rwgrab

I know I'm biased because I have an interest in psychology, but I'm not so quick to dismiss the value of profiling. Yes, they usually include broad statements, so they're not going to lead you to, say, this group of 20 possible people over here. But they still might help you put together how a crime took place or where the perpetrator might hang out, etc. that would be better than just saying "well, hell, this guy could be anywhere!!" In some cases, maybe all you have is who the victim is and how that person was killed. Starting from there, I think a profile could start to generate some potential areas for investigation. I mean, point taken that they're not exactly dead-on or based on any hard science, but I think they're a better tool than, say, polygraphs or bite mark analysis. I think dismissing them out of hand as useless might be a mistake. I mean, just because we now know how faulty eyewitness testimony can be doesn't mean the police should stop interviewing people who witnessed a crime.

Yes! Just because two events happen the same night doesn't mean there's any relation. I was actually cheering on that Boston guy whenever he was interacting with the folks down in Texas. I get that the local team (and the filmmaker) are very dedicated and really want to solve the case, but they are making some pretty big leaps there. First, they say that the mud on her body is only found at the bottom of the river at two locations. That information is based on what some fishermen told them (not like, say, a scientist). So they're already assuming that she entered the water at the place with mud on the bottom and that the fishermen are right about the entirety of the Red River. From there, they assume that a fire that happened 200 yards from the river is related, despite having found zero evidence that she was even there after an extensive investigation. Somebody really need to throw some water on that theory real quick. Again, understandable that they let their minds go there, but there's really not any proof that any of this happened. And this is all assuming she was murdered in the first place. She was broke, back at home, didn't seem to have a plan for her life worked out. I'm not saying she wasn't killed, but I could see a defense team introducing reasonable doubt by suggesting it could have been an accident or suicide. There's just not enough evidence here to ever convict anybody, let alone lead them to a killer at this point. I mean, they showed that sad little wheely cart of like 4 boxes and 2 binders as everything they have to start with. It's really too bad, but getting the family's hopes up isn't helping them heal. And that brother-in-law who wants to create one of those 5-part ID specials on this? To me, that doesn't feel like something that will either a) draw out a confession from somebody who's gotten away with this for 15 years or b) honor the memory of a cherished family member.

Me too! The early version!

Oh man, that's so awesome that the segment has been found. Maybe this news will trigger a new wave of residual checks headed your way! And Dan, thank you so much for saving us from the early Unsolved Mysteries episodes where the "actual family members and police officials have participated in recreating the events." Let's leave the acting to the professionals!

Great discussion on the podcast as usual. It made me super-excited for the Netflix debut of Evil Genius, and I promised myself I wouldn't binge it all on Friday. But then two episodes became three, and then I definitely watched the fourth one over breakfast on Saturday! It really did seem kind of anticlimactic to me once all the pieces started coming together because they kept showing all the pictures and connecting them with lines. Big high point towards the end, though, with the reveal from Wells' friend and her role in the series of events. On the whole, I enjoyed going for the journey discovering all the players and their roles. But you know, we're dealing with a large gang of lying lairs who lie, so it almost seemed naive that the filmmakers weren't more skeptical of all the stories that were flying around. Marjorie is clearly very smart, but also clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic! I'm not saying she's definitely lying, but what incentive does she have to tell the truth during recitation number 200 of "the facts"? Yes, they confront her a little bit towards the end, but I felt like they propelled the story forward on the wings of whatever she had chosen to reveal leading up to that. I prefer when a documentary (or documentary series) allows the viewer to draw conclusions or critically evaluate what's presented along with the program. Here, the film presents such a strong case for how they think it definitely went down that it's hard to argue with it. That's it's right, of course, but I wouldn't have minded some more questioning or critical examination of the evidence (particularly because one of the filmmakers is making the choice to insert himself into the proceedings). I'd still say it's worth a watch, but I'm more tempted to go on a Google frenzy now to try and fill in the blanks.

