The Blotter Presents

Latest Episodes:

118: Bad Batch, Tell Me Who I Am, and After The Eclipse Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

I'm on my own for a round-up episode, reviewing 1) the latest from Wondery and Dr. Death's Laura Beil, Bad Batch; 2) a documentary about twin mind and malleable memory, Tell Me Who I Am, that just hit Netflix; and 3) a 2017 crime-oir, Sarah Perry’s After The Eclipse.
SHOW NOTES

Bad Batch: https://wondery.com/shows/bad-batch/
Tell Me Who I Am: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80214706
After The Eclipse: https://amzn.to/2Nm8Uqq
The Forensic Files ep on Crystal Perry's case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TfyjF4b1IE

117: Leavenworth and Criminal #77, "The Escape" Oct 23, 2019

Show notes

The five-part documentary series from Starz, Leavenworth, looks at the very complicated case of Clint Lorance, and after the first episode, guest Jeb Lund and I were a little impatient with the painstaking set-up -- but mostly because we wanted more of the textured, compelling stories that all converge on a single incident in 2012. Will we keep watching? And should you?
Later, we revisit what's probably an all-time top-ten true-crime topic: the 1962 escape from Alcatraz, this time as considered by Phoebe Judge on Criminal. I'm seldom NOT going to recommend a Criminal episode, and this one's no different -- so why is that? What sets Criminal's treatment of this well-trodden ground apart? And what do Jeb and I think happened to the three who got out? Dig, dash, dive into The Blotter Presents, Episode 117.
SHOW NOTES

Leavenworth on Starz: https://www.starz.com/series/leavenworth/featured
Daniel Fienberg for THR on Leavenworth: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/leavenworth-review-1248478
Mike Hale for the Times: nytimes.com/2019/10/18/arts/television/leavenworth-review.html
Dr. Nathaniel Frank, Unfriendly Fire: https://amzn.to/2oUAB1o
Dexter Filkins, The Forever War: https://amzn.to/2BuIfCe
Ep 078 on Leah Remini: Scientology And The Aftermath: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/078-leah-remini-scientology-aftermath-apostate/id1213321943?i=1000425653050
Criminal #77, "The Escape": https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-77-the-escape-10-20-2017/
Spitting Image IS getting a reboot: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-49865406

116: The DNA Of Murder and Direct Appeal Oct 16, 2019

Show notes

Paul Holes joins the Oxygen family with The DNA Of Murder; Blotter Holes-ologist Mike Dunn joins me again to talk about the new show, and whether it's really anything new at all. Was local law enforcement just waiting around for Holes and Yolanda McClary to help them out on the Burkert/Atkison case? Why didn't anyone catch the toothpaste detail before? And why can't two criminologists make their theory of the actual crime make sense?
Later, we discuss another project headed up by two criminologists: Direct Appeal, in which two Fairleigh Dickinson criminology profs agree to look into Melanie McGuire's case, even though she's still appealing her conviction for her husband's murder (and dismemberment). The set-up's got a lot of potential, but a couple of structural decisions may have led to a disappointing result, though we hope Professors Shlosberg and Sacks take a run at another case...and we hope you'll take a run at The Blotter Presents, Episode 116.
SHOW NOTES

The DNA of Murder: https://www.oxygen.com/dna-of-murder
Iowa Cold Cases site summary of the case: https://iowacoldcases.org/case-summaries/rose-burkert-and-roger-atkison/
Direct Appeal: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/direct-appeal/id1462493685
Murderpedia's Melanie McGuire page: http://murderpedia.org/female.M/m/mcguire-melanie.htm
Mike and I discuss I'll Be Gone In The Dark in Ep 048: https://audioboom.com/posts/7349365-episode-55-048-the-golden-state-killer-it-s-not-over-and-i-ll-be-gone-in-the-dark

115: Scam Goddess and Ghost Adventures: Serial Killer Spirits Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

New "con-gregational" podcast Scam Goddess kicked off last week with Paul F. Tompkins joining host Laci Mosley to talk about Anna Delvey, and Stephanie Early Green joined ME to talk about the newest comedy-convo crime pod on the block. How is it possible PFT never heard of Anna Delvey/Sorokin? Do comedy podcasts about true crime need to be better researched? And did you expect to get a wire-transfer primer on The Blotter Presents? Spoiler: you get one, "you're welcome."
Later, we contemplated the long-running, impatience-making Ghost Adventures franchise's miniseries foray into serial killers, Serial Killer Spirits, and its premiere on H.H. Holmes. Unintentional hilarity aside, is this a show for true-crime fans, or does it lack context? What do those instruments actually do? And what is Samantha StarBrite's...whole deal? Even a ghost-hunting show has opportunities to make interesting connections, but the only connection we made to this one was with the delete button on the DVR, in an all-new The Blotter Presents.
SHOW NOTES

