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I watched the latest episode of People Magazine Investigates "The Times Square Killer". And compared to their usual episodes, this was just an overly long waste of time. It was all about this one prolific serial killer, and because of the way they did it, all the murders blurred together and I couldn't keep any of them straight, which also doesn't give proper respect to the victims. It's not like there was a lot of very interesting sleuthing to show of how they started linking seemingly unrelated murders to him. It sort of just devolved into "and he also killed this person, and this person." I don't even recall much delving into the psychology of such a sadistic horrible psychopath. The episode was very long, and may have read better on paper than what ended up coming out on screen.

OK, I've got some confusion here with the pillow. If we follow Shitney's chart, Glenn had a child with Jackie, who has died. That child is Angie, who we saw on the show; Glenn is Angie's father. Angie has 3 children, one of them is named Rhine; Glenn is Rhine's grandfather. Rhine has a child, named Maddie/Madeleine; Glenn is Rhine's great-grandfather. But the pillow that was from Madeline, was to "grandfather". Maybe that's part of what confused Glenn. Grandfather and great-grandfather are not the same thing, and they made a big deal about Glenn being a great-grandfather, so it just seemed weird to have the pillow say "grandfather". The sentiment behind the pillow was very sweet, though. It's 2023...do people really still leave more to the first-born?

To be fair, they said "frozen margaritas". Those could easily have been frozen strawberry margaritas. That was not Babs' dress! If you take a look at the dress as Jessica wore it, the sleeves are different. Jessica's sleeves are fully formed and come down close to her elbow. If you look at the picture they show of Babs coming down the wedding aisle, her bare arms are exposed all the way to the top, so either her sleeves have a slit (and the sleeve material is behind her) or there are no sleeves at all...either way, that is different from Jessica's dress. Plus Jessica is bigger than Babs was at the time of her wedding and would not have been able to fit it. I tried to look at how the dress fell and material, but there is sort of a glare on the dress in Babs' pic, so you can't tell for sure...but it appears to look like the material is smooth in Babs' pic, but there was a textured layer over the top on Jessica's dress. What made this so egregious, is that the party was her idea, so she was hardly being in charge of the family. Hunter appears to do just fine on his own, without needing Whit's interference help. I had noticed in her face that Whitney had lost weight and told my husband, but also told him that she can't make it seem intentional because she was so extreme about HAES. In reality, what probably drove the turnaround, as much or more than any scare about Babs, is that taking Ozempic seems to be pretty easy and successful. Whit was never willing to actually do anything to lose weight (after that initial 100 that she gained back), so she had to make it seem like it was unimportant to her at the time, and unimportant now. It will be interesting to see what she says if the weight loss gets more significant.

Quoting myself to specifically mention Web of Death. It's about the "citizen sleuths" who help solve crime through podcasts and various websites, and it's really, really interesting. There is a whole subculture of folks who are extremely dedicated to solving crimes and missing persons cases, and helping to right wrongs.

Actually, it was Glenn's brother, Chris. What may be confusing, is that when he was talking, he was referring to himself with the words "brother in-law" because he was Babs' brother-in-law.

When we first saw her sitting on the couch, we did hear her speak, and it had to Babs' sister because she sounded just like Babs. And Glenn's brother sounded just like Glenn. To be fair, there was no mention of money in the obit or in the linked "store". The gifts were memorial type things, as princelina mentioned above. But what confused me about the gifts, is who they were for. Most of the gifts seemed like things that the buyer would want for themselves, to remember Babs by, not something they would give to Babs' family. It seems like it would be weird for them to just receive lots of blankets, wind chimes, framings, etc.

So I have to update it this way. I can't believe I left off the story that I have by far seen on the most franchises...Abraham Shakespeare winning $30 million in the lottery and being murdered by his "financial advisor".

I just discovered that there are lot of series on Hulu that I had never heard of before. I just finished Death in the Dorms, and will eventually check out The Lesson is Murder, Killing Country, Web of Death, How I Caught My Killer, Real Life Nightmares, Charmed to Death, and Deadly Affairs: Betrayed By Love. According to IMDB her name is Erika Fong, and she is 37!

But that was just the first imagined scenario. In the second, she surmised that the scarf could have been in someone's hair or around their neck, and I believe that the depiction of that scenario showed a female.

Apparently, there will be a new September mystery called Mystery Island, starring Elizabeth Henstridge and Charlie Weber, on Friday, September 29 at 9pm EST. Plot summary: When a visit to a mystery themed resort goes wrong, a local detective and a vacationing British criminal psychiatrist team up to solve a real murder.

Thanks, Jeeves! I wanted to go update my original post with the new info, but for some reason I'm not getting the edit button. Does anyone know if it goes away after a post has been live for a certain amount of time?