I grew up in this area (you can see the Peterson house from my grandparents' house), and the owl theory was never convincing to me. There can be owls in that part of Durham, but I can't construct the sequence of events that would lead to one fatally attacking somebody all while that person's spouse is like 50 feet away by the pool hearing nothing. Not that owl attacks never happen, but it seems rare enough to me that we'd see some other evidence around that would lead to that conclusion. That plus the Ratliff "accidental death", which I think does factor in, makes me lean towards Peterson's guilt. This was a guy who was happy to spend well beyond the family's means with no prospect of getting out of that debt any time soon, and I can see how he might be desperate enough to try anything to maintain life in that fancy house with the nice things. If you look at the e-mails he exchanges with the sex worker he wanted to hire, he spends a fair amount of time bragging about how smart he is and how wealthy he is. The appearance of superiority is very important to him. But I also think he didn't get a fair trial the first time around. All the malfeasance by the prosecution's experts was really a shame, and the fact that it was exposed may be the only positive thing to come out of this whole affair. In addition to that, it's interesting to go back and look at how forensics like blood spatter analysis was looked at as recently as 2001-2002. I mean, half of the "evidence" from that kind of thing comes from the theatrics of how it's displayed for the jury (Henry Lee coughing on the poster board, etc.). I don't think there's any way to get to the bottom of the exact events of that night at this point.

Heh, sounds like I'm squarely in the minority on this one, but I really didn't see what solid evidence there was against the husband. Or at the very least, I didn't see much evidence against him that would have held up for a jury to convict him. I was glad they decided to drop the charges and not go forward with the case. Marsha isn't exactly socially connected. It takes 6 weeks for anybody to even seem all that concerned that she's missing, and even then it's just because she hadn't made a hair appointment. So it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility that she might have decided to leave on her own. And the best evidence they have in the case file against her husband is some receipts for a drop cloth and some gorilla tape? For somebody who had a home repair business and probably saved that receipt for those 6 weeks so he could expense it? I'm not saying it's impossible that he did something horrible to Marsha, but aside from the one documented lie about the cell phone, there's not too much there really. So it's one of those frustrating cases where "I think there's a good chance you did it" isn't enough for the law to actually impose punishment.

Very well-said! I find myself laughing the hardest at Jonathan's comments. Like in the fireman episode where the dance instructor says "And what would a waltz be without a twirl?" (or something), and Jonathan just immediately says "Not any world I want to live in!" HA! But behind the one-liners, I think there's a lot of caring and good feelings under there. There was one episode where he was working with a father and his daughters on making some homemade exfoliating scrub, and he seemed to recognize that the value for the guy was just spending time with his children. Using his prescribed "specialty" of beauty care to accomplish something more meaningful for the guy is a really nice way to build a bridge between him and somebody who's quite a bit different from him. And that's what I really appreciate about this new Fab 5. They don't have to have the client walk away from this experience with all of this new knowledge, but they're making connections and drawing people out. The makeover stuff is the tool, but the self-confidence and new perspective are the real changes that will make a difference for these guys.

I think (if I'm remembering correctly) they said that he was just supposed to find some information taped to that utility pole. I don't think he thought he was going to a meeting with anybody and was then surprised when he saw McDavid crouching in the bushes with his bicycle light. I mean, still dumb to go out there, but he may have felt safer if he thought that he'd just be grabbing a packet of information.

Oh totally. I see what you're saying about McDavid's and Lovejoy's motives. Lovejoy was definitely worse in that she knowingly put her ex-husband in danger with the hope that he'd be harmed (I'm basing that on the fact that she had indicated to her aunt that she wanted to find somebody to kill Mulvihill). McDavid is operating under, as you said, "the woman I'm sleeping with has told me these horrible things about this guy". So whether he meant to kill Mulvihill or not, he disguised himself so as to ambush him with a rifle and then fired seven shots in his general direction based solely on what this person told him. It's definitely hard to assign blame with that sort of thing. McDavid took a gun and fired at a guy he didn't know anything about. Lovejoy instigated the whole thing knowing full well her ex-husband could be in danger. I'm just glad they both wound up in prison for a decent length of time.