Scam Goddess: https://www.earwolf.com/episode/scam-goddess-with-laci-mosley/
Nash/Cons and Con Men: https://amzn.to/2AQo2Xc
Anna Delvey Court Looks Insta: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxQOhGHl4Jv/
Williams's VF piece: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with-the-magician-of-manhattan
My review of Williams's book, My Friend Anna, on the Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29589407
Ghost Adventures: SKS: https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures
Episode 015 with Toby Ball on HH Holmes: https://audioboom.com/posts/7349405-episode-15-015-h-h-holmes
The Haunting Of…'s Illeana Douglas episode: https://www.mylifetime.com/shows/the-haunting-of/season-3/episode-10
Stephanie Early Green's story, "Host Mother," in the Chicago Tribune: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/literary-awards/ct-books-algren-awards-2019-finalist-story-stephanie-green-20190720-yyahgv6wejfhnodflm2idtf3jq-story.html

114: Motive and Snowball Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

Toby Ball and I took on two newish podcasts this week: the first from WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, Motive, looks at the strange case(s) of TJ Jimenez. But is a competent, ambling narrative -- one that might have worked better as a longform magazine piece -- enough during peak true-crime?
Unraveled returned with a fourth season last month, and we're talking about that season, "Snowball," in the second Most Wanted section. Snowball builds its timeline differently from Motive, doesn't try as hard to be literary, and works better for us overall -- but do we just like a scam story better? Before you spend $25 million buying a gang, have a listen to The Blotter Presents, Episode 114.
SHOW NOTES

Motive landing page: https://www.wbez.org/shows/motive/8c9f445c-4f62-46d6-a7f6-dc70a835e99b
Snowball landing page: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/truecrime/snowball/
"Read" Snowball at the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-03/con-artist-love-fraud-victims-investigate-lezlie-manukian/11300436
Ep 097 on Who The Hell Is Hamish?: https://audioboom.com/posts/7349271-097-who-the-hell-is-hamish-and-the-woman-who-wasn-t-there

113: Unbelievable and Sports Criminals Sep 25, 2019

Show notes

It took me and AB Chao a little longer than most people to get around to Unbelievable, but it lived up to its name in the best ways, nailing us to our seats and making us think about elegant exposition, acting choices, and everything SVU tries to get right and misses on. It really is "that good."
Our other Most Wanted topic, Parcast's latest podcast Sports Criminals, isn't just not for us in the way Parcast content can sometimes be; it...really is not good, unfortunately. We tried to figure out how a seemingly foolproof choice of premiere topic could have gone so tiresomely wrong. If you can figure out what "subsiding a turmoil" is, let us know after you listen to The Blotter Presents, Episode 113.
SHOW NOTES

Unbelievable: https://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80153467
Pro Publica's reporting on the Unbelievable case: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an-unbelievable-story
A Walk With A Miserable Merritt Wever https://www.vulture.com/2019/09/merritt-wever-netflix-unbelievable.html
Sports Criminals: https://www.parcast.com/sportscriminals
Pistorius Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Oscar_Pistorius

112: Murder In The Bayou and Betting On Zero Sep 18, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Marcia Chatelain joins me for the first time to talk about a first for Showtime: the network's foray into the true-crime-series space with Murder On The Bayou. The five-part series looks at the so-called "Jeff Davis 8" -- their lives, their deaths, what connected them and what didn't -- as well as at small-town class divisions, the economies of addiction, and the pointlessness of task forces.
Later, we discussed Betting On Zero, the 2016 documentary about Herbalife, and financier Bill Ackman's attempt to kill the MLM off by short-selling the stock. It's hard to say what the real difference is between an illegal pyramid scheme and a legal MLM...and what the ethical difference is between exploiting "the downline" for profit, and exploiting government intervention to back up an investment gamble. Does the doc answer those questions? Listen and find out what we thought on The Blotter Presents, Episode 112.
SHOW NOTES

