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this episode contains mentions of graphic or sensitive material that may be triggering listener discretion is
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[Music] advised hi everyone welcome back to the show made by the crime junkie Ashley
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flowers for those who are crime junkie AF and I have something really exciting for you today especially if you're a fan
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of true crime documentaries my next guest is considered a Pioneer in the social justice documentary space Making Waves
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early on with his film's brothers keeper and HBO's Paradise Lost Trilogy which was like an OG True Crime dock for me
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and it actually was a catalyst in the freeing of the West Memphis 3 after almost two decades in prison and he
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recently released his newest docu series which I bet you have watched already Cold Case who killed Jean Benet Ramsey
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on Netflix I am very excited to welcome Emmy winning and Academy Award nominated
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director Joe Bur to Crime junkie AF High Hey so uh I'm big fan so it's about time
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we finally have a have a tetet as they say I a big fan I'm so excited you're here and the timing is so perfect we
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just covered John B Ramsay that case is my Roman Empire i' I've thought about it
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constantly since I was I always say tabloid height yeah and her age so I kind of I would love to start there with
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your most recent work I would love to know why that case and why now yeah well why now is actually I think the case can
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be solved if the Boulder Police does certain DNA testing you know I got to know John Ramsey I got to know the work
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of detective L Smith I'm lucky in life that I can pick and choose the things I want to do and I felt like this case you
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know this poor family you know has been brutalized by an unfair inept process and I mean can
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you imagine losing your child and for poor John Ramsey he actually lost a previous child yeah so can you imagine
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you know you lose your 22-year-old daughter in a car wreck and John Benet they felt early on was there to kind of
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try to bring them out of that tragedy she's then brutally murdered and then they're blamed for it and it's I just
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can't think of another family that was so brutalized in a particular era of media that fascinates me that we can
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talk about in a minute this was a particular era in the history of media that just created a
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tsunami of Shame and when I looked at the case when I mentioned to friends hey I'm thinking about doing the John Benet
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case invariably very smart people in my world who said oh isn't that the story where the parents you know killed their
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daughter and so I just I just felt compelled to retell the story in part because you know Netflix does very well
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with these kinds of stories so I knew it would get some attention uh but mainly because I think it can be solved you
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know there's some very specific DNA work that needs to be done and despite the statement that the Boulder Police put
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out the other day in reaction to the film there seems to be institutional reluctance to really do the right thing
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despite a whole new crew is there in Boulder you know so I I I just I don't know I felt it was time to tell this
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story let's stop there and I we talk more about the media because the I'm obsessed you know I'm a student of the
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media as well as being a a maker of media so this particular era actually connects to us now and that's been a
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longer concern of mine can you tell for our listeners who don't know what was the statement that they put out after
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your documentary came out uh that basically the idea that the documentary implying that they aren't pursuing every
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lead and doing everything that can can be done is false um and that they're doing
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everything that can be done but the reality is the family they were promised uh regular updates you know uh the
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Colorado Bureau of Investigation has a cold case review board the the ramsy had to petition the
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governor of Colorado to actually make this case available to the cold case review board um and they made certain
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recommendations to the the Boulder Police of things that they should do this was almost two years ago they
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promised the family regular updates and maybe they're KN deep in DNA testing and
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doing all the things they're supposed to be doing but it doesn't feel that way to
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the family and there's been very little information concrete information conveyed to them so my my response back
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was hey if you're doing DNA testing let the family know you know which is strange and then when that's what I met
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with John he's like I I don't even know I don't expect to know like every step of
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you know what they're doing and how they're doing it but he's like for me not even to know if they still have the
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evidence is strange yeah and I think so as well exactly I mean look there's some
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very specific DNA testing that needs to happen the F you know the first is there
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were some items that were tested back in the day that should just be retested DNA
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technology has advanced tremendously in the last 30 years there are items five or six items that were sent to the crime
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lab back in the day that were never tested inexplicably those items need to be tested but the most important thing
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in my opinion that needs to be done is that there is DNA in found back in 97 in the Underpants of John Benet she
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had some blood from where she had been assaulted with a paint handle paintbrush handle her blood mixed with some
