he had conducted on his computer.
ANNA HANSEN (in court): I asked him what that search was, and he said, “how to make a murder look like a suicide.”
MARY SANDSTROM: He specifically said he searched quote “how to make a murder look like a suicide?”
ANNA HANSEN: Those were his exact words.
Anna Hansen told the jury that when she asked her brother-in-law why he made this search, Brian Fanion told her that Amy asked him to do it after they watched a “CSI” show. It was a show that Anna Hansen questioned if Amy had ever watched.
MARY SANDSTROM (in court): Did she ever state that she liked those shows?
ANNA HANSEN: She never shared that with me.
The prosecution’s next witness was Brian Fanion’s former lover, a divorced Cori Knowles, now Cori Hasty, who told the jury that Fanion was concerned about ending his marriage.
MARY SANDSTROM (in court): Did the defendant ever talk about what could happen to him if he were to divorce Amy?
CORI HASTY: Yes. … If Amy was to ever leave — excuse me, or he divorced her, that she would take him for everything that he’s got. … because he wouldn’t be able to sustain on retirement at that point.
The prosecution called Tom Forest from the Cyber Crime Unit. All of Brian Fanion’s devices were examined, but it was Fanion’s office computer that produced some curious results.
Forest said Brian Fanion visited these sites:
DET. TOM FOREST (in court): “Common and dangerous poisons,” … “Which drug causes the most deaths each year? … Sixteen common household items that could kill you.”
DET. TOM FOREST (in court): “Carbon monoxide the invisible killer” … “Household poisons” … “Common prescription overdoses” …
Mary Sandstrom: But it’s only when this affair starts up … that all of these incriminating searches start to appear.
And 11 days prior to Amy Fanion’s death, Brian Fanion used his office computer to view a news report on YouTube called, “What gunshot residue tests tell us.”
Mary Sandstrom: He wasn’t assigned to any active investigations in April and May of 2018. … that would necessitate looking up gunshot residue. … Nobody in the Westfield Police Department does gunshot residue testing.
Stephanie Barry: I was trying to keep a very open mind about what the evidence was going to show. … but I didn’t think that was great news for Brian Fanion.
Detective John Schrijn, a ballistics expert and a crucial witness for the prosecution, testified that Amy Fanion’s wound was not self-inflicted.
Citing the absence of gunshot residue near the wound coupled with the trajectory of the bullet, Schrijn concluded that Amy Fanion was shot from downward angle and at a distance of at least 18 inches — not at close range as Brian Fanion had claimed.
MARY SANDSTROM (in court): So, did you form an opinion … as to whether or not … the defendant’s firearm was discharged at a distance of 18 inches or greater.
DET. JOHN SCHRIJN: Over 18 inches, without anything intervening. That’s correct.
After 12 days of testimony and 27 witnesses, the prosecution rested. But waiting in the wings was a defense poised to introduce a significant element that could potentially unravel the DA’s case.
Mary Sandstrom: Any prosecutor who is not worried about a defense, probably isn’t a good prosecutor.
THE DEFENSE MAKES ITS CASE
Defense attorney Jeffrey Brown, whose client faced life in prison, launched a counterattack. He cross-examined Brian Fanion’s former lover, Cori Hasty.
According to the state, Brian Fanion’s affair was the primary motive for murdering his wife. But Hasty admitted to the defense that when she ended their relationship, Fanion didn’t try to stop her.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): When ultimately you ended it with Brian, his response was, OK, isn’t that right?
CORI HASTY: To my recollection.
JEFFREY BROWN: He didn’t say to you, oh, my God, I killed Amy for you and you’re leaving me? He never said that, right?
CORI HASTY: Correct.
And what about the websites Det. Forest from the Cyber Crime Unit said Brian Fanion visited?
The defense argued that some of the websites he visited were related to an aging house, an old wood-burning stove, and the potential hazards it might pose to a young family member.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): Did you know that the Fanions, um, were beginning to have a young niece a child stay in their home during that time frame?
DET. TOM FOREST: No, I did not.
But what the defense couldn’t reconcile were Brian Fanion’s searches about gunshot residue days before his wife’s death.
And there was Amy Fanion’s sister, Anna Hansen, the only family member who willingly testified for the prosecution. She claimed that Brian Fanion told her he searched “how to make a murder look like a suicide” on his computer.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): You didn’t find any sites that were searched or visited relating to the terms, how to make a murder look like a suicide, isn’t that true?
DET. TOM FOREST: That is true.
The defense narrowed its focus and scrutinized Amy Fanion’s personality by cross-examining Amy’s own mother, Patricia Tarrant.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): Did your daughter Amy have a temper?
PATRICIA TARRANT: Yes.
A temper, according to Amy’s sister, Holly Fanion, that would typically be directed toward her husband.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court): Well, did she snap at Brian in front of you?
HOLLY FANION: She would. … I was embarrassed for him. You don’t usually talk to your husband kind of in that way. Maybe you reprimand a child, but not a husband.
But would Amy Fanion’s temper lead to an impulsive decision such as grabbing Brian Fanion’s gun? According to Amy’s son Travis Fanion, it would.
TRAVIS FANION (in court): I could easily picture or envision her, grabbing the gun impulsively … to make a point … that she picked it up intending to complete a trigger pull and — and shoot herself.
But what would explain the lack of gunshot residue on Amy Fanion?
Alexander Jason: Her wound is consistent with a close-range gunshot wound based …
Alexander Jason, a senior certified crime scene analyst, testified for the defense.
Alexander Jason: That’s the foundation of the whole prosecution. … And this whole idea that it had to be 18 inches because of the absence of gunshot residue is not valid.
Jason says the lack of gunshot residue was not due to distance. It was due to Amy Fanion’s hair.
Nikki Battiste: What could Amy Fanion’s hair have told us?
Alexander Jason: Amy Fanion had very dense, thick hair that will block the gunshot residue.
Jason’s research “Effect of Hair on the Deposition of Gunshot Residue” was published by the FBI’s forensic science journal in 2004.
Jason says there could have been gunshot residue, commonly known as GSR, embedded in Amy Fanion’s hair. The crime scene analyst did not test her hair.
Alexander Jason: What they should have done is taken the hair … and then analyze those little specs to see if they’re gunshot residue or not. … which was a mistake.
Jason’s testimony was limited at trial, but to support his theory he and his daughter Juliana met “48 Hours” at a gun range in California to demonstrate what may have happened to Amy Fanion.
Alexander Jason: I’m going to fire two times.
Using a .45 caliber gun and ammunition identical to what was found at the scene, Jason fired a single round into a mound of hair, backed by a ballistic skin simulant.
Nikki Battiste: So, you just shot a .45 caliber gun, three inches away through hair.
Alexander Jason: Yes.
Alexander Jason: Amy Fanion had considerable hair, maybe more dense than this where the bullet entered … and the hair will act as a filter and prevent the gunshot residue from reaching her skin.
For comparison, Jason positioned the gun at the same distance, using identical ammunition, and fired into the skin simulant without hair.
Alexander Jason: And I pull this away.
Nikki Battiste: Wow.
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Alexander Jason: You can see there is a big difference. … Now, look at that. That’s a very clean wound. That’s a very dirty wound.
Nikki Battiste: That’s incredible, all from the hair.
Alexander Jason: All from the hair. The hair acted as a filter.
Nikki Battiste: Pretty fascinating.
While Jason believes this scenario is what happened to Amy Fanion, he stops short of saying whether or not Brian Fanion killed his wife.
Alexander Jason: You see the hair filtered that stuff out.
But what he does believe is that basing the case on the absence of gunshot residue is wrong.
Alexander Jason: And he should not be convicted on that basis. … That’s my bottom line.
After 40 witnesses and 15 days of testimony, closing arguments began.
JEFFREY BROWN (in court) She raised the gun up to her head in a fit of rage … and in effect caused her own death.
MARY SANDSTROM (in court): This defendant murdered Amy Fanion with deliberate premeditation.
On March 21, 2023, the jury got the case. And after two days of deliberations, came the verdict.
Brian Fanion was found guilty of the first-degree murder of his wife, Amy Fanion, and sentenced to life without parole that same day.
Stephanie Barry: Brian’s side of the aisle just collapsed in sobs. … these people love Brian and sincerely thought that he was innocent.
For Assistant District Attorney Mary Sandstrom, Brian Fanion’s conviction was bittersweet and hard won.
Mary Sandstrom: It’s never a victory. … Amy Fanion should be here. … She should be with her daughter and son and her now grandchildren … And she’s not. … And … it was all for nothing … so that … Brian Fanion … could … enjoy his life and end hers.
Brian Fanion’s conviction is under appeal.
Produced by Marie Hegwood. Morgan Canty is the associate producer. Wini Dini, George Baluzy, Greg Kaplan and Chris Crater are the editors. Sara Ely Hulse and Elizabeth Caholo are the development producers. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Return to Guantánamo
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On the surface, Guantánamo Bay may seem like an unlikely target for Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder, and the Serial team, still principally remembered for spectacle generated from the first season’s real-time true-crime reporting on the case of Adnan Syed. But as Koenig notes in the introduction of season four, this is a story they have been trying to pull together for almost as long as the podcast has been around. “Even as Guantánamo faded as a topic of national discussion, we kept thinking about it,” she narrates. “We even tried writing a TV show about it, a fictionalized version of Guantánamo.” The latest season, then, is an effort coming full circle.
If there’s a clearer symbol for America’s “War on Terror” boondoggle, it’s hard to think of one. Since Guantánamo opened for extrajudicial business in 2002, almost 800 individuals have been held in what functions as the U.S. government’s prison for suspected terrorists—all Muslim, most from the Middle East — but vanishingly few matter in the U.S.’s counterterrorism campaign. Despite flimsy promises from Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden to shut the place down, the lights are still on. The camp, with its dozens of remaining detainees, continues limping along, a piece of machinery left to gather dust in the country’s basement. The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan, but the forever war persists.
It has been six years since the podcast’s last release and almost a full decade since Serial turned into a household name. Now, Koenig and co-host Dana Chivvis ask a question less muck-raking than anthropological: What exactly was Guantánamo like on the inside? Eschewing the serialized structure that gave the show its name, the season is built on short stories drawing direct testimony from a gallery of individuals — detainees, guards, wardens, intelligence personnel, translators — who knew the place firsthand. It shares the same construct as Serial’s third season, which documented the banal goings-on in a Cleveland courthouse. The purpose isn’t to solve a mystery but to piece together the sense experience of a place.
This approach spotlights the team’s gift for provocative detail, which hits you in episode one when Koenig and Chivvis revisit recordings from a guided tour of Guantánamo they took years ago. They hook you with the surreal observation that there are three gift shops at the facility; you might stumble upon Guantánamo x Disneyswag. The moment transitions into a pitch-black admission that the longer they spent in the camp, the more their initial halting discomfort about the shops melted away. They bought merch.