Where to begin with the folks from Night of the New Moon? Lovejoy started off on my bad side because I think it's particularly horrible to make false accusations of sexual assault on your child by your ex-husband just to win custody. That's pretty low; not only for this specific case, but because it's stuff like that that makes other people doubt real allegations of abuse. If the father of her child is a capable parent and wants to be involved in their son's life, it's not for her to decide that she can take that away from him by any means necessary. And then when that doesn't work, she decides she'll just have him killed instead. I don't buy for a second that she just had this "intimidation" plan, but it was actually kind of funny to see her try to sell that angle. I'm actually not sure which is worse: the sexism of lowered expectations that McDavid had where he thinks all women need his help to get protection, or Lovejoy's playing into that and using it to get him to conspire to commit murder. I'm going to say they're both worse somehow. And then there's McDavid himself, who tries to sell some story where bringing a gun along to this wacky nobody-was-supposed-to-get-hurt scheme to gather evidence against Mulvihill is a good idea. First off, the photos of his home with guns just lying around when he has an infant in the house suggests to me that he's not exactly following good gun safety practices. Then he wants to tell the jury that if he were trying to shoot Mulvihill, he would have killed him. Well, you can't have it both ways: you can't say "I didn't mean to hit him, but I did" on the one hand and "if I wanted to kill him, I would have because I'm such a good shot" on the other. I think he definitely was shooting to kill and just missed. Also? It doesn't mean Mulvihill is guilty just because he agrees to meet and find out what information is out there about his son. It means that his ex has already shown a willingness to make up lies about him with regards to his son, and he wants to know what else she's putting out there. Score one for Dateline: I loved when McDavid said "man, if there's one thing I regret, it's sleeping with Diana" and Andrea just kind of deadpans "so, you know, shooting Greg isn't a regret that you have?" But also, note to Dateline: if you show still photos in your commercial bumper montage of Lovejoy buying the Tracfone at Best Buy like 5 times, it's not exactly a cliffhanger to go to commercial break on the line "and you'll never guess what they saw on the Best Buy surveillance camera!" Haha, I think we have a pretty good guess :)

Yes! I understand that sometimes people will plead guilty as the means to some greater end even if they don't think they deserve it. But if the end goal is "I want to get my young daughter back in my custody", how is "I'm going to plead guilty to sexual offences with young women" in any way a part of that plan? And how gracious of him to finally admit "yeah, I was in the wrong on that one" when discussing his late 30s/early 40s self sending shirtless pics to a 13 year old. What in the world made you think that was OK when you were doing it? That guy's too much of a narcissist to ever kill himself, and he does seem very satisfied with how clever he is making kind of vague oblique references to things in those interviews with Van Sant (She wanted to die...but I'm not going to say it's suicide! Hey, do you think mercy killing is OK? I'm not saying I did that, just asking). Peter looked pretty exasperated dealing with this guy, but I'm glad he flat out asked Nichols the question whenever Nichols would say something like that. Nichols never had a satisfying answer and just sat there floundering.

Haha, well that at least eliminates all the "OMG, this hotel/car/refrigerator is haunted because something fell off a shelf in the same zip code one time" segments

As a diehard Unsolved Mysteries fan, I definitely enjoyed the rewatch! And Dan makes a good point about the very small amount of information that we get for each segment. I think that's what keeps us guessing about these stories this many years after they originally aired. There are an infinite number of blanks we can fill in from each 10 minute presentation of the case. I'm not sure what the rules are about posting links to other message boards, so I can edit this if necessary. The folks over at sitcomsonline have cataloged all the segments for the Amazon Prime episodes if you're looking for a specific segment: Seasons 1 and 2 Seasons 3-12

Thank you for calling out what I call the Ann Rule-ification of the players in a true crime story. I know it's not just an Ann Rule thing, but I started to notice it in some of her later stories. For most of the victims, there seemed to be at least one sentence like : Sure [victim] was [some undesirable quality or action], but it was only because [perfectly understandable reason] Like the author is trying to head off any "but he/she deserved it" kind of arguments from the reader/viewer. I don't think that's necessary because I think we are able to look critically at a situation and make a determination that victims don't "deserve" to be victims.

Yeah, that's definitely possible about the opera sequence. But I think the way the scene at the club was presented we did see Versace dismiss Andrew at first and then, persuaded by Andrew's stories, continue the conversation. Same deal with the hotel clerk in Miami Beach: we as viewers may see what he's doing as fake because we see him manufacturing it, but if you'd just met this guy, one could see how folks might be sucked in by his charm. At least that's the way it's coming across to me based on the reactions that other characters are having to Andrew. In this episode, we saw Lee seem to open up to Andrew about the plans for his dream building, etc. right before Andrew started being confrontational. I don't know that Lee would have done that had Andrew not at least started out with some sort of kindness/warmth before that.