The recent People Magazine Investigates episode "Held Captive" was quite a story. I'm glad the victim has managed to get married and hopefully have a reasonably normal life, given the ordeal she went through. And good for her for cutting off her father given his attitude about her captivity. I can understand him finding it hard to believe that she didn't leave her captor for all those years, when it seemed like she had the opportunity. But she was 14 when she ran off, and her captor completely brainwashed her. That is obvious, given that she finally came clean to the owner of that diner where she worked...if she was just staying with the captor purely because she wanted to, then she never would have had anything to come clean about. And it was only over that series of years when she got close to the diner owner and his family, that she began to feel safe enough to start confiding in him. And good for him for going to the police. It's too bad the father couldn't find a way to say something to her like, "I struggle with understanding it, and I may never understand it, but that is my limitation, and is not a reflection of you or my love and support of you." Instead, he actually said to the camera something mocking how his daughter blames everyone else. Yes, she ran off voluntarily, but again, she was 14. And given the attitude of his that came through in his interviews, I can imagine it was hellish living with him and her step-mother, especially given that he uprooted her from a nice, comfortable situation, to go live in much more of a sh*t hole, after knowing the woman for only 6 months. And sorry, but I hope the police are permanently scarred from not having gone back to that perp's house at the start, when they came at night and he said he didn't want them to search the house because his elderly parents were asleep...so they simply never came back!

And on the flip side...I've been watching the new Cold Case Files: DNA Speaks (thanks to SoMuchTV for mentioning it!), and a recent episode said that with the advent of genetic genealogy, they are finding more and more people who committed a horrible crime once, and then never did anything again, or before. They said it has really turned investigating on its head because the standard police assumption is that someone who did something that horrible must have done smaller criminal activity before.

Yep. If she had truly been undecided, then checking out her own reaction to her family's more negative reaction to Dotun, would have absolutely helped her realize what her decision was. Yeah, it was frustrating. Like, girl, you can prefer whoever you prefer, but it doesn't mean your family has to as well! I wondered if it wasn't more than that. Clearly the producers know who she's going to pick, since the loser always goes first. I almost wonder if Joey somehow let Charity know that he wanted to be able to say his piece regardless of whether he was going to be chosen or not. To go all conspiracy theory for a sec, I'm not saying he knew she was going to choose Dotun, but if he had any doubt that he would be chosen, then going through with the proposal is a good way to have the heartbroken-suitor angle for being the next Bachelor. The thing the sister said that struck me, was she said Dotun was "VERY intentional". And I think that intensity, combined with the less playfulness and naturalness, made her see them as the less desirable pairing. The other interesting thing, was that someone (I think it was mom) said Dotun was familiar in terms of they type Charity has fallen for in the past, and then she went on to describe almost a confident playa type of guy that definitely was not Dotun. I wonder if the family just really read him wrong. Even the mom's comment at ATFR about how she feels now about Dotun, did not seem like much of a glowing endorsement. But wasn't part of the reason for that, because she was all in her head after the date with Joey, and not because of any actual lack of naturalness with Dotun? I actually thought she didn't cry much this season...am I forgetting something? I found what he said in the car kind of odd, with his comments about just wanting to be with someone and asking the universe when it will be his turn. It was almost like he is looking for someTHING rather than someONE, and that whoever the actual person is, doesn't matter that much.

From watching True Crime Network's "Finally Caught", and seeing lots of the 'classic' murders we've seen on countless other franchises, I was moved to compile a list of the most commonly-portrayed murders. There's a few at the bottom that I can't recall details about, so I hope you all can help fill in what I'm missing...and of course, feel free to add any that I've left off! Narcy Novack killing her hotel-heir son Ben Novack and later found to have also killed her mother-in-law Bernice Generosa Ammon and her handyman lover Daniel Pelosi killed her husband Ted Pam Hupp...where would I even begin to describe her? Nanette Packard with ex-NFL player Eric Naposki killied Bill McLaughlin Dalia Dippolito's failed murder of her husband Mike Murder of saintly-oh-wait-not-so-saintly Paige Birgfeld Celeste Beard and lesbian-maybe-lover Tracey Tarlton murder of Celeste's husband Steve Police officer Steve Rios killing gay college student Jesse Valencia Vince and Margaret Sherry killed by his law partner Pete Halat (and all about the Dixie Mafia, with the gay Lonely Hearts scam from prison) Eddie Makdessi killed navy man Quincy Brown then double-crosses and killed his navy wife Elise after their staged killing of Quincy as part of sexual assault scam Murder of Reyna Marroquin, better known as the long-dead pregnant woman in the barrel. Anne Stout (Freak of Ark email), who killed her husband and tried to frame the woman (Barbara Miller) he re-connected with at a class reunion and had a brief affair with Martha Freeman had her lover Raphael Rocha-Perez living in a closet of her house, and he killed her husband when he's discovered snoring Brenda Andrew had her lover James Pavatt kill her husband Rob, then Pavatt hid out living in the attic of the Andrew's next-door neighbors for awhile Mark Unger killed Florence Unger at the lakeside cabin resort they went to every year, by pushing her off a deck and making it look like the rotted railing had given way and she accidentally fell Rebecca Sears had her son murder the next-door neighbor Laverne Kay Parsons, so Rebecca could be with Laverne's husband (and they had staged a burglary at Rebecca's house along with a staged shooting of Rebecca at work) Stacy Castor killed her husband David with "anti-free" Angelina Rodriguez killed her husband Frank with oleander and anti-freeze George Trepal killed neighbor Peggy Carr with thallium in Coke bottles, and as part of solving the crime, Special Agent Susan Goreck went undercover to a “Mensa Murder Weekend” hosted by Trepal and his wife a mother is found hanging off the staircase in the foyer of the house and the father had gotten the teen-age kids to help? takes place at Ft. Bragg, and a woman has her military husband killed when they stop at her office for her to pick something up on their way home from dinner? a woman (middle-aged mother?) makes up a person named Chris who is supposedly (ex)military and is advising them to do certain things a very pretty young woman with dark hair (and an exotic first name) is seen on multiple videos coming home drunk, and her father talks to the potential perp in a van? a creepy looking husband (pale, longish nose) with a german name (?) and maybe he's a professor, keeps saying he's innocent of his wife's murder but finally confesses and takes police to where the body is?