That permeable line between perverse surreality and inevitable normality runs through the season. When a former camp guard relates his experiences, you begin to understand how Guantánamo is a workplace like any other, even if it involves violations of international law. You get the sense of human beings being inexorably shaped by the roles they’re plugged into, their moral compasses shifting over time. Many episodes circle around a scandal in Guantánamo’s history to draw out the brutally Kafkaesque nature of life on the inside. “Ahmad the Iguana Feeder” and “The Honeymooners” recount the story of Ahmad Al-Halabi, an American airman brought in to serve as a translator only to get caught up in a punishing swirl of government racism and bureaucracy. “The Big Chicken” and “Asymmetry” revolve around a warden who oversaw the facility during one of its most ruthless and disputed periods. Across these stories, the individuals in charge try to make meaning out of their power. Meanwhile, former detainees attempt to process the horrors, physical and psychological, they endured. Although some of these stories are not particularly new, Serial’s primary interest is to thread them all together within a feeling: This is what it was like, and this is what it’s still like.
What is Serial supposed to be, anyway? You’ll often hear the critique that the show never successfully replicated the energy of that first season, even as Serial Productions, the studio spun out from This American Life to house Koenig and Snyder’s future projects, continues to be a reliable publisher of popular podcasts, including S-Town and, more recently, The Retrievals. But spectacle was never Serial’s intent. This should’ve been readily apparent when, in season two, Koenig and journalist-screenwriter Mark Boal explored the case of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban. At the time, the second installment inspired feverish anticipation. But when it arrived, its insistence on reframing the focus away from the specific mystery (“What happened to Bergdahl?”) toward a larger idea (“What does it mean for us to keep sending young people to war?”) felt, for many listeners, like a dramatic deflation. The third season, set in the Cleveland courthouse, pushed further in this direction, not only throwing aside the notion of needing a catalyzing mystery but also challenging the importance of Serial itself. “People have asked me and people I work with the question, What does this case tell us about the criminal-justice system?” narrates Koenig, referring to Syed’s story. “Fair question.”
Pointing out the remarkable nature of oft-overlooked systems has turned out to be Serial’s underlying project. In the scope of who gets incarcerated in the U.S., Syed’s excruciatingly drawn-out case isn’t all that notable. Bergdahl’s might be extraordinary, but the blindly accepted notion we send kids to war isn’t. What happens in a courthouse is banal, even if it destroys lives. Guantánamo has been running for more than two decades, and now, buried beneath other political horrors, it has become an unremarkable part of the American story. Serial’s focus on it is perfectly aligned with what the team has always done: Dust off the machinery of power and render its parts visible.
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Nicholas Quah
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The Jinx Recap: Naughty Boys
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Photo: HBO
One of my guilty-pleasure filmmakers is the British director Nick Broomfield, who, in the prime of his career making documentaries around lurid tabloid material, including two about the Aileen Wuornos case (Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer), another about Heidi Fleiss (Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam), and two more, back to back, about violent pop-culture tragedies, Kurt & Courtney and Biggie & Tupac. All of these cases had been thoroughly picked over in mainstream media, so Broomfield’s approach, particularly in Kurt & Courtney and Biggie & Tupac, was to poke around at the fringes and find compelling weirdos with minor connections to the major players. His schtick was to put himself in front of the camera and act like he fell off a turnip truck, and it worked like a charm every time.
Now that The Jinx has gotten past its first season, where it played a role in successfully nabbing a murderer, and past the first episode of this season, where it took a victory lap for successfully nabbing a murderer, the show seems to be settling into a Broomfield doc — wholly unnecessary, wildly entertaining. The path from Robert Durst’s apprehension to his conviction is not all crucial for a six-part documentary to follow, which has given The Jinx Part Two the quality of the longest DVD supplement of all time. But Andrew Jarecki and company are obviously interested in seeing this project all the way through, and the case has immediately started to drum up some incredible misfits on the edges. Bob Durst was not an ordinary guy, so it makes sense that his confidants are not ordinary people. Someone normal, like his first wife Kathie, never really fit in his sphere.
Though it introduces some other fun characters — I look forward to more from Michael and David Belcher, the apple-cheeked law clerks known as “the Wonder Twins” — “Friendships Die Hard” focuses intently on three friends who Durst worked hard to keep loyal in the lead-up to his trial in Los Angeles. With the trial on the horizon, Durst has been anxious about using his prison calls to secure their protection and sending his lawyers if that doesn’t work. Meanwhile, our cold case specialist, John Lewin, peppers them with phone calls in an effort to pry them away. Jarecki’s access to all of these calls and prison videos gives us some insight into how the case against Durst was built, but mainly it works as a window into the type of morally feeble misfits whose loyalty could be bought through a checkbook. A question like, “What do you do when your best friend kills your other best friend?” would be easy for 99.9 percent of humanity to answer. Jarecki introduces us to the other .1 percent.
First up is Doug Oliver, a real estate developer who seems awful even by the low standards of real estate developers. Charles Bagli of the New York Times describes Oliver as a would-be playboy in the ‘80s who convinced Durst to buy out a tenement building to rehabilitate the property and got 50 percent of the profits in return. When Lewin calls him about speaking to the prosecutors about Durst, Oliver brusquely declines, then wonders if he’ll have to pay for his flight to Los Angeles if Lewin subpoenas him. That leads to Oliver snootily negotiating for the state to pay for a private plane, knowing full well that Lewin can only offer a coach, and then telling him, “You guys are not going to get me on the commercial flight.” He would rather go to jail in New York than fly commercial. (Honestly, the quality of commercial flights makes that a less ridiculous statement than it should be.)
With Oliver looking like a firm “no,” Lewin turns to the most absurd figure of the three: Nick “Chinga” Chavin, an advertising executive who earned millions when the Durst Organization became his only client. Chavin feels especially grateful to Durst because he wasn’t likely to make his fortune as the frontman of Chinga Chavin, a “country porn” band that made its theoretical bones on country-western numbers with names like “Cum Stains on My Pillow (Where Your Sweet Head Used to Be).” Chavin met Durst through Susan Berman, who’d reviewed his band positively and become friends promoting his career. The two men were “naughty boys” having fun in New York, and Chavin describes them as sharing “a contempt for the law and for society and for the rules.”
It’s blazingly apparent that Chavin would have kept dodging any involvement in the case at all if not for his wife Terry, whose distaste for Durst and Debrah Lee Charatan, Durst’s second wife and co-conspirator, is rivaled only by her hatred of Chavin’s music. It turns out that Terry, at a low moment in her life, took a job working for Charatan at a real estate firm that sought a niche in the male-dominated field by hiring all women as employees. Yet in Terry’s account, this was not a great step forward for womankind: In maybe the craziest story in an episode full of them, Terry recalls Charatan being so concerned about how the women in the office smelled that she’d line her workers up in her office, have them lift their arms, and sniff their pits for inspection. If they didn’t smell up to standard, they’d have to go home for a shower.
As Terry’s cajoling makes the reluctant Nick more persuadable, Lewin moves on to Susie Giordano, Durst’s assistant and possible girlfriend, who worked with Chavin at his firm. Giordano’s status as a penpal and future love-nest inhabitant makes her a tough get for the prosecution, though the nature of her relationship with Durst naturally puts her at odds with Charaton, who doesn’t want to hear about the $150,000 he transferred to her. Of particular interest to Lewin is a package that Giordano shipped to Durst in New Orleans while he was plotting his getaway. The box was stuffed with clothing and other items that Giordano claimed to have jammed in there over the three minutes she was in his darkened apartment. There was also some cash that she estimated at $1,000 and that the authorities discovered was $114,000 higher than that estimate.
The sad truth of “Friendships Die Hard” is that loyalty can be purchased at various price points that a man like Robert Durst can easily afford. For Susie Giordano, the price was at least six figures. For Chris Lovell, the bald juror from Galveston, the mere promise of money seemed to have been enough.
• Funny callback from the Wonder Twins to Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, who had to clarify in a 2015 Instagram post that he did not, in fact, “Kill ‘em all.” The only thing that Durst killed was rock and roll.
• Digging deeper into the Chinga Chavin phenomenon, the album Country Porn sold over 100,000 copies via mail order through Penthouse magazine and included a song called “Asshole from El Paso,” a parody of Merle Haggard’s notorious “Okie From Muskogee,” that Chavin co-wrote with Kinky Friedman.
• Did Durst dismembering Morris Black bother Chavin? “It just didn’t have any impact on me. I don’t have that same moral hatred of murder and murderers.”
• It may be far down the list of Jarecki and company’s motives for revisiting the Durst case for another season, but staging a reenactment of women lifting their arms in Debrah Lee Charatan’s office is real cinema.
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Scott Tobias
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Kristen Trickle: Autopsy of the Mind
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The Best True Crime Series on Max
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In addition to its impressive catalog of true crime documentaries, Max has some of the best—and best-produced—docuseries chronicling both notorious and lesser-known subjects of the genre.
For the sake of simplicity and quality control, this guide to the best true crime shows on Max doesn’t include titles from Investigation Discovery, which takes a blatantly sensationalist approach to its true crime content. HBO has a long history of producing crime docs and series that predates the streaming era and the onslaught of quickly manufactured content that’s turned much of the true crime genre into the fast-fashion of media.
Keep scrolling for our guide to the best true crime shows on Max right now—and for more recs, check out our streaming guides, including the best horror movies on Max, the best anime on Hulu, and more.
Allen v. Farrow (2021)
(HBO) In this four-part docuseries from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (On the Record), Dylan Farrow recounts her childhood and the alleged sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her adoptive father, filmmaker Woody Allen. Allen v. Farrow is unsparing and deeply empathetic, tracking Farrow’s life in the shadow of immense trauma and her emergence to reclaim her story from the media.
Black and Missing (2021)
(HBO) Black and Missing follows Derrica Wilson, a former law enforcement officer, and her sister-in-law Natalie—co-founders of the Black and Missing Foundation and two women who have made it their mission to help families search for their missing loved ones. Produced by Soledad O’Brien and directed by Geeta Gandbhir (who previously edited Spike Lee’s If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise), this four-part docuseries examines systemic inequalities in law enforcement and the media’s coverage of crime, both of which play a significant part in the startling statistic at the root of the series: When Black people go missing, their cases remain unsolved four times longer than those of missing white people.
I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter (2019)
(HBO) Directed by Erin Lee Carr (Mommy Dead and Dearest), I Love You, Now Die cuts through the gristle of the media’s sensationalist coverage of the Michelle Carter case: In 2014, 18-year-old Conrad Roy was found dead of an apparent suicide. Searching his belongings, police discovered an extensive history of text messages between Roy and his girlfriend, Michelle Carter, who encouraged a depressed Roy to take his own life. Carter was subsequently arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, raising questions about autonomy, mental illness, and personal responsibility. As she did with Mommy Dead and Dearest, Carr crucially employs nuance to examine the complexities of her subjects, viewing them as people instead of characters in a headline.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2020)
(HBO) Based on Michelle McNamara’s book of the same name, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark smartly intertwines narratives: There’s the fascinating case of the Golden State Killer, a notorious serial rapist and murderer who terrorized California in the ’70s and ’80s, and the metanarrative of McNamara herself, who became obsessed with helping to solve the case and bring justice to the killer’s victims. McNamara died suddenly before she completed work on her book, and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark features archival material and interviews with her loved ones.
Leaving Neverland (2019)
(HBO) When it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Leaving Neverland was screened in its entirety. I cannot imagine watching a nearly four-hour documentary about Michael Jackson’s alleged child sexual abuse. The doc, which was split into two parts for release on HBO, features extensive interviews with Wade Robson and James Safechuck, both of whom recall—in harrowing detail—the protracted abuse they endured as children, when Michael Jackson befriended the boys and their families. Leaving Neverland is a rough watch, but a necessary one.
Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God (2023)
(HBO) Months after its premiere, I’m still considering Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God. Produced by Josh and Benny Safdie, Hannah Olson’s three-part series explores the New Age-y cult Love Has Won and its troubled leader, Amy Carlson, whose mummified corpse was discovered in a home in Colorado in 2021. Olson approaches her subjects with curiosity rather than judgment, inviting the viewer to come to their own conclusions about Carlson—a woman who slapped together a religion and built a community around herself as she gave in to her addictions, seemingly unable to confront or cope with the shadows lurking in her past.
McMillions (2020)
(HBO) Many of the titles on this list are, let’s be real, a total bummer. That is definitely not the case with McMillions, a riveting and wildly entertaining six-part series about a security guard who figured out how to rig McDonald’s popular annual Monopoly game. Over the course of a decade, the con-man known as “Uncle Jerry” and his cohorts ripped off the McDonald’s corporation and nabbed millions of dollars. With a cast of memorable characters and a scheme to defraud one of the biggest, most successful corporations in the world, McMillions is a true crime series you can (mostly) feel good about watching.
Mind Over Murder (2022)
(HBO) Directed by Nanfu Wang, Mind Over Murder is a fascinating and challenging story that begins with the 1985 murder of 68-year-old Helen Wilson. A group of six people, known as the “Beatrice Six” were convicted and sentenced to prison for their role in the murder. But in 2009, DNA evidence led to their exoneration—a verdict that Wilson’s family couldn’t accept. Over the course of six episodes, Wang excavates the startling complexities of this case and its impact on Wilson’s family, the six people convicted and exonerated in her murder, and the small town where it happened.
Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning (2023)
(HBO) Jason Hehir’s three-part docuseries takes us to Boston in 1989, when Charles Stuart called 911 to report a crime: he and his pregnant wife, Carol, had been shot, and Carol was dead. Stuart said the man who shot them was Black; the Stuarts were white. Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning revisits the crime that put Boston’s racial inequities on display and how Stuart’s false report exacerbated existing tensions.
Murder on Middle Beach (2020)
(HBO) In 2010, Barbara Hamburg was found dead in the yard outside her Connecticut home. After nearly a decade without an arrest, her son, Madison, picks up a camera and takes it upon himself to figure out what happened. Murder on Middle Beach is the end result of Madison’s efforts, an impressive four-part docuseries that takes us inside the lives of a suburban family reeling from grief, the pyramid scheme that may or may not have had anything to do with Barbara’s murder, and the gnawing suspicions threatening to break her family apart.
Telemarketers (2023)
(HBO) Telemarketers still feels like it should be a much bigger deal than it is, and not nearly enough people are talking about it. Co-directed by Adam Bhala Lough and Sam Lipman-Stern, Telemarketers centers on Lipman-Stern and his co-worker, Patrick Pespas, and their years-long effort to expose their former employers—a telemarketing company that scams victims out of money under the guise of raising funds for firefighters and police charities. At first glance, you might think Pat and Sam are a couple of Jersey scumbags spouting off a wild conspiracy theory, but they—Pat especially—are honest-to-goodness heroes. By the end of the three-part series, I was pumping my fist in the air and pledging my allegiance to Patrick J. Pespas, a man who must be protected at all costs.
The Jinx (2015)
(HBO) As of this writing, it’s too early to know if The Jinx Part Two is a worthy follow-up to 2015’s The Jinx. The original six-episode docuseries concerns Robert Durst, the wealthy real estate heir who almost certainly murdered his wife, Kathie McCormick, who disappeared in 1982. And probably killed his best friend, Susan Berman, in 2000. And then killed his neighbor, Morris Black, in 2001. Durst contacted director Andrew Jarecki after seeing his narrative film, All Good Things, and admiring how he was depicted in it (Ryan Gosling plays a younger Durst—as if). Jarecki exploited that relationship to dig deeper into Durst’s psyche, hoping to find out what really happened to all these people in Durst’s life who mysteriously wound up dead.
The Vow (2020)
(HBO) Speaking of two-parters: HBO’s follow-up to The Vow was an interesting epilogue, but not nearly as engrossing as the original nine-episode docuseries. Directed by Jehane Noujaim (who was once recruited by a member) and Karim Amer, The Vow follows former members of NXIVM, a group that promised to help members devoted to self-improvement. Leader Keith Raniere styled himself as a revolutionary modern guru and manipulated a sect of female followers into creating a subgroup devoted solely to Raniere and his abusive whims. The Vow is not without flaw; some of the former NXIVM members who participate in the doc avoid taking accountability for the part they played in the cult, but the access they grant is crucial to uncovering the depth of Raniere’s depravity.
(featured image: HBO)
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Britt Hayes
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Death by Eye Drops
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The Conspiracy to Murder Jennifer Dulos
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California woman’s conviction for murdering her husband overturned after two decades in prison
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Jane Dorotik has spent two decades fighting for her freedom. The California mother and wife was convicted of murdering her husband Bob in 2001, but always maintained her innocence.
From prison, where she was serving a sentence of 25 years to life, Jane spent years filing motions pushing for a new examination of the evidence.
Working with Loyola Project for the Innocent, new testing of evidence was done, including of blood found in the couple’s bedroom. They said it revealed some of the spots were never tested and others were not blood at all.
“If you just look at all of the pieces of evidence that Loyola was able to absolutely take apart, and yet we know what was told to the jury in the original conviction,” Jane Dorotik tells “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty, who has has covered the case for 24 years.
“Jane, how would you describe what the last 22 years have been like for you?” Moriarty asked.
“It’s been torturous in many ways,” explained Jane. “I suppose many moments when I thought, “How do I keep going?’
WHO KILLED BOB DOROTIK?
When “48 Hours” first met Jane Dorotik in 2000, the life she had once found so serene in the foothills outside of San Diego — a life she had shared with her husband Bob — had taken an unimaginable turn.
Jane Dorotik: How can this be? How can this happen? Surely I’ll wake up and it’s a dream.
Jane had been become the prime suspect in Bob’s murder. Authorities believed that she viciously attacked him in their home.
Jane Dorotik: I certainly didn’t do this. I loved my husband.
Family photo
Jane, 53 years old at the time, and Bob, 55, shared more than half their lives together.
Jane Dorotik: I was 23 when we were married … Bob was a wonderful, loving, creative person.
Bob spent most of his career as an engineer. Jane worked as a nurse, and later, as an executive in the health care industry. The couple raised three children, Alex, Claire and Nick.
Jane Dorotik: The family has always been incredibly important to both of us.
Also important to Jane, were their horses. While Jane’s passion was breeding and riding, Bob was an avid jogger. And that, says Jane, is the last image she has of her husband.
Jane Dorotik: Bob was sitting, actually, in this chair, facing the TV.
Although Jane was under suspicion, she allowed “48 Hours” into her home.
Jane Dorotik: He said he was going out for a jog, and he was actually — had his jogging suit on, was tying his shoes. … That was the last I talked to him.
It was around 1 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2000, when Jane says Bob left to go for that run. As hours passed without any word from him, Jane says she grew concerned.
Jane Dorotik: It was beginning to get dark … I — decided to go out and look.
Jane says she searched for Bob, driving up and down the hill where he sometimes ran. By 7:45 p.m., Jane’s concern turned to fear.
Jane Dorotik: I said, “Enough. This is enough. Something is wrong.” … And that’s when I made the call to the Sheriff’s Department.
Deputy James Blackmon: My first … thought that night was maybe this man had a heart attack and … fell down the embankment along Lake Wohlford Road .
As Deputy James Blackmon, and others from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, searched for Bob, concerned friends and family gathered at the Dorotik house.
Claire Dorotik: The minute I saw my mom’s face, I knew right away something terrible had happened.
The Dorotik’s daughter, Claire, 24 at the time, had spent the weekend visiting her aunt and returned home to a distraught Jane.
Claire Dorotik: She was freaked out, she was scared, she was nervous, she was crying.
Jane Dorotik: It was a horrifying feeling that got more and more horrifying when he wasn’t found.
And then, in the predawn hours of Feb. 14, Deputy Blackmon turned into a driveway, several miles from the Dorotik home, and noticed a body off the road.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
Deputy Blackmon (2001): At this point, I could see the shirt, the … pants … And he was laying on his back.
From Jane’s description, he immediately knew it was Bob Dorotik.
Det. Rick Empson: I got there a little after seven in the morning.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Detective Rick Empson was called to the scene.
Det. Rick Empson: There was no evidence of any type of vehicle accident.
The evidence Empson did find suggested something else.
Det. Rick Empson: I could see that he had blood on his face … there was blood near the back of his head, and I could see that there was a rope around his neck.
Bob Dorotik had been bludgeoned and strangled. The one-time missing person case had turned into a homicide investigation.
Erin Moriarty: Is there anybody you could think who would want to see your husband dead?
Jane Dorotik: Nobody. Nobody.
As law enforcement asked Jane questions about Bob, she let them into her home.
Jane Dorotik: “Come in. Search. Look for anything.”
Detective Empson noticed a piece of rope hanging from the porch that caught his attention — thinking he had just seen something similar on Bob Dorotik.
Det. Rick Empson: It appeared to be the exact same type of rope that was found around his neck.
And when investigators got to Bob and Jane’s bedroom, they found something more troubling. They believed they were looking at blood spatter.
Det. Rick Empson: There was no question in our mind that this assault occurred in the master bedroom.
They documented their findings in a diagram, taking photos along the way of what they believed to be blood on various items in the bedroom, and of what appeared to be a large blood stain on the underside of the mattress.
Jane Dorotik: I do know when Bob had a nosebleed he made a comment about getting some blood on the mattress.
Jane says there was a logical explanation for some of the other blood, too — they had dogs who were injured and had bled.
Jane Dorotik: This little dog had an abscess on her cheek that was openly draining at the time and little drops of blood we’d find when she sat on the couch. … The carpet pieces are what the detectives removed, feeling that there was blood on the carpet.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
The spots of blood investigators said they found all over the bedroom surprised Jane.
Erin Moriarty: Do you have any other explanation of how that blood spatter could have gotten there?
Jane Dorotik: Not really.
Erin Moriarty: On the ceiling, on the window, on the walls?
Jane Dorotik: No.
Adding to authorities’ suspicions was the bloody syringe found in the bathroom garbage. Jane told “48 Hours” she used it to medicate her horses.
Jane Dorotik: I know that I give the horses shots all the time … if you go look in my fridge right now, you’ll find horse syringes.
Investigators theorized that Jane hit her husband with an object in the bedroom and strangled him. She then dressed him in his jogging suit, put him in their truck, and dumped him along the side of the road where his body was found.
Erin Moriarty: Why do they believe you killed your husband?
Jane Dorotik: You know, I guess I’ve been through that one a billion times. I don’t know.
But investigators thought they knew, believing the motive was money, and escaping a troubled marriage. Jane was the main breadwinner, and they learned the couple had split up for a year in 1997.
Jane Dorotik: I don’t make any apologies for the fact that we had rough times. But that doesn’t change the fact that we loved each other.
And that love, says Jane, is why they reconciled. They had been back living together as a couple for a year-and-a-half before Bob was killed.