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foreign unidentified male DNA that's the DNA that is the most interesting in this
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case when when we say foreign we mean non-family member so John benet's DNA via her blood is mixed with an
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unidentified male person and it's a very compromised sample because old technology and also
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it's mixed with her blood so there is technology that can separate out those two DNA profiles and give us a much
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better DNA profile so that we can take advantage or the family can take advantage of genealogical you know
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investigative genetic geneology exactly and that as we know you know Green River
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Killer Golden State killer I mean it's it's been a a massive positive tool in recent years on cold cases so let's get
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that testing done you know and and if you feel like you can't talk to the Press about it then tell the family
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what's going on they owe it because the massive [ __ ] of that crime scene of that investigation the leaking of false
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stories to the press to smoke out the ramies police or behind which is kind of wild exactly all of that false
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information that was leaked to the Press by the police to pressure the ramies to
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confess to the crime which is absurd uh because of all that they've had a legacy of pain for multi multiple
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decades they owe this family regular updates and and doing everything they can do to solve the
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crime I know John and I mentioned this John's theory is like the only thing that makes sense to me is that they lost
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it and they don't want to say that they lost it do you have a theory about what might be happening or what they could be
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you know trying to like hide away from everyone because in my mind what I told him is I was like why wouldn't you to
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your point no one's there anymore who was there in 1996 why wouldn't you want to be the department the detective the
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chief of police who solves the Jean Benet Ramsey case it's a mystery to me it's a greater mystery than what
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happened to John Benet why won't the police take action because it's so obvious they need to maybe they did lose
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it I I don't know um I don't I don't have a theory you know but they owe this family that you know that
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respect how long did you spend working on the documentary I think you know start to finish about two years um wow
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yeah um you know the first part of it is you know first part of it is deciding if
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I want to do it so like immersing myself seeing what my take is then hiring a team I had a great showrunner a guy
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named Craig Denton and a great team Al together so um you know then we start figuring out the story you know the
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story we want to tell getting access to people um and interesting joh you know like you you know John was just so
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unguarded you know to to the conspiracy theorists out there who believe you know
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still believe these guys are guilty here's a guy who's 80 years old who agreed to do this interview he he didn't
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ask to be paid which I don't pay for interviews for my docs but it's become a very thorny issue in our business that
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people ask for payment he didn't ask for payment which is usually the first conversation I have with people and then
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tell them we don't pay and then some people drop off um he didn't ask for questions in advance he didn't ask for a
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review of the content he just agreed to do it and to me a guy who's 80 who's still pounding the table in Boulder to
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get testing done who's you know sitting down with you know my my reputation is like I'm a serious journalist so like he
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had absolutely no fear of sitting down with me I mean it's just it's just illogical to think that the this these
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guys are responsible for the crime was there anyone you wanted to get for the doc that you
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couldn't um yeah detective Steve Thomas of course you know uh we we had a couple
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of uh I should say Craig uh D Tron my showrunner had a couple of AU record conversations with him um he was you
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know given all the litigation that it was pleasant conversation and but given the litigation around uh you know his
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book uh he decided it was not for him um you know I'm God knows what he thinks after the show but right to me it's a
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very truthful laying out of the case do you think so you you go through in depth
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in the documentary a couple of different really compelling suspects that came up
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along the way yeah do you think any of them are still viable or was the intention just to show like hey there
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are these really important stories you might not have heard and that just like opens the door to what else is possible
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well from an investigative standpoint I think anybody is still a suspect uh including the ramies by the way even
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though I think it's absurd to think that they did it and they would be the first
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people to tell you let's do new DNA testing and everyone needs to be put back on the table because the DNA was so
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compromised in this case that I think people were ruled out who shouldn't have been necessarily doesn't and that's why
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we spent so much time on episode three going through the people who you know have been ruled out because they were I
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think ruled out for the wrong reasons some have aliis I'm not saying any of the people including John Mark Carr uh
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are guilty but a much stronger case a much more logical case could have been made against them than the Ramsay uh cuz
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I do believe you know if the ramies are guilty of anything it's I think they were a little naive about the dangers of