Yeah, I agree it's tough to be watching the main plot points backwards, but the first episode did spend a lot of time establishing that Andrew had a group of people who enjoyed his company before he left California. That couple he was staying with found him, at the very least, entertaining even if they weren't buying everything he was selling. And he kind of wormed his way into that initial conversation with Versace at the club which led to a nice evening at the opera later. I'm just saying I think the show has established the difference between "in control Andrew" and "unhinged Andrew" across the series so far. I thought one of the most interesting parts of the portrayal in this episode was the contrast between how we've seen him with others and how we see him with Lee. He's like 90% confrontational with Lee which is a different act from what we've seen him do in the other episodes. Maybe it would work better as a binge watch because it's easy to get sucked into this one particular side of Andrew like we saw this week while forgetting all the stuff that comes before/after.

Did you watch the clip on Dateline's website of the jurors talking about their deliberations? They came across as fairly reasonable and intelligent folks to me. They also discussed the overwhelming amount of evidence that was presented in this case that brought them to a conclusion of guilty.

I'm kind of surprised that some folks that think Lizz's ex-husband would have been responsible based only on the fact that Lizz said he used to be an addict. That's pretty much all we know about him (well, that and that Dateline could only find one photo of him to use :) ). We don't know how long ago they split up or what the circumstances were, whether he's still an addict now, lives nearby, etc. The ex-spouse is probably not the most objective source of information about him either. We have no clue if he would have had lingering hatred for her parents or any other kind of motive to kill them. I'm sure I'm just missing something about why he makes a good suspect, but I didn't wind up at the conclusion that there was enough information to make him more likely to have done it than the other person in the house at the time.

Ah, gotcha, I stand corrected. I thought the family mentioned that they didn't find it in the garage until some time later. Still, pretty lucky for those murderers that Lizz's middle school years backpack was out in the open for them to grab. And how lucky for the widow that in addition to not being murdered the robbers were kind enough to leave behind all of the stuff they killed somebody to steal :) They were also pretty considerate not to get any blood in the rest of the house while ransacking and taking their exit. I'm just saying I think the backpack of loot in the garage is such a bizarre thing if robbery was the motive. And if murdering Jaime was the motive, why stuff the XBOX in a backpack and leave it in the garage? Totally respect that we watched the same program and came to different conclusions; appreciate the discussion.

They found the XBOX in a backpack in the garage a bit later. I was suggesting that it was strange that nobody had noticed a hole in the entertainment center where it would have been for the thief to find it. Nobody mentioned that it was odd that the xbox wasn't there (police OR family members)

Thanks for explaining your take on it. For me, I would think that any family member would be more familiar with the house than a detective who had just arrived. So even if she didn't live there, she's still a better judge of how the place usually looked. I'm not defending the police's investigation as sound, but I am saying that seemed like a very good choice to me to ask a relative about the state of the house.

I'm just curious, here. Why is it bad detective work for the police to have somebody familiar with the house and its contents take a look and identify anything that might be missing? I think that's what you would want the police to do to see if anything looks out of place.

Yeah, I would recommend that clip as well (it's only about a minute and a half long). The mentioned how many things they came up with that proved guilt during deliberations, so I have to wonder if this is just a case of Dateline not showing us some of the most compelling evidence from the prosecution's case. I haven't really researched much on my own to know, but it doesn't sound like to me that the jury didn't take the case seriously at all. For me, the 3rd party intruder doesn't make a bunch of sense. Why brutally stab one victim (silently, apparently) and lock another one in a closet? Or if you think that second victim is dead from a seizure or whatever, why put the chair underneath the doorknob to keep her in? And if this were really just a robbery, why not just bolt when you encounter the 2 naked people in the bathtub that probably aren't going to chase after you instead of deciding you might as well be murderers instead? And then the XBOX and the jewelry...I have to wonder if the family didn't do that later on and then tell the cops they found it there. Here's what I'm thinking: if you're a cop and you're trying to figure out if something's been stolen, you look for electronics first. You go to the entertainment center. Wouldn't you notice if an XBOX had been ripped out of there or at least see a hole and ask what used to be there? So I find it kind of hard to believe that it had been removed and was sitting in the garage that whole time. Maybe that's a leap, but just a guess.

Yeah, that whole storyline with the non-fiancee was so strange to me. Wasn't Howie talking with Buck in the first episode about how many "chicks" he scores with because of his uniform? And now it turns out he has a serious girlfriend; one he's close enough to propose marriage to but who doesn't know that he can't cook? Maybe she's just really unobservant, but that seems like kind of a stretch! Right? So his family that's supposedly so precious to him hasn't come up at all until now? Haha, this show definitely has some work to do to figure itself out, but I am enjoying the Krause/Bassett/Britton performances so far.