Jane Dorotik: I really think the separation caused us to really regroup and think about what was important.
Claire Dorotik: They were getting along better than they ever had in the past. I was living there. I can tell you that.
But law enforcement was unmoved, and three days after Bob Dorotik’s body was found, Jane was arrested, and charged with first-degree murder.
Jane Dorotik: I know I didn’t do this. I know there is a killer out there … but how am I going to clear myself?
Kerry Steigerwalt: She’s baffled ’cause I don’t think she knows what happened.
Released on bail, Jane started preparing her defense, hiring attorney Kerry Steigerwalt.
Kerry Steigerwalt: She knows she’s placed as the killer and she’s not the killer.
And at trial, Jane’s attorney would present a surprise suspect, who he felt was responsible for Bob Dorotik’s murder.
THE TRIAL OF JANE DOROTIK
Jane Dorotik: I know that I am innocent, but I don’t have any more faith in the legal system. I believe I could be convicted for something that I didn’t do. And that’s very scary.
While Jane worried about her outcome at trial, Claire Dorotik was much more confident about her mother’s chances.
Claire Dorotik: My mom could not have done this crime. She didn’t have the motive, and she didn’t have the opportunity.
But when the case went to trial in 2001, a year after the murder, prosecutor Bonnie Howard–Regan described the Dorotik’s marriage as seriously troubled and told jurors that Jane didn’t want to pay Bob alimony in a divorce.
Bonnie Howard–Regan (in court): Bob Dorotik never went jogging. And he never left that residence alive.
According to the state, Bob had actually been killed Saturday night, nearly a day before Jane reported him missing. The autopsy performed, by Dr. Christopher Swalwell, showed undigested food consistent with what Jane said they had for dinner that night.
Bonnie Howard–Regan (in court): Are you able to give us an estimate of how long after Mr. Dorotik ate, how long after that, he — he was killed?
Dr. Christopher Swalwell: Yes. It was very shortly after he ate. …I would say it was probably within a couple of hours.
And he wasn’t killed on the side of the road, the prosecutor said. There wasn’t enough blood there. Instead, she said Bob’s blood was all over the bedroom. Lead detective Rick Empson testified he had asked Jane to explain that.
Det. Rick Empson (in court): She indicated initially that she had a dog that — had been bleeding, and then indicated that approximately a week prior, Bob had a bloody nose over in the corner by the stove, and that Bob had cleaned it up.
There was evidence someone cleaned the bedroom. The carpet next to the potbelly stove and tiled floor was wet and had blood stains underneath.
Erin Moriarty: Did any of the blood from his nosebleed get on the carpet?
Jane Dorotik: Uh huh (affirms).
Erin Moriarty: Do you know where?
Jane Dorotik: Uh huh. Right next to the tile. ‘Cause I — I’m the one that helped him clean it.
Authorities dismissed Jane’s explanations. Their theory was that Jane hit Bob in the head in their bedroom with an object while he was lying in bed, although they never identified or found any weapon. Charles Merritt, a criminalist and bloodstain pattern analyst for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Crime Lab, recounted 20 locations where he saw blood stains.
Charles Merritt (in court): On one of the pillows … on a lamp … this particular nightstand. … on the potbelly stove … on the ceiling itself. … and then on the underside of the mattress.
The jury was also shown this evidence of tire tracks found near Bob’s body. The state’s expert Anthony DeMaria said he matched the three different types of tires on Dorotik’s truck
Bonnie Howard–Regan (in court): Are you saying the measurements taken at the scene were equal to the measurements … taken off the actual vehicle?
Anthony DeMaria: Yes.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
The most telling evidence connecting Jane to the murder, according to the prosecutor, was that syringe found in the bathroom. It had traces of a horse tranquilizer inside. And even though there was no evidence that Bob had been injected with anything, it had Bob’s blood and a bloody fingerprint on it.
Bonnie Howard–Regan (in court): The evidence will show that the fingerprint on this syringe was Jane Dorotik’s.
Erin Moriarty: Can you explain that?
Jane Dorotik: I can’t really explain it, other than – I know that I helped Bob clean up a nosebleed. And if that’s the same time when I took the syringes and threw them in the trash … and there was some blood on my hand, that could have — made that happen.
But perhaps the most powerful witnesses were the Dorotiks’ two sons, Nick and Alex. They both testified against their mother.
Bonnie Howard–Regan (in court): Did you say anything specifically about the syringe?
Nick Dorotik: Well, I asked her — how it got there and what it was doing there.
Bonnie Howard-Regan: And what was your mother’s response?
Nick Dorotik: She said that — her biggest fear in all this was that the — that us family members would start questioning her.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): Your mother always settled things logically, tried to?
Alex Dorotik: No.
Kerry Steigerwalt: — you wouldn’t agree with that statement?
Alex Dorotik: Nope. …It would be my mom basically saying, “This is what you have to accept.” And then my dad would either accept it or there would be threats of divorce or something. That’s what I remember from growing up.
Jane’s attorneys Kerry Steigerwalt and Cole Casey admitted it was a big blow.
Erin Moriarty: Would you say that’s been the most damaging testimony?Kerry Steigerwalt: Yeah.
Cole Casey: It’s not what they said. It’s the fact that they were there testifying for the prosecution.
When it came time for the defense to present its case, Steigerwalt actually agreed with the prosecution on a major point — that the murder took place in the bedroom. But he had a jaw-dropping alternative suspect: Claire Dorotik.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): Ladies and gentlemen, Claire hated her father.
He claimed Claire, an avid horsewoman, hated her father because he threatened to sell the animals she loved – and suggested that she was capable of murder.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): That’s what Claire is. A hot-tempered, explosive individual.
It was a risky strategy that Jane reluctantly agreed to.
Jane Dorotik: All I can do is trust what Kerry says is the best way to go.
Erin Moriarty: Are you at all concerned that the jury will wonder about a woman who would allow herself to be defended by pointing the finger at her daughter? Could that work against the two of you?
Kerry Steigerwalt: It may. I don’t know. … I think it is the most viable defense. And I think it’s supported by the best evidence.
Steigerwalt insisted Jane wasn’t physically able to commit the murder, but Claire was.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): She runs marathons. And she’s a personal trainer. She is as fit a woman as you will see at the age of 24.
But remember, Claire and her aunt said they were together, two hours away.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): They called the aunt …That’s the extent of the investigation on the alibi of Claire Dorotik. … That alibi is nonsense.
The jurors never heard from Claire, who took the fifth, or Jane, who chose not to testify. But they did hear from a woman who said she thought she saw Bob the day he disappeared – sitting between two men in a black pickup truck not far from where his body was found.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): Who killed Robert Dorotik? … Was it Claire Dorotik? … Or ladies and gentlemen, was it someone else?
In his closing argument, Steigerwalt accused investigators of dismissing witnesses like that woman and focusing only on Jane.
Kerry Steigerwalt (in court): The prosecution had focused on one person and that’s not the way to conduct an investigation. That’s not the way to run a case.
Bonnie Howard-Regan (in court): Jane Dorotik and Bob Dorotik were the only two people in that home that weekend.
Bonnie Howard-Regan said there is no need to investigate further when you have sufficient evidence.
Bonnie Howard-Regan (in court): They searched that bedroom and they saw all the blood and they knew that was the crime scene … What more investigation do they need to do?
It took the jury four days to return a verdict.
CBS News
COURT CLERK: We the jury in the above titled cause find the defendant Jane Marguerite Dorotik guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree in violation of penal code …”
Erin Moriarty: Did Jane Dorotik get a fair trial?
Matthew Troiano: No. No. … Because fairness means that you’re presenting things accurately, and it — it appears like it was not done accurately.
JANE DOROTIK ADVOCATES FOR HER INNOCENCE
Jane Dorotik (jail interview with Erin Moriarty): It almost didn’t register for a minute. It’s like “No, this can’t be.” … I was so certain that I was walking out … I thought they would see the truth.
Jane Dorotik never imagined she’d be found guilty.
Jane Dorotik (jail interview): It’s hard to keep going (crying).
CBS News
At the time of her conviction for the murder of her husband, she was 54 years old and sentenced to 25 years-to-life.
Jane Dorotik (jail interview): I mean, I just, I can’t see my way clear to a life in prison. I just can’t see it.
Determined to prove the jury got it wrong, Jane became her own advocate, working on her case for many years. “48 Hours” spoke with Jane again two decades later about her efforts.
Jane Dorotik: All through the prison — my prison journey, I continued to write to … all innocence projects I could think of, asking for help. … At the same time, realized … that I had to fight for myself.
Jane filed motions from prison citing such issues as insufficient evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel.
Jane Dorotik: I would describe my defense as limited and inadequate.
In her filings, Jane indicated that she wanted to testify at her trial but had left that decision up to her attorney. And that had she testified, she could have explained Bob’s stomach contents — stating that he sometimes ate leftovers from the previous night. She also described her attorney’s alternate suspect theory, pointing to her daughter Claire as the killer, as absurd.
Erin Moriarty: Do you believe that your daughter Claire had anything to do with the death of her dad?
Jane Dorotik: Absolutely unequivocally not. And my defense attorney, everybody knew she was away for that weekend.
In regard to that defense strategy, Claire, later wrote in a book, “how could I be angry at my mother, when all I did was worry about her.” Jane’s lawyer, whom “48 Hours” interviewed at the time of her trial, did not speak with us again.
Jane Dorotik: That was the worst strategy of my life ever… I said to my attorney, “If anything happens to Claire, I’m gonna stand up and say I did it.”
In her filings, Jane also questioned why her defense attorney accepted the “bad forensics “pointing to the bedroom as the murder scene, rather than presenting other scenarios as to where and how Bob Dorotik could have been murdered.
Erin Moriarty: Did the defense too easily accept the bedroom as a crime scene?
Matthew Troiano: That is a very legitimate argument.
CBS News consultant Matthew Troiano, a former prosecutor and current defense attorney, was not involved in the Dorotik case, but he reviewed some of the court documents at “48 Hours”‘ request.
Matthew Troiano: The defense made a strategic decision. … Are we going to dispute that a crime happened in this location or … are we essentially gonna concede that it happened there and then come up with a different narrative of how it happened there? And they chose the latter.
And that decision, Troiano says, likely led the defense to point the finger at Claire for the murder.
Matthew Troiano: They had to blame somebody else for something that happened in a specific location. … And they, at least, as it relates to the daughter, you know, went back to her, having some disagreement with her father about something. … And it was – it was a risk.
Erin Moriarty: Have you ever seen that kind of defense?
Matthew Troiano: You don’t — you don’t see it. I mean, it could happen when there are clear facts and evidence to support it, but when there are none … that’s, you know, that’s a showstopper.
And, in fact, Claire was never charged with any wrongdoing in connection to her father’s murder. The defense accepting the bedroom as the murder scene is especially puzzling to Troiano, as there were reports from several eyewitnesses who said they saw a man jogging that day — accounts consistent with Jane’s depiction of events, not the prosecution’s.
Matthew Troiano: That’s critical, critical evidence.
Jane Dorotik: And all of that was really not pursued. … And … I didn’t know of all the witnesses. … Had there been a thorough investigation initially, all of that would have come out.