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putting their daughter into that kind of beauty pageant environment because that
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that pageant world is Rife with pedophiles unfortunately and so you know my theory is not it's not my exclusive
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Theory obviously but I I I I think the killer came from the pedophile World associated with the pageants um but who
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knows we need you know that's the problem with this case is just people I mean and like I get a headache looking
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at these Reddit threads you know that I that I decided to check out after the show came out and people cursing me out
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for you know I've been on that Forum yeah it's it's like are you are you kid don't you have better things to do like
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I don't want to bite the hand of the people who like my shows but like on the other hand like if you think I mean look
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the bottom line is you know people get lost in all these different theories and rabbit holes and you know the truth is
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with any murder case if you or I were charged for something you could pick up the rock
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underneath our lives and you would find lots of things that are hard to explain or unless you have the full story lots
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of things sometimes can be incriminating when you don't have the full story in anybody's life so you have to focus on
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the forensic evidence and to me like all these crazy ideas go away when you just
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focus actually on one thing if you focus on the autopsy report which nobody has disputed and you understand that this
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poor little girl was strangled to death while she was alive a garat was put around her
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neck which is a sophisticated device that I certainly don't know how to make let alone a 9-year-old boy or or a
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mother uh you know she was choked with a device that applies pressure to the neck and then they
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release so you have a little bit of breathing we know this that she died this way uh yeah she also had a huge
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crack to the skull and a big gash that I defy a a 9-year-old to be able to do but
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let's just focus on the strangulation she di she was alive while she was being strangled we know that because she had
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patial hemorrhaging in her eyes and in her heart that is classic strangulation and so to those who think
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that the mother freaked out after a bed wedding incident and there's no evidence
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of a wet bed but do we really think she had the presence of mind to go fashion a
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gat put it around her neck torture her and we know she was tortured for a period of time because there are red
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marks on her neck that sh that were caused most likely by her fingers trying to pry the garat a little loose so she
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could breathe do we really think that a 9-year-old could do that do we really think that a mother who freaked out and
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accidentally killed her daughter over a bed wedding incident could then stage this kind of a crime scene and choke
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their daughter to death I mean it's just illogical so people go down these you know the undigested pineapple the this
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the that the other look at how the girl died that's what people need to focus in
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on you know did you one of the questions I as I was putting together my episode and you spent years longer in it than I
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did did did they ever find the area where her bladder released cuz she was Face Down based on like the urine stains
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on her underwear and her pants but did they did they ever find out where that happened like was there I know there was
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nothing in her bed were there areas of the carpet like do they know not to my not to my knowledge yeah so strange yeah
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so let's talk about the media you said that was a huge part for you yeah you know one of the things and we're going
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to go off topic a little bit here one of the things that greatly concerns me and
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has concerned me in fact I you know people don't often associate Blair which too with me they forget that I made that
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which was a total cinematic dis disaster the wor the worst sequel in cinema history destroyed by
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the Press but one of the themes of that film which a whole new generation now has discovered that film and and the
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theme resonates and by the way just to defend myself a little bit the studio it was well documented back then that the
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studios lost faith in my vision and totally recut the film and I disavowed that of the film before it's released so
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that you know that do you have a secret cut somewhere I do well I do I do have a
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director's cut that's at Lion's gate and I begged Lion's gay to release the director's cut but it's fallen on on
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deaf air de ears but you know you know but I'll take responsibility for the movie whatever you know but it was
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completely recut and the whole idea of the film was like turned into a meat grinder and if people go to my DVD extra
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of Blair Witch 2 I I spend two hours dissecting how the studio [ __ ] up my film but the point is the theme of that
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film which some audiences have rediscovered is that a dangerous thing is happening in media which is the
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blurring of the line between fiction and reality between entertainment and news and at some point if we blur the line
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enough so Blair wit posited we're not going to know the difference uh and this is where we find ourselves in media
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today half the world or half this country wakes up and on you name the issue has a completely different version
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of reality than what the other half believes you know we just went through an election where we know that people
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don't just have disagreements they have completely opposing World Views and have