I really liked the season, but they aren't very good at making us care about the other characters in Mickey's life and at the office. It's like whatever they show us with that is just an interruption, like all the stuff with his mom, and even the birthday party Hayley threw him. Maybe they're trying to flesh out Mickey's character more, by showing us bits and pieces of why he is the way he is, or more about how he is...or maybe they're just trying to come up with some (interesting) sub-plots, but whatever the reason, it didn't work. I would add Cisco's subplot with the motorcycle gang and even the Cisco/Lorna marriage. I did kinda like the Izzy subplot, but it's a little different because it has been an ongoing character development thing.

Going with the "Chekhov's Gun" principle, there are two things that received air time but nothing ever came to fruition with them: That juror that hedged the truth about having any family connection to a developer Lorna's theory about Lisa maybe being the one who had Mickey beat up outside his car There was no reason for those things to be mentioned in terms of moving the story forward, so I wonder if something about those will come back around in the future. An odd thing about Manny is that he was standing on a platform, which made him taller, but no one said anything about that.

Why did that next witness guy for the defense (restaurant worker?) give the photographer/inspector such a side eye when he ran past him in the courthouse hallway?

I just watched ID's A Body in the Basement, episode "Missing Means Murder". It was a case I'd seen before, but there's two things that didn't make sense: According to the episode, the only way they found out about a connection between the suspect (Darryl Kuehl) and the victim (Paul Gruber), is that Paul had showed a friend a video he had taken of his property, which included a quick focus on someone and Paul said "that's my caretaker", which turned out to be Darryl. Yet Paul was apparently very close to his adult daughter Shellie, and I find it inconceivable that she would not have known that her father had a caretaker and who it was. At the end, in the explanation about how the murder occurred, they said that Darryl had taken advantage of Paul because Paul travelled a lot and he'd be gone for weeks at a time. Yet the way they said the murder occurred, is that Darryl was doing something he shouldn't have in Paul's house, and Paul walked in on him, so Darryl killed him. This makes no sense because if Paul was gone as often as they said, then Darryl could have waited to do whatever he wanted when Paul wasn't there. They made it seem like a crime of opportunity, but I don't buy that.

This is frightening me! The producers knew what they were doing when they let him have the floor, so on one hand it seems like they were letting him "audition". But on the other hand, they have to know how disliked he is both for what he did/said, and for how his affect is just so flat. I just have to hope that they gave him the "audition" time because there wasn't much else to fill the show with!

And unfortunately they have absolutely no chemistry. It was very weird how they ended that shot with them on the couch...it looked like they were going to go in for a passionate kiss, but instead she ended up with her head on his shoulder.

Good point...and I had completely forgotten about the beating up by the end of the episode, so it didn't even do whatever it was intended to do!

Quoting myself from last year because for the second time that I've seen, someone saw something and it actually was a mannequin! It was on the show Finally Caught on True Crime network, in the "Gouldin" episode. Someone had been leaving mutilated mannequins in the woods monthly for a year, and there were also some murders. The murders became linked with the mannequins, being called The Mannequin Murders, because they were around the same time and in the same greater geographic area, even though there was nothing to say they were related. Eventually, they solved the murders, but nothing ever was solved about who had done the mannequins thing.

So is what actually happened regarding Aaron coming back, that when the producers saw Charity let Xavier go, they decided that having two men left with two roses isn't much by the way or drama or suspense, so they contacted Aaron last minute to have him come back? Cause from the previews, he's wearing a suit and looking very rose ceremony-ish.

Way to go, Investigation Discovery (/sf/). I watch on replay, and as usual, the little picture icon for the episodes of the new show "A Body in the Basement" show a scene from the episode. But unlike ALL the other ID shows with the whodunit format, this stupid show has the picture icon showing the guilty perp! So as soon as we encounter that person/people during the show, we already know who's guilty. Thanks for ruining the suspense, ID.