Through the years, in filings, Jane raised problems with the entire case against her, arguing that authorities focused on her from the very beginning of the investigation and failed to follow other investigative leads. But motion after motion was denied. And regarding Jane’s ineffective counsel claims, the judge rejected them all, ruling that her attorney’s performance was not deficient, and that his actions had not affected the outcome of the case.
Jane Dorotik: There were many moments where I doubted when is this ever going to turn around. Many, many moments.
Still, Jane didn’t give up. She continued looking for new evidence to clear her, especially as DNA testing became more advanced. In 2012, she filed a petition for DNA testing of that rope found around Bob’s neck, and other items, like Bob’s fingernail clippings, which had been saved, but never tested. And in 2015, the motion was granted.
Erin Moriarty: Is that unusual that she finally even got testing based on her filing motions on her own?
Matthew Troiano: Yes, it’s — it’s very atypical.
It was at this time that Jane finally got the attention of a wrongful conviction group, Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent.
Jane Dorotik: I get this wonderful letter from Loyola saying, “You’ve contacted us and we’re interested in your case. … And after that, Loyola took over. Got the testing done.
And what that testing revealed, as well as a fresh examination of other evidence, would change the course of the case.
Matt Troiano: That’s really what flips the script to say that there’s more here. This is more than just an inadequate investigation. There is a different narrative that’s running through these test results. … there is evidence that another person could be involved.
A NEW LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE
Matthew Troiano: When you talk about the evidence in this case … the subsequent testing reveals that you might have a different explanation for things … that really shed light on what may have happened here.
Jane Dorotik spent years behind bars asking for a new examination of the evidence used to convict her of her husband Bob’s murder. Now, working with a team from Loyola Project for the Innocent, the court allowed them to have new DNA testing on items such as the rope found around Bob Dorotik’s neck, his fingernails, and clothing. Appeal filings state that foreign male DNA was found on several items.
Family photo
Jane Dorotik: The results of that — none of my DNA anywhere.
Matthew Troiano: There is physical evidence … from fingernail clippings … from a rope … from his clothing, that is foreign to Jane.
The team from Loyola Project for the Innocent declined to be interviewed. We asked Nathan Lents, a Professor of Biology and Forensic Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who was not involved in the case, to review court documents about new evidence, such as the DNA on the rope.
Nathan Lents: While they didn’t get a profile that would be good enough to search a database or even match to a suspect, they did get enough DNA that is not attributable to Bob or to Jane.
But while Jane and her team believed the results pointed to her innocence, the state came to a different conclusion, stating in filings: “… the DNA obtained was too low level to make any reliable interpretation.”
Lents agrees the DNA levels were low, but he believes it was enough to exclude Jane, and that the absence of Jane’s DNA on the rope, as well as under Bob’s fingernails or on his clothing, is significant.
Nathan Lents: With the theory of crime that they presented, you would expect a lot of Jane’s DNA on Bob … and if — if she had moved his body, there’s a lot of DNA transfer that might have taken place there — that wasn’t found.
The appellate team also reviewed the bedroom blood evidence the prosecutor told the jury was fully tested and was Bob’s.
Prosecutor Bonnie Howard-Regan (in court): Now, the evidence will show that all this blood that has been described to you, the observations made in this bedroom, that it was all sent out for DNA analysis, and it all came back Bob Dorotik’s blood.
But according to the appeal, not every single spot in the bedroom believed to be blood was tested. Instead, representative samples were tested.
Nathan Lents: There were cases where just simply one swab with a control was taken and it was representative, uh, of a variety of spots. That’s not good practice … it just invites misinterpretation.
Matthew Troiano: When you’re talking about blood spatter and you’re trying to analyze how it got there … you need to do a fairly comprehensive test to be able to draw the conclusion that you’re drawing.
Erin Moriarty: But I think the prosecution could argue … You can’t afford to test, can you, every single drop that looks like blood?
Matthew Troiano: Right. … But when you say we did everything … and that’s not accurate, that’s where the problem lies.
In fact, the appellate team says that several blood-like stains on items including a pillow sham, the nightstand, a lampshade, turned out not to be blood.
And there were those stains on the bedspread, which criminalist Charles Merritt pointed to at trial and described as Bob’s blood. Jane’s lawyers learned those particular spots were never tested at all, and due to improper storage, the bedspread could not be tested again.
The handling of the evidence, over the course of the entire investigation, was also raised on appeal.
Nathan Lents (looking at photo with Moriarty): This one is hard to even look at. Um, you have an investigator who definitely should know better, um, handling murder evidence with his bare hands. … In addition to obviously depositing his own DNA all around this crime scene, he’s also risking transferring evidence from among the various spots that he’s collecting.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
And there’s that syringe, with Bob’s blood and Jane’s fingerprint, found in the bathroom garbage — something the appellate team, and Lents, thought could be explained.
Nathan Lents: And if you throw that syringe in the garbage can … Bob throws a — a bloody Kleenex in that garbage can, they could transfer. Transfer of DNA from one object to another in a trash can is not unexpected.
Lents feels the fact that syringe was even found in the garbage, points fingers away from Jane.
Nathan Lents: If you’re cleaning up after a murder, you won’t leave the bloody syringe in the waste bucket — basket.
But the state stood by its original investigation, maintaining the bedroom was the murder scene, stating that the evidence still points to Jane Dorotik as the killer, and that the defense “arguments are largely derived from speculation and misstatements of fact.”
Jane’s appellate team, though, maintains the bedroom did not even look like a crime scene, something Lents also believes.
Nathan Lents: There is not a consistent pattern to the evidence that indicates a violent bludgeoning that took place in that bedroom. … if Bob were alive today and investigators had walked in his room, no one would say, oh, this looks like someone was murdered here.
Jane Dorotik: If you just look at all of the pieces of evidence that Loyola was able to absolutely take apart … and yet we know what was told to the jury in the original conviction … So — how can that happen?
As her attorneys reviewed evidence, Jane Dorotik, in 2020, was temporarily and conditionally let out of prison due to COVID health concerns. The question now became, was the new evidence her lawyers were finding enough to make her release permanent?
JANE DOROTIK’S FINAL PUSH FOR FREEDOM
In the summer of 2020, Jane Dorotik and her team hoped a court would overturn the jury’s verdict, turning her temporary release from prison into lasting freedom.
Erin Moriarty: What were their major points?
Matthew Troiano: The testing that was done initially was insufficient. The way that that testing was presented to the jury was inaccurate. There were a number of different arguments that they made.
A hearing was scheduled, but then suddenly the state requested an unplanned virtual hearing.
PROSECUTOR KARL HUSOE (remote hearing): The people are willing to concede petitioner’s new evidence claim…
The prosecution admitted what Jane’s lawyers had argued all along.
PROSECUTOR KARL HUSOE (remote hearing): The DNA evidence as it exists now, in 2020, is much different in quality and quantity than presented at trial in 2001.
That the new DNA test results – as well as issues with how the Sheriff’s Crime Lab handled evidence — cast doubt on the verdict. But what came next was even more unexpected. The state requested that Jane’s murder conviction be overturned … and the judge agreed.
Jane Dorotik: I always believed that at some point … the truth would come out.
But Jane’s ordeal wasn’t over. Three months later, in another shocking move, the DA’s office decided to retry her.
Jane Dorotik: I don’t think any of us thought … that San Diego County would attempt to retry me. But they did.
Matthew Troiano: The state believes that she did this, and they want to pursue it. … Then you have this battle … in court. … If you’re conceding that there were problems … how are you going to do it again, essentially with the same evidence?
Jane Dorotik: It was astounding to sit in that courtroom and see what they try and put forward as actual evidence. And then also thrilling to see my team take it apart.
San Diego County Sheriff’s Department
Jane’s attorneys questioned the credibility of several of the State’s experts, including Charles Merritt of the Sheriff’s Crime Lab. The judge ultimately ruled that the new trial could go ahead, but that some key evidence presented in her original trial would not be admissible — including those tire tracks near where Bob’s body was found that were linked to Jane’s truck.
Matthew Troiano: You have a number of different trucks that could be consistent with those tire tracks … It’s in essence kind of junk science-y.
In May 2022, just as jury selection was about to begin, the prosecution surprised everyone yet again.
Jane Dorotik: We go into court as the jury is assembled and ready to come into the … courtroom Monday morning. And everything’s changed.
Deputy DA Christopher Campbell (in court): We no longer feel that the evidence is sufficient to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt and convince 12 members of the jury. So we are requesting that the court … dismiss the charges at this time. Thank you.
Judge: Ms. Dorotik, you are free to go. Good luck to you ma’am.Aleida Wahn
JANE DOROTIK (to reporters): It just is overwhelming to realize that now I can determine my own future. It’s something I’ve prayed for and hoped for.
After the hearing, Jane’s attorneys spoke about her decades-long fight.
MICHAEL CAVALUZZI ( to reporters) Jane’s dignity in standing up and stoically fighting for her innocence against every risk and every threat. That’s why this case got dismissed today and … as far as we’re concerned, we’re moving on.
The District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department declined to speak with “48 Hours.” The case against Jane Dorotik was dismissed without prejudice, which means, if new evidence surfaces, charges could be brought again someday.
Erin Moriarty: But then, doesn’t that leave still a shadow over Jane Dorotik?Matthew Troiano: Oh, sure, it does. I mean, there’s no question about it. … From a practical perspective, do I think it’s over? Yeah, I think it’s over. But from a legal perspective, no.
Jane Dorotik is working to rebuild her life after spending nearly two decades in prison.
Jane Dorotik: My entire family has been blown apart by this hurricane of events. … It’s been heartbreaking on so many levels.
Claire Dorotik did not respond to”48 Hours”‘ request for comment, but Jane says they are still close. Her son Nick died in 2023. Alex Dorotik did not provide a comment to “48 Hours,” but according to filings by the state, he remains convinced his mother killed his father.
Erin Moriarty: Do you have hope that your family will come together at some point?
Jane Dorotik: Of course I do. Of course I have hope.
Jane also has hope that she can make a difference in other people’s lives, as she works with advocacy groups that help incarcerated women.
Jane Dorotik: To me, it’s not just about my story. And yes, we can all sit here and say, “This is so horrendous.” And “How did this happen to this woman?” … But unless we look systemically, how many others are we gonna find? And to me, that’s critically important.
Many unanswered questions about this case remain, including, perhaps, the most important one.
Matthew Troiano: What happened here? … We don’t know what happened to Bob Dorotik. … Where’s justice for Bob? Where’s justice for Robert Dorotik?
Jane Dorotik has filed a civil suit against the County of San Diego. The suit also names several members of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and its Crime Laboratory.
Produced by Ruth Chenetz and Dena Goldstein. Atticus Brady, George Baluzy and Joan Adelman are the editors. Greg Fisher and Cindy Cesare are the development producers. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth
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Lamar Johnson: Standing in Truth – CBS News
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A+E Networks EMEA, Spirit Studios & Quintus Studios Team For True Crime Series ‘Missing, Presumed Dead’
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EXCLUSIVE: A+E Networks EMEA is to explore shocking stories of real-life disappearances — from the perspective of the missing people.
Missing, Presumed Dead is a ten-part series in which people who had gone missing tell their stories through cinematically shot interviews. Family and friends, and experts in abduction, identity fraud and survival techniques will also contribute.
A+E has broadcast rights in in the UK, Benelux, CEE, Greece and Middle East, while its Sky Crime channel will run it in Italy.