Murder In The Bayou: https://www.sho.com/murder-in-the-bayou
Betting On Zero: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80108609
The Waves podcast on Slate: https://slate.com/podcasts/the-waves
Support the podcast on Patreon, get extra eps and reviews!: http://patreon.com/blotterpresents

111: Happy Jail and Ghosts Of Attica Sep 11, 2019

Show notes

Netflix's recent documentary series, Happy Jail, looks at daily life and administration inside the Filipino detention center whose famous Dancing Inmates re-enacted the Thriller video so virally a decade or so ago. There are so many stories to choose from here, but Eve Batey and I agree that the production doesn't do well at organizing them, interrogating the issues in play, or giving us context for what we're seeing as it compares with life behind bars in the U.S.
2001's Ghosts Of Attica, recently re-issued to VOD, is much more straightforward and workmanlike -- and that's a good thing! It's no-frills, but it knows what its audience doesn't know, and brings two narratives that seem like they're competing together to indict the state, Governor Rockefeller, and the ignorance of the American populace about life inside.
SHOW NOTES

Happy Jail: https://www.netflix.com/title/80223113
Ghosts Of Attica: https://amzn.to/2A5hT9b
Ep 002 (!) on Kalief Browder: https://audioboom.com/posts/7349418-episode-2-002-kalief-browder-diane-whipple-and-local-crimes
Frank "Big Black" Smith's obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/us/frank-smith-71-is-dead-sought-justice-after-attica.html
And Ms. Fink's: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/09/23/elizabeth-fink-lawyer-fought-attica-inmates-dies/72713484/
Support the podcast on Patreon, get extra eps and reviews!: http://patreon.com/blotterpresents

110: Gangster Capitalism and the 2016 Bridge Scandal Aug 28, 2019

Show notes

(Not the Chris Christie thing; the card game.) John Ramos returns to dig into a podcast from Andrew Jenks on the college-admissions bribery kerfuffle, Gangster Capitalism. Is documentarian Jenks learning the audio-narrative format on the job? Do episodes improve as you go along? And does that Loughlin stan have her priorities in order?

Later, I get into it with John, a bridge pro, about the cheating scandal that rocked bridge in 2016: what it meant for the game at the higher levels, how it changed competitive bridge, and whether it qualifies as a "crime" the way we usually mean the word. Get ready for a whole bunch of puns involving "trump" and "dummy": it's The Blotter Presents, Episode 110.

Get even more true-crime content reviewed: support the pod/site on Patreon, and sign up for the newsletter, Best Evidence!

SHOW NOTES

The Gangster Capitalism podcast: https://www.gangstercapitalism.com/
John Colapinto's piece on the bridge scandal for Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/02/competitive-bridge-cheating-scandal
David Owen's for The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-problem-in-professional-bridge
Michael Clark walks you through the Fantoni/Nunes cheating on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKe7gLTfaF8
And the Fisher/Schwartz cheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=831tJ4EHLBY&t=97s
John Ramos's bridge portal: https://losangelesbridgelessons.com/bio/

Special Guest: John Ramos.

109: Mindhunter Season 2 and The Informant! Aug 21, 2019

Show notes

Mindhunter returned for a second season on Netflix last week, and I talked with Will Leitch about the gifts director David Fincher brings to this kind of narrative, who's the real heart of the FBI BSU story, Fringe reunions, and whether the Li'l Tench, Creep In Waiting storyline worked for us. This section does contain spoilers for the second season, so if you haven't watched yet, skip ahead to...

...the Cold Case section, where we're talking about 2009's The Informant!, a genre-busting take on Mark Whitacre's elaborate, self-satisfied frauds against his employer in the '90s. Steven Soderbergh's understanding of southern-Illinois-ness, a vanity-free performance from Matt Damon, and a host of Hey, It's That Guy!s looking flabbergasted join a fizzy Hamlisch score to create a hilarious portrait of a deluded secret-agent con...that's also an object lesson in how to tell complicated white-collar crime stories visually. Screw your toupees on tight: it's The Blotter Presents, Episode 109.

Get even more true-crime content reviewed: support the pod/site on Patreon, and sign up for the newsletter, Best Evidence!

SHOW NOTES

Mindhunter: https://www.netflix.com/search?q=mindhunter&jbv=80114855&jbp=0&jbr=0
Zodiac: https://amzn.to/2ZlGS2l
The Informant!: https://www.netflix.com/search?q=the%20informant&jbv=70105371&jbp=0&jbr=0
Will Leitch's newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/williamfleitch/

Special Guest: Will Leitch.

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