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the opposite view on the truth of certain matters as the other half that's a scary place to be and I've always been
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concerned about that and I think you can trace that all the way back you know you
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had said that this was your foundational case to make you a a crime junkie this was this was the foundational case for
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me that made me really nervous about where media was heading as as a student of media specifically this was the era
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where there was the Advent of the 24-hour news cycle which was new you know OJ has News 247 that was new there
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was an explosion in the number of cable networks you know all of a sudden there was 500 cable networks and most
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importantly Network news presidents realized that news makes money there was once a time in media where there was a
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sacran line dividing line between the news division of a network which was there as
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a public service in exchange for an FCC license to deliver the news and then there was the other half of the network
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the entertainment division that was intended to make money somewhere in the early 90s people realize wait news can
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make money let's let's do as much news as we can let's blur the lines let's uh lower our journalistic standards and
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this case was like the poster child for that false stories were leaked to the press that were
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completely either completely untrue or big chunks of Truth were missing and reporters just ran with them and it
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created this tsunami of attention I mean this nightly feeding of the monster had
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to happen because now everybody was engaged and I think it's I think that it it it it basically created the rise of
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opinion journalism and that's where we are today you know you watch MSNBC and then you click over to Fox for
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the same story and there's literally two opposite versions of reality and and I think that's you know troubling and I
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think I think it all started with OJ and the John Benet Ramsey case is there a way
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back good question because social media certainly hasn't helped um I'm not smart enough to figure out
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how we go back but uh I think I think opinion journalism and the elusiveness of the truth is the era in which we live
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and you know it's why there's so much dysfunction in this country now and so is that what informed so much of your
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work and the cases that you choose like are you drawn to these cases that you feel have been misrepresented or you're
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just like hey let's let's play the game a little if this is what people want like I'll give you maybe a realer
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version than you've gotten before this is something that fascinates me and interests me uh and I did a whole series
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for peacock a couple of years ago called Shadowland which really embedded with people who just believe in conspiracy
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theories so it's something that interests me but like when it comes to Crime you know it's funny like I'm
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called The True Crime Pioneer whatever the whole True Crime that phrase gives me the willies a little bit because I
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think of myself as a social justice filmmaker who has worked in the crime space you know most notably in wrongful
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conviction um but true crime you know has this baggage that you know we're wallowing in
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the misery of others as a piece of entertainment and I do object to that so because I don't think that's what I do I
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don't think that's what you do but I think there's a lot of irresponsible True Crime out there that that just kind
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of wallows in the misery of others and I think consumers of this product which is
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my audience so you know I think sometimes people forget that there's like real victims on the other side of
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things like this is this may be your your evening uh popcorn hang but you know for somebody else it's actually
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their life and what happened to their life so anytime I do a project um you know I ask myself what what can I what's
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the needle I can move forward what's the social Justice thing even you know my Ted Bundy stuff got a lot of you know
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people were like oh God you're giving a platform to a serial killer you're an awful person you know because I actually
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did both conversations with the Killer and the Zack Efron movie extremely Wicked which was just a whole bunch of
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bizarre coincidences of how that came to be that I did two bundies at the same time which we can save for another day
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but the whole reason I decided to go down this serial killer route particularly with Bundy is you know I
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had two College age daughters at home Fork Thanksgiving a few years ago they were the prototypical Bundy um victim
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you know young Collegiate women uh with long hair um and uh and they're both very
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bright I know I sound like a proud father but one of them was just graduating from Columbia University the
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other one was entering MIT and I said to them hey do you guys know who Ted Bundy
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is I'm thinking about doing a show about Ted Bundy and both of them had no idea who he was and so I said hey so I said
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hey ask your friends text you know so some very smart people were texted do you know who Ted Bundy is and very few
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actually knew so for me the social justice reason or the compelling reason to you know not give a you know not to
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put a serial killer on a pedestal or glorify all the things that I was accused of but as a cautionary tale I
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felt really good about putting out you know as a cautionary tale a reminder that just because somebody is