Germany-based Quintus Studios will distribute globally outside the UK on its FD Crime channel. The content company has over 11 million cumulative subscribers to its suite of AVOD networks such as FD Crime and Free Documentary.
UK indie Spirit Studios is making the show. The Channel 4 Growth Fund-backed producer is behind shows such as The Stand Up Sketch Show, podcasts including Private Parts and The Lion Whisperer YouTube channel.
Executive producers for Missing, Presumed Dead are Dan Korn and Di Carter for A&E, Adam Jacobs for Quintus Studios and Matt Campion and Martin Sadowski for Spirit Studios.
“We have all heard of the infamous cases of child abduction, such as Elizabeth Smart and Natasha Kampusch, in which the victims were forced to endure a living hell for years before being reunited with their families,” said Dan Korn. “Missing, Presumed Dead focuses on those cases which might not be so well known but which are every bit as harrowing and does so from the unique perspective of the abductee, their agonised families and the investigators.”
“Missing, Presumed Dead offers gripping storytelling of real disappearances and rediscoveries, featuring unique perspectives through interviews with the missing individuals and their loved ones,” said Anouk van Dijk, Head of Sales & Co-Productions at Quintus Studios. “Spirit Studios’ innovative storytelling aligns perfectly with Quintus Studios channels and catalogue the series has vast potential for global viewership.”
Matt Campion, Creative Director of Spirit Studios added: “It’s about time we had a true crime show with a happy ending,” adding: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Quintus and A+E Networks EMEA to make Missing, Presumed Dead, and share a real commitment to honour the stories of those who vanished without a trace and to celebrate the human spirit and incredible resilience that led to their rediscovery. This is a series about the harrowing journeys of those who defied the odds and survived to tell the tale, and those who did everything they could to find them”.
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Jesse Whittock
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Griselda Blanco ‘Wasn’t Hiding’ From The Public Before Her Death
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A cryptic ending. If you’re wondering how Griselda Blanco really died after she was caught for her involvement in the Miami Drug War, here’s everything to know.
Sofia Vergara stars and is the executive producer of Griselda which follows Blanco’s move to the United States from Colombia as she created one of the most powerful cartels in history and her great involvement in the Miami Drug War or the Cocaine Cowboy Wars. The show also stars Alberto Guerra, Christian Tappan, Martín Rodríguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Vanessa Ferlito, and Karol G making her on-screen debut.
In her portrayal of the “Godmother of Cocaine,” Vergara made sure to tell the story with care. “These sort of real-life characters always have to be larger than life and enigmatic, in a way,” she said in a press statement. “If you’re familiar with any other narcos stories, you know that these people would always come up under the guise of helping to build up their communities, and employing a lot of people in need. During Griselda’s time, the idea of a woman being at the head of a cartel — simply due to how ruthless and violent a person that would have to be — was just crazy. No one could believe that she was capable of doing the horrible things that she was doing. Her mixture of femininity and the worst parts of masculinity are compelling to anyone. It’s like a horrible crash on a freeway; we all turn to look.”
Creator and executive producer Eric Newman explained why this portrayal of Blanco is a necessary deviation from others. “We realized that all the stories we had heard about Griselda were written or told by men in the same business as Griselda, or who were trying to catch her,” he said. “We started to recognize a pattern in all the stories about this demon that she had been made out to be. I’d spent a lot of time telling the story of complicated narcotics traffickers who killed people and blew up airplanes, murdered their rivals and allies alike, and there wasn’t the same level of vitriol toward them. There wasn’t the same level of “Oh, that’s a bad woman.” It became an entry point to the story: here’s a woman who actually was beloved by people who worked for her, who inspired a tremendous amount of loyalty.”
So how did Griselda Blanco die read more to find out.
How did Griselda Blanco die?
After her prison release, Blanco was deported back to Medellín, Colombia where she reportedly lived a quiet life. She was killed on September 3, 2012, in the same assassination style that she was often credited with—shot down by two assassins on a motorcycle. “She wasn’t hiding. Not at all,” former Agent Bob Palombo told The Independent. “She was killed at the marketplace, the butcher shop, and according to my sources, she lived a well-respected life in the community. She was supposedly very benevolent to the downtrodden and that may have been a reason that a lot of people didn’t bother with her.”
Griselda Blanco was caught in Irvine, California on February 17, 1985, after she was tracked by DEA agents for about ten years. According to The United States v. Blanco, Blanco gave a false name to the DEA agents who arrested her, and she was found to be carrying false identification papers.
“She was pretty tough and standoffish, a typical Colombian move I would say, nonchalant, not really showing any real emotion, but when we put her in the car, I was in the backseat with her, and the other agent was driving. We drove up to Los Angeles, and when we got close to the courthouse is when she became visibly shaken,” retired Agent Bob Palombo told The Independent. “I mean, visibly shaken, she was shaking, and she grabbed my arm and you could feel her shaking and she turned and she threw up on my shoulder. Not a lot, it was mostly just bile, but she knew the proverbial s*** had hit the fan. And it was time for her to meet her accusers.”
She was released in 2004 due to her health issues, and suffered a heart attack in prison in 2002. She was believed to be responsible for at least 40 killings and up to 200 in total. Griselda is survived by her son, Michael. Her three sons with her first husband, Uber, Osvaldo and Dixon Trujillo, were all killed after getting into the drug trade.
Griselda is now streaming on Netflix.
A profile of bloodthirsty Colombian drug dealer Griselda Blanco, known as the “Black Widow” due to her penchant for killing off her lovers, recounts Blanco’s vicious crime spree
and the ten-year struggle to bring her to justice. Court records and interviews with Drug Enforcement Administration agents, federal attorneys, Miami police and Blanco’s acquaintances flesh out a portrait of a ruthless cocaine wholesaler whose “mules” (couriers) transported drugs in women’s undergarments and shoe heels. Her propensity for violence was legendary: she bragged of murdering her husband and claimed responsibility for Miami’s “Dadeland Massacre,” a shootout in a mall parking lot that disposed of one of Blanco’s creditors.Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
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Lea Veloso
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Denise Huskins Is Ready To Tell Her ‘Story Of Hope’ After She Was Kidnapped
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After the release of American Nightmare, many True Crime fans might want to know where Denise Huskins is now.
The documentary’s synopsis is as follows: “After a home invasion and abduction, a young couple’s recounting of the events is too far fetched for the police to believe. Why did the victims seem so calm? Was it all a hoax? From the filmmakers behind The Tinder Swindler, this three-part docuseries unravels the consequences of our cultural rush to judgment, and the damage done when law enforcement decides the truth can’t possibly be true.”
In 2015, Huskins was kidnapped for a week while her boyfriend-now-husband Aaron Quinn was tied up by robbers. “I remember being asleep and hearing a voice and thinking it was a dream,” she told ABC 7. “But the voice kept talking and I just remember my eyes shot open and I could see the walls illuminated with a white light that was flashing and I could see a couple of red laser dots crossing the wall, and I could hear, ‘Wake up, this is a robbery. We’re not here to hurt you,’” Huskins said. “And in that moment, I just thought, ‘Oh my God. This is not a dream.’”
She continued, “I heard him drive off. I slowly counted to 10. I peeled the tape off my eyes and I was by myself in this alleyway,” she said. The kidnapper, who had taken Huskins’ bags when he abducted her, had removed them from the car and placed them on the ground. “I grabbed my bags and started walking down that alley … and I looked at the corner street name and I saw Utica, which is the street that I grew up on.” She was held hostage for two days and was sexually assaulted in Lake Tahoe before being returned to her hometown of Huntington Beach, California.
While she was kidnapped, Quinn contacted the police even though the kidnappers told him that they would kill her if he did. The case happened while Gone Girl was on its way to becoming a cultural phenomenon—which made police think that Quinn was making the story up and questioned him for more than a week as well as Huskins when she returned.
However, Matthew Muller, a Gulf War veteran and Harvard-educated attorney was behind the kidnapping. Authorities said they found a cellphone that they traced to Muller and a subsequent search of a car and home turned up evidence, including a computer Muller stole from Quinn. However, it did not account for the amount of damage and trauma that Quinn and Huskins endured during their time with officials.
Vallejo police apologized for initially discounting the couple’s story. In 2018, Huskins and Quinn reached a $2.5 million settlement with the city. Muller pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges and was sentenced in 2017 to 40 years in prison.
So where is Denise Huskins now after the case? Read more to find out.
Where is Denise Huskins now?
Where is Denise Huskins now? Denise Huskins currently lives with her husband Aaron Quinn and their two daughters.
In anticipation of the new Netflix documentary coming out, she posted on her Instagram account, “I can’t believe it’s coming so soon. It’s been a long journey to get here, especially in finding the right team to share our story.” She continued, “Tune in on Jan 17th, and you’ll see this is not “just another True Crime.” This goes way beyond just us as victims, and this one case.
The bigger themes of rushing to judgement, victim blaming, misrepresentation in the media, false accusations fueled by tunnel vision and confirmation bias in law enforcement, and the dangerous tactics they use to try to get a false confession, are sadly all too common in our world. But perhaps more importantly, it’s a story of hope when all feels lost. I believe anyone who’s overcome a trauma can connect with different parts of this series and what we went through. We look forward to having you watch. ❤️🙏🏻”
Both Huskins and Quinn have been very vocal about their experiences, with the two writing a book called Victim F: From Crime Victims to Suspects to Survivors. “There were things that happened that we saw, that we heard. It just would have been impossible to have been done by one guy,” Huskins said to ABC 7. “There are other people out there. That’s something that we’ve had to live with and somehow make peace with.”
American Nightmare is now available to stream on Netflix.
In Victim F
, Aaron and Denise recount the horrific ordeal that almost cost them everything. Like too many victims of sexual violence, they were dismissed, disbelieved, and dragged through the mud. With no one to rely on except each other, they took on the victim blaming, harassment, misogyny, and abuse of power running rife in the criminal justice system. Their story is, in the end, a love story, but one that sheds necessary light on sexual assault and the abuse by law enforcement that all too frequently compounds crime victims’ suffering.Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
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Lea Veloso
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Netflix’s Controversial 'Monster' Series Prepares To Tackle the Menéndez Brothers
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As if Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story wasn’t controversial enough, creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are making Monster into an anthology series. They have already chosen the Menéndez brothers as the subject for season 2, while Netflix recently announced several casting developments.
Initially, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was advertised as a limited series, but it wasn’t long before Netflix announced that it had renewed the show with plans to turn it into another Ryan Murphy anthology series, with each season dramatizing a different true crime case. While the first season proved to be a critical success, it wasn’t without controversy. Dahmer’s victims spoke out about not being consulted for the series and being re-traumatized by the dramatization, which tried to humanize the murderer, made entertainment out of their nightmare, and led to fans online calling Dahmer “hot.” All of which is to say: it’s hard to know what to expect with season 2, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story.
Delving deeper into the Menéndez case is arguably less controversial than doing so with Dahmer. Dramatizing Dahmer’s story forced the families of his 17 victims to relive the horror of his crimes. With Lyle and Erik Menéndez, though, there are at least some lingering questions and concerns about their convoluted case that might be worth revisiting. In 1996, after a lengthy trial process, the two brothers were found guilty of murdering their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez. While the prosecution argued that they carried out the murders for financial gain, the brothers alleged that they had suffered years of horrific abuse committed by their parents.
Ultimately, the Menéndez brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Although it was inevitable that they would serve time, many felt that, if the brothers’ testimonies were true, the sentence was too harsh. This case fits well into the very important and highly complicated discussion of whether victims who retaliate against abusers should be offered some leniency, making it all the more concerning whether Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story can handle this story effectively and with sensitivity.
What you need to know about Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story
(Ted Soqui, Getty Images) Viewers won’t have to wait long for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story. Although season 2 doesn’t have a confirmed date, it is slated to arrive on Netflix later this year. If it follows in the footsteps of the first season, viewers could be looking at a September release date.
Meanwhile, the show has tapped two relatively new actors to Hollywood for the lead roles. Cooper Koch, whose credits include minor roles in various movies and TV series, has been cast as Erik, while General Hospital star Nicholas Alexander Chavez will portray Lyle. However, the season will still boast a few big names. Academy Award-winner Javier Bardem will star in the series as Jose Menéndez. Chloë Sevigny, who has starred in true crime dramas such as The Act and The Girl From Plainville, will star opposite Bardem as Kitty Menéndez. The iconic Nathan Lane, who appeared in Murphy’s American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, has been cast as investigative journalist Dominick Dunne. (The late Robert Morse memorably played Dunne in The People v. O.J. Simpson.)
The season does not yet have an official trailer, as filming only recently started after production was delayed by the Hollywood labor strikes last year. However, Netflix did release a brief teaser, which simply plays a recording of the eerie 911 call the brothers made after murdering their parents.
Plotwise, as mentioned above, the season will retell the story of the Menéndez brothers and their trial. Although the case has been told excessively by the media in the form of television films and documentaries, this is the first time it has been adapted as a big-budget drama.
It’s worth noting that the case actually garnered renewed attention before the series was announced, as it has become popular on the true crime side of social media. Recently, the release of Gypsy Rose Blanchard has led to calls on social media for the Menéndez brothers to be released as well. However, there are also a lot of bizarre posts focused on the brothers’ physical appearances, which suggests a likely repeat of viewers romanticizing the brothers as they did Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer.
(featured image: Stephen Kim, Getty Images)
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Rachel Ulatowski
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Where Is Casey Anthony Now? Inside Her ‘Small Life’
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Her not-guilty verdict shocked the United States, if not the world. So where is Casey Anthony now? She was once regarded as the “most hated woman in America” and because of that, she has barely spoken about her life publicly, but she did open up to documentary filmmaker Alexandra Dean in the 2022 film Casey Anthony: Where the Truth Lies.
Casey lived with her parents, George and Cindy Anthony, and daughter Caylee, in Orlando. On July 15, 2008, Cindy made three calls to 911 reporting the toddler missing; Cindy claimed she hadn’t seen Caylee in 31 days. “I called a little bit ago, the deputy sheriff. I found out my granddaughter has been taken. She has been missing for a month. Her mother finally admitted that she`s been missing,” she told operators.
“[Apparently] the babysitter took her a month ago, that my daughter’s been looking for her. I told you my daughter was missing for a month. I just found her today, but I can`t find my granddaughter. And she just admitted to me that she`s been trying to find her herself. … There’s something wrong. I found my daughter`s car today, and it smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car! I have not seen her since 7th of June.”
Casey later called the police and falsely told a police dispatcher that Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny on June 9. Casey was charged with first-degree murder in October and on December 11, 2008, Caylee’s skeletal remains were found with a blanket inside a laundry bag in a wooded area near the Anthony family’s house. So many things about this case just didn’t add up but on July 5, 2011, a jury found Casey not guilty of counts one through three regarding first-degree murder and the public had a visceral response. So where is Casey Anthony now? Here’s what we know.
Where is Casey Anthony now?
Where is Casey Anthony now? According to Dean in a 2022 interview with Buzzfeed, she lives a “small life” in South Florida. “She has a close friend, she has the people she trusts.” She’s said to work as an assistant to defense investigator Patrick McKenna, who led her case in court, and mostly makes her living in accounting work.
“I felt by the end of the project that I had witnessed somebody revisit and process some pretty awful memories and trauma,” Dean told Buzzfeed. “I thought that where she got into was a place of greater understanding of what she thought had happened. But I think the process caused her a lot of agony.”
Photo by Red Huber-Pool/Getty Images In an article published by The Messenger in September 2023, sources gave a bit more of a scathing assessment of Anthony’s existence. “She rarely goes out. Her attempts to launch businesses have failed. She is completely estranged from her parents,” the article said. “People are always starting s— with her,” said Ethan Bowen, a bartender who has served Anthony several times. “They’ll approach her to say something, or she’ll look up to see someone taking a picture of her with her phone. No one gives her any peace.”
Anthony does not have any children. She told the Associated Press in 2017: “If I’d be dumb enough to bring another kid into this world knowing that there’d be a potential that some little snot-nosed kid would then say something mean to my kid—I don’t think I could live with that.”
George and Cindy Anthony are still together and they still reside in Florida. For obvious reasons, they maintain resentment towards their daughter for the death of their grandchild. “[Cindy] is still angry a lot of the time,” a family insider told People in 2022. “This was a loving grandmother who had to withstand family trauma that no one should ever have to deal with. So when she starts talking about Casey and Caylee, she gets really upset, even now.”
The source continued. “At first, Cindy wanted answers. She wanted to know what had happened, why this had happened. She wanted Casey to explain the hell she put everyone through. Now she realizes that there’s no point asking Casey anything because she is never going to get any straight answers. So what’s the point?”
Cindy isn’t sure what to believe when it comes to her daughter’s involvement in Caylee’s death. “That’s a tough question. Sometimes she wavers. George is steadfast that she did something wrong, but with Cindy, it’s a big question mark. Mostly, she’s just sad about the way things turned out.”
Casey Anthony’s Parents: The Lie Detector Test will premiere on A&E and Lifetime on January 4 at 9pm ET.
Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission from the sale.
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Sophie Hanson
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Here’s If Natalia Grace Found Life With A New Family After Her Adoption Scandal
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She gained international attention when her adoptive family accused her of not being a child but in fact an adult with malicious intent. Now, she’s speaking out for the first time and where Natalia Grace is now is the subject of a new documentary series by ID.
Natalia Grace is a Ukrainian-born girl who gained media attention due to a controversial and widely publicized case. In 2010, she was adopted by an American family, the Barnetts, who because of her sophisticated language and other behaviors, believed that Natalia had a rare form of dwarfism—instead of being a child, as she and the orphanage claimed, she was an adult with psychiatric issues who deceived them. One particular account, the Barnetts said, was when they awoke to Natalia standing over them with a knife.
They petitioned to have her age legally changed to 22, based on a bone density test. In 2012 and a year later, the Barnetts moved to Canada, leaving Natalia behind to fend for herself when she was only 9 years old. In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, we’re offered exclusive access to Natalia as she shares her story and confronts her former adoptive parents Michael and Kristine Barnett’s accusations head-on.
Throughout six parts, Natalia Speaks retraces her adoption saga and the Barnett’s allegations from Natalia’s perspective, offering insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnett’s home and how much truth there actually is to their claim Natalia was not a 6-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare genetic disorder, but rather a homicidal adult intent on harming them and their children. So where is Natalia Grace now?
Where is Natalia Grace now?
Where is Natalia Grace now? She was eventually taken in by Antwon and Cynthia Mans and resides in Indiana. In November 2019, Cynthia told Dr. Phil that: “We have other children. We have a grandson. [Natalia] does nothing but love her siblings and her nephew.”
In her first time speaking out since then, Natalia talks about the many allegations Kristine and Michael have made against her. “The things that Kristine and Michael have said that I have done is a lie. I have never done anything that Kristine and Michael have said that I have done,” Natalia said. “You can ask anybody in my family now. You can ask Bishop Antwon and Cynthia Mans that — just ask them, ‘Has she ever done anything?’ They will tell you who I really am. They’re not going to lie and neither am I.”
She continued: “It’s frustrating. It’s very frustrating to hear everything that’s being said from Kristine and Michael. And because I already don’t know who I am and I want to know who I am and what happened to me, but I’m hearing all this stuff that never actually happened from Kristine and Michael,” she goes on to say. “I’m like, ‘It’s shocking and it’s frustrating.’ Because that’s not even true. And people are believing what Kristine and Michael are saying without even hearing my side.”
In the Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, Natalia and Michael confront each other. When Natalia questioned Michael why they adopted her in the first place, Michael said: “I’ve learned recently that you and I had the same monster [in] Kristine, and we are here because we both were incredible victims of an otherworldly type of abuse.”
Natalia asked him to clarify. “This is not easy,” he said. “I had the same monster you did. I was exceptionally controlled and put down, and threatened, was minimalized. Anything that was who I was was ripped from me and I was guided and instructed to be exactly what she wanted me to be.”
Again, Natalia asked him to clarify by what he meant by “threatened”. He explained: “Her favorite threat was taking the boys away from me and making sure I would never see them again.” Natalia asked him why he didn’t leave. “I tried,” Michael said. “And these answers aren’t what you’re looking for, to a degree, but I tried to leave her no less than 10 times. I ended up in the hospital regularly over it.”
Natalia Speaks also features previously unseen evidence and footage, as well as new theories and testimony from an array of voices, including the retired FBI agents who initially investigated Natalia’s case, genetic experts who helped determine Natalia’s true age, and the Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Jackie Starbuck who prosecuted Michael in his October 2022 trial. In addition, the docuseries sheds light on Natalia’s next chapter, offering a portrait of her life with her new adoptive family and exclusive interviews with her adoptive parents, Bishop Antown and Cynthia Manns.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks premieres across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1 at 9 pm ET.
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Sophie Hanson
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Where Are Kristine & Michael Barnett Now? He Called Her ‘A Monster’
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Where Are Kristine, Michael Barnett Now? What Happened to Natalia Grace Parents? – StyleCaster
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Sophie Hanson
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DNA Results Finally Reveal The Truth About Orphan Natalia Grace’s Age
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Her birthdate has been the subject of much scrutiny, ever since her adoptive parents accused her of being much older than they originally thought. Natalia Grace’s age was finally revealed in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks—a six-part documentary series on iD.
Natalia is a Ukrainian-born girl who gained media attention due to a controversial and widely publicized case. In 2010, Kristine Barnett, an American woman, and her then-husband Michael Barnett adopted Natalia from Ukraine. The Barnetts believed that Natalia had a rare form of dwarfism, which they believed to be a child-like appearance but with an adult mind.
Maintaining that Natalia was actually an adult with psychiatric issues who deceived them about her age, they petitioned to have her age legally changed to 22, based on a bone density test. In 2012 and a year later, the Barnetts moved to Canada, leaving Natalia behind to fend for herself when she was only 9 years old.
In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, we’re offered exclusive access to Natalia as she shares her story and confronts her former adoptive parents Michael and Kristine Barnett’s accusations head-on. Throughout six parts, Natalia Speaks retraces her adoption saga and the Barnett’s allegations from Natalia’s perspective, offering insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnett’s home and how much truth there actually is to their claim Natalia was not a 6-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare genetic disorder, but rather a homicidal adult intent on harming them and their children. With all that said, Natalia Grace’s age is finally revealed thanks to sophisticated DNA testing.