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charming good-looking and white doesn't mean you should trust them I mean all of
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these you know Bundy's Mo was to you know go into a library with his cast or a beach cres you know and to get and to
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appeal to young women to like can you help take my books to the car and then he would kill them you know so
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everything I do whether it's literal wrongful conviction which has been a passion of mine um or whether it's Ted
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Bundy I I ask myself what is the needle I can move and with John Benet I felt like yeah there's been a lot of stuff
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out there but both but they first of all some of it like the 2016 CBS stuff that
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accused Burke and was the subject of a defamation lawsuit is some of the most irresponsible storytelling you can ever
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imagine so I felt that needed to be corrected but there hasn't been you know I haven't seen your thing so I I'll
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include I'll include yours you know you know as as a good one but I haven't seen
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it yet so but but there hadn't up until the point I decided to make my show there hadn't been like a very cleare
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eyed dissection of this case and really separating the wheat from the chaff and focusing on what happened and I think
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that's kind of my brand is like to kind of dispel stereotypes and to have this very cleare eyed analysis was it hard to
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decide CU my episode ended up being three and a half hours was it hard to decide what to put in and what to leave
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out cuz there's so much to that case there is and um this one I thought deserved for so it was it was
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challenging um and I had to you know on the one hand you don't want to give oxygen to all the crazy ideas out there
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about how this crime happened on the other hand by by omitting it um you know people then call you out for it like
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it's like I mean yeah what do you wish you could what what was it what's the fourth episode give us the I I just
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would have I just would have pulverized some of these other crazy ideas you know
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we we just we give short shrift to the pineapple thing because it's just s such a ludicrous part of
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again there are there are facts that in anybody's life or in any legal case that
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are interesting and shouldn't be ignored for sure but you then have to it has to
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be corroborated by the forensic evidence and again like some of the stuff just falls apart when you realize how John
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Benet actually died you know um and you know the reason I wanted to do this case
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too is as I really studied what you know there was this really interesting um in
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our show which hasn't been seen before there are there are a few things that are new like we had this um this
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deposition from Steve Thomas you know from his civil litigation in which he admits there was a strategy to smoke out
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the parents by planting stories incriminating stories I mean that's an out that's that's a
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mindboggling uh Revelation when you think that the police department was using the press to paint bad a bad image
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of the parents I mean it's just it's it's it's an all-time low I think and what I saw in this case which I I saw
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which I have seen in many of the wrongful conviction cases I have covered and most notably in West Memphis for
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Paradise Lost is it's the same phenomenon you have a small town and Boulder is a relatively small town you
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have a small town police force where not much crime bad crime happens uh this was the first and only
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murder of 96 and and not just a regular murder a horrific bizarre murder so you have
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small town police who are overwhelmed by a crime don't have the experience I mean
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Steve Thomas I believe was in Narcotics you know before he went over to to take on this case so they're overwhelmed by
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the crime the pressure to solve it they they lock into a early wrong idea in part because
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of just they're not great cops and they can't move off that tunnel vision everything about that investigation was
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can we confirm our theory that the parents did it and and explain away even the foreign DNA was they went to a
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factory in China to see if it was a a worker which in and of itself is not a bad thing to do but just the general
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mode was let's do everything we can to confirm our thesis as opposed to let's be open to all possibilities and that's
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just classic and wrongful conviction the tunnel vision the confirmation bias uh the in inept Small Town police and when
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I say inept you know I I mean for a murder I'm sure they're very good at the things that they're supposed to do in
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Boulder but they weren't very good at at at this kind of a thing and they refused
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outside help so you see this in wrongful conviction cases all the time I mean I I
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believe 5% of the prison population is wrongfully convicted and it results and I'm not the only one it it results from
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just ineptitude and tunnel vision and then the what's even worse you see prosecutors in wrongful conviction cases
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routinely fighting tooth and nail when somebody wants to test DNA you know in a postconviction situation it's happened
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in Damen eckel's case it's happened in many I mean like if you're a prosecutor and
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you've put somebody on death row and you're by definition beyond all reasonable doubt you believe that this
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is the killer why would you fight a post conviction attempt to test DNA I would if I was a prosecutor I'd say hey test
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away let's make sure we're right and if I'm wrong I'll be the first to admit it that you know but people don't do that