Natalia Grace’s age
Natalia Grace’s age, currently, is around 22 years old, meaning she wasn’t an adult when the Barnetts legally changed her age. “I was six years old when they adopted me. But the Barnetts did a petition to change my age to 22 years old. I literally lost my childhood,” Natalia said in the documentary. “The Barnetts tried to paint me as this big monster, they claimed I’m lying about my age.”
The documentary returned to the dentist’s office where she underwent an x-ray while she was living with the family. Looking back at the X-rays taken at the time, it showed adult teeth growing in the gums underneath Natalia’s baby teeth—something that obviously wouldn’t be happening to someone in their 20s. “You can’t fake teeth coming in like this,” the dentist explains, noting she would’ve been 8 or 9 years old when the x-ray was taken in 2011. This evidence was backed up by a blood sample.
“I’ve known the truth for as long as I can remember, that I was a kid,” Natalia said in the documentary, breaking down in tears after getting the results. “I just want people to really see the truth about my age.” This is significantly younger than 34, which is the age she would be now with her legally changed birthdate of 1989, meaning she was four when she came to the United States from Ukraine and she was only eight years old when the Barnetts legally changed her age.
“This one little piece of paper throws every single lie the Barnetts have said right into the trash, with a match. This is so big, this has been 12 years of just two people, lying their butts off. They ruined a kid’s life,” Natalia said after she was given the results.
“They painted me as a big monster when in reality, they were the ones. It just proves I was not lying about my age. They ignored everything that was pointing to the truth, just so they could have this stupid lie. They knew it and they still did what they did.”
In a teaser for the episode that aired on January 1, 2023, Natalia confronted her adoptive father, Michael. “Why did you adopt me in the first place?” she asked. “Many of these questions there’s not going to be a single answer to,” he replied. “I’ve learned recently you and I have the same monster: Kristine. And we are here because we both were incredible victims of an other-worldly type of abuse.”
Michael alleged he “was exceptionally controlled and put down and threatened” by his wife, adding, “Anything that was who I was was ripped from me and I was guided and instructed to be exactly what she wanted me to be.” He continued: “I tried to leave her no less than 10 times. I ended up in the hospital regularly for it.” Michael filed for divorce from Kristine in 2014 after almost 20 years of marriage.
Natalia Speaks also features previously unseen evidence and footage, as well as new theories and testimony from an array of voices, including the retired FBI agents who initially investigated Natalia’s case, genetic experts who helped determine Natalia’s true age, and the Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Jackie Starbuck who prosecuted Michael in his October 2022 trial. In addition, the docuseries sheds light on Natalia’s next chapter, offering a portrait of her life with her new adoptive family and exclusive interviews with her adoptive parents, Bishop Antown and Christina Manns.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks premieres across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1 at 9 pm ET.
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Sophie Hanson
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How Gypsy Rose Blanchard Really Feels After Her Mom’s Murder
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It was a crime that made headlines all around the world and the answer to the question how did Gypsy Rose kill her mom, Dee Dee, is rather complicated. Born in 1991, Gypsy Rose was said to have suffered from a range of health issues since childhood.
Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, claimed her daughter was chronically ill with conditions including leukemia and muscular dystrophy, leading to her being confined to a wheelchair and requiring constant medical attention.
In 2015, it was revealed that Gypsy Rose was not as sick as her mother had claimed. Gypsy Rose orchestrated the murder of her mother with the help of her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. The motive behind the murder was Gypsy Rose’s desire for freedom and to escape the abuse and manipulation she experienced at the hands of her mother.
The case gained widespread media coverage and sparked discussions about Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, a rare form of abuse in which a caregiver exaggerates or induces illness in a person under their care to gain sympathy and attention. Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and served a 10-year prison sentence; released on December 28, 2023. Godejohn, however, received a life sentence with no possibility of parole.
How did Gypsy Rose kill her mom?
How did Gypsy Rose kill her mom? Gypsy Rose actually didn’t kill her mom; she convinced her boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, to do it. In June 2015, he traveled to the Blanchards’ home near Springfield, where he stabbed Dee Dee Blanchard 17 times while Gypsy Rose hid in the bathroom and covered her ears.
Friends of Dee Dee notified the police to do a wellness check after a troubling message appeared on her Facebook page reading: “That Bitch is dead!”, which is still on her page to this day. “What is going on?” one comment read as another wrote, “WHAT?!!! Did your FB get hacked? I have never heard you talk like that.” One user asked, “Should someone notify the local police??? This sounds scary.”
The next day, police found Gypsy Rose in Wisconsin with Godejohn and took them both into custody for questioning. It’s there that authorities realized Gypsy Rose did not have any of the physical and mental health issues her mother claimed she had, most notably during the moment Gypsy Rose stood up and walked around the interrogation room.
Initially, Gypsy Rose denied knowing anything about her mother’s death, let alone her gruesome murder, but Godejohn confessed during his police interrogation. “OK, I’ll admit it, I actually did stab her. The only reason I did it was for me and her, that’s the real reason. I would never have done it if it was not for me and her.”
Ahead of her release on December 28, 2023, Gypsy Rose told People that the day she decided her mom had to die was ahead of another meaningless procedure. “I just wasn’t having it,” said Gypsy, who said she tried to run away. “She found me, brought me back and put in place paperwork saying I was incompetent and she had power of attorney over me… I was trying really hard to figure out another way [other than killing her]. That’s when there was a conversation between me and my co-defendant Nick,” who she’d met on an online dating site. “He said ‘I would do anything to protect you.’ I said, ‘Anything?’ He said ‘Yes.’
“I was desperate to get out of that situation,” she continued. “If I had another chance to redo everything, I don’t know if I would go back to when I was a child and tell my aunts and uncles that I’m not sick and mommy makes me sick, or if I would travel back to just the point of that conversation with Nick and tell him, ‘You know what, I’m going to go tell the police everything.’ I kind of struggle with that.” But, she added, “Nobody will ever hear me say I’m glad she’s dead or I’m proud of what I did. I regret it every single day.”
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is the subject of a new Lifetime documentary, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which premiers on January 5, 2024. The three-night documentary event, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, provides Blanchard the platform to share her story, her way.
“I’ve been documenting Gypsy’s ‘coming of age’ in prison for the past seven years and over the course of this time, I watched her transform into a woman who holds responsibility for her past and now has the courage to face an unknown new free world for the first time,” said executive producer, Melissa Moore.
“After a lifetime of silence, I finally get to use my voice to share my story and speak my truth. As a survivor of relentless child abuse, this docuseries chronicles my quest for liberation and journey through self-discovery,” said Gypsy Rose Blanchard. “I am unapologetically myself and unafraid to expose the hidden parts of my life that have never been revealed until now.”
The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard airs on January 5, 6 and 7 at 8pm ET/PT on Lifetime.
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard discovered that her whole life was a lie. After eight-and-a-half years of incarceration, she can finally tell you the truth—with this exclusive collection of interview transcripts and journal entries, plus her own illustrations and photos. Release: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom
by Gypsy-Rose Blanchard is available on Amazon.Our mission at StyleCaster is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
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Sophie Hanson
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The Surprising Way Gypsy Rose Blanchard Met Her Husband
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She was in jail for the brutal murder of her mother and the man that would become Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s husband was inspired by a co-worker to write a letter to her while she was behind bars. Little did he know at the time that she would become his wife.
Born in 1991, Gypsy Rose was said to have suffered from a range of health issues since childhood. Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, claimed her daughter was chronically ill with conditions including leukemia and muscular dystrophy, leading to her being confined to a wheelchair and requiring constant medical attention.
In 2015, it was revealed that Gypsy Rose was not as sick as her mother had claimed. Gypsy Rose orchestrated the murder of her mother with the help of her then-boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn. The motive behind the murder was Gypsy Rose’s desire for freedom and to escape the abuse and manipulation she experienced at the hands of her mother.
The case gained widespread media coverage and sparked discussions about Munchausen Syndrome by proxy, a rare form of abuse in which a caregiver exaggerates or induces illness in a person under their care to gain sympathy and attention. Gypsy Rose Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and served a 10-year prison sentence; released on December 28, 2023. Godejohn, however, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for his involvement in Dee Dee’s murder.
While serving out her sentence, Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s husband Ryan Scott Anderson wrote to her after connecting via mail in 2020.
How did Gypsy Rose Blanchard meet her husband?
Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s husband sent her a letter in 2020, thanks in part to a co-worker. It was right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic and after watching Tiger King, his co-worker told Anderson she wanted to write to Joe Exotic. “I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, if you write him, I’ll write Gypsy Rose Blanchard,’” Anderson explained to People ahead of Blanchard’s release.
“And I had watched her documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest, like three years before that. And then The Act had came out and I’ve never watched The Act, but I remember my friends talking about The Act and I was like, I’ll watch the documentary again. So it was kind of fresh on my mind.”
He said that he never expected to hear back from her, but by May 2020, they were regularly corresponding. A year after they started talking, they met for the first time. “We met in 2020 when the pandemic was really, really strong, and I had a lot of emotional ups and downs because of COVID,” Blanchard told People. “Unfortunately, it put the prison in a position to where it restricted our freedom even more … So Ryan has seen me through some really good times, some really hard times.”
She added, “I would say that he is probably the most compassionate soul that I’ve ever met, and the most patient, God knows, he’s so patient with me because I could be a little bit of a lot to handle. I could be a handful, an emotional handful.”
Anderson and Blanchard obtained a marriage license in Chillicothe, Missouri, on June 27, 2022. A month later, on July 21, 2022, the two tied the knot in a small prison ceremony with no guests.
“We do plan on having a reception/redo wedding with all of our family and our friends and the dress and the cake and everything because we deserve that. I deserve that. He deserves that,” she continued to People. “Our prison wedding was just something to where we can make our vows to each other. It was something that meant something to us. And I think the party is kind of for everybody else and us, but mostly for everybody else.”
On December 29, 2023, Anderson picked her up from prison when her 10-year sentence was up. Ahead of her release, she told People: “I know the home that I’m going home to is with my husband, and I’m going to have a really supportive family dynamic. And I think that that’s what I’ve been missing this whole time.”
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is the subject of a new Lifetime documentary, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which premiers on January 5, 2024. The three-night documentary event, The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, provides Blanchard the platform to share her story, her way.
“I’ve been documenting Gypsy’s ‘coming of age’ in prison for the past seven years and over the course of this time, I watched her transform into a woman who holds responsibility for her past and now has the courage to face an unknown new free world for the first time,” said executive producer, Melissa Moore.
“After a lifetime of silence, I finally get to use my voice to share my story and speak my truth. As a survivor of relentless child abuse, this docuseries chronicles my quest for liberation and journey through self-discovery,” said Gypsy Rose Blanchard. “I am unapologetically myself and unafraid to expose the hidden parts of my life that have never been revealed until now.”
The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard airs on January 5, 6 and 7 at 8pm ET/PT on Lifetime.
Gypsy-Rose Blanchard discovered that her whole life was a lie. After eight-and-a-half years of incarceration, she can finally tell you the truth—with this exclusive collection of interview transcripts and journal entries, plus her own illustrations and photos. Release: Conversations on the Eve of Freedom
by Gypsy-Rose Blanchard is available on Amazon.Our mission at StyleCaster is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale.
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Sophie Hanson
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