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and that's part of what's I think has been going on in Boulder for so long they just can't admit that they messed
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this up so badly you know do you think they're worried about a lawsuit maybe um potentially I don't think
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that's the motivating factor but I just you know I just think it's human nature to like you know you can't cover your
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ass not admit you made a mistake you know do you think if they if the Rams would have been less white less rich
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with less effective lawyers this would be in your mind a wrong ful conviction case could have been could have been but
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I think some of those animating factors that you just cited are also why they kind of keyed in on them and why the
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Press was so intrigued and and it just kind of fed on itself you know oh it was like a it was a total Catch 22 something
00:29:42
we talked about in our episode and like because if you if you don't hire the lawyers like what H like like our whole
00:29:48
we have a crime duy life role like always hire a lawyer never take a polygraph like you never can trust
00:29:53
anyone um and I do I think that they got the protection that like anyone would recommend then they're criticized for it
00:29:59
but like it's it's a mess yeah I mean people who question them get I mean they did initially cooperate and they were
00:30:04
advised get a lawyer lawyer up I mean like there are a lot of people sitting in prison for things they didn't do
00:30:10
because they didn't lawyer up that's the nature of of sometimes police work so you know to me it's not strange at all
00:30:16
that they lawyered up so let's talk about wrongful conviction a little and where that started for you we've never
00:30:21
covered the West Memphis 3 case do you have an elevator pitch for that case for people who don't know it that seems hard
00:30:28
to do oh uh well you know three teenagers in rural Arkansas are uh convicted of a devil worshipping
00:30:37
ritual killing of 38-year-old boys in the woods of you know off an interstate in Arkansas West Memphis Arkansas is
00:30:46
like I think 10 or 12 miles from Memphis Tennessee but a whole other world once you get into
00:30:52
Arkansas um the kids were kind of the local weirdos Damen Eckles dressed in black God forbid uh was very gothy uh
00:31:02
they were kind of trailer Poor trailer park kids um one of the kids Jesse Miss Kelly uh allegedly gave a confession but
00:31:10
his IQ is very low and it's it's a CL it's a classic false confession we later learn in an era where that concept was
00:31:19
hardly known and so uh these guys were well Daman was put on death row and um Jason Baldwin and Jesse Miss Kelly were
00:31:30
sentenced to life uh without parole um and we thought that they were innocent and uh filmed the filmed the trials and
00:31:42
uh and that's what's so wild you were there like very early days your documentary is how many people learned
00:31:49
about the West Memphis 3 how did you learn about it well interestingly the whole journey of uh Paradise Lost um
00:31:58
having made three films over two decades that ultimately really helped get them out of prison the irony is that we went
00:32:04
down to make a film about kids killing kids we thought that they were guilty uh we were there a week after the
00:32:11
arrest uh Sheil and Evans who run used to run documentaries at HBO and you know you know people forget that you
00:32:20
know I mean the documentary business has like exploded in the last 15 years or so
00:32:25
but in 1991 you know the only people who paid for documentaries were HBO and PBS you know
00:32:33
that's it those were the only games in town there was no such thing as docu series podcasts didn't exist you know I
00:32:38
mean if you wanted to make a Doc it's either going to PBS or you pray that you get the call from HBO that was it and we
00:32:44
got the call from HBO Bruce sinowski my film making partner back then and for many of my early films who sadly passed
00:32:51
away in 2015 he and I had made a film called Brothers Keeper which we made on credit cards about a rural fraer side
00:32:58
case but in this instance the the town thought he was innocent and ultimately he was acquitted and so it's a very we
00:33:03
call the film a heartwarming tale of murder that you know came out in '92 went to Sundance nobody every got great
00:33:09
reviews nobody wanted to release it CU who wants to see a film about smelly Old Farm brothers who all sleep in the same
00:33:16
bed together and one was accused of murdering the other so we even though we won the audience award at Sundance and
00:33:22
got great reviews no no distributor wanted it so we said hey we'll distribute it ourselves and it ended up
00:33:28
being a massive success I think it's one of the early films that helped push this
00:33:32
crime thing uh that's hap that's been happening for the last couple of decades um and it was you know it it it it
00:33:40
grossed like $2 million in Theatrical self-distribution in an era where tickets were $5 so it it it did it did
00:33:48
quite well anyway Sheila Evans of HBO who is the queen of documentary she has she in her era did as much to make
00:33:56
documentaries Comm commcial as anybody um we got the call from her she read this article where these three teenagers
00:34:04
had just been arrested and on a scale of 1 to 10 the chief detective was saying the evidence is an 11 so we went down to
00:34:12
West Memphis Arkansas a week after the arrests convinced we were making a film about kids killing kids you know how
00:34:18
could three teenagers be so disaffected with life that they would take three eight-year-olds out into the woods and
00:34:24
sacrifice them in a devil worshipping ritual because of course satanic Panic was big back then and you know so we
00:34:30
thought we were making a film about kids killing kids and for the first 3 months
00:34:34
of the project we mainly interacted with the families of the victims of course we
00:34:38
had nothing but sympathy for them their children had just been 8-year-olds had just been murdered in the most uh a
00:34:44
horrific way um and uh we had no reason to believe we weren't making a kids killing kids film until we finally
00:34:54
negotiated access to the West Memphis 3 of course they weren't called the West Memphis 3 back then they were these
00:34:59
rotten teenagers sitting in jail awaiting trial and we so this is around November of
00:35:05
'93 and we're doing our first sets of interviews with the West Memphis 3 and in particular you know Damien was hard
00:35:12
to judge because he was very cocky and and and he kind of enjoyed the attention and he liked to play with the media and
00:35:19
the filmmakers and you know but Jason was this sweet kid who while I'm interviewing him I'm
00:35:26
looking at his tiny little wrist and imagining him wielding a 10-in serrated hunting knife which is what the
00:35:34
prosecution was alleging and that he had castrated one of the little boys so I'm
00:35:39
thinking about that horrible image while he's while he's talking to me thinking you know something's not I just don't
00:35:45
think this this one plus one was not equaling two like I can't say a light bulb went off and I said oh my God
00:35:52
they're Innocent but something just didn't seem right so I remember calling up Sheil and Evans who had commissioned
00:36:00
the film uh this was our big break our big first HBO film and I remember saying to her with a lot of trepidation and
00:36:08
fear that she was going to kill the project cuz she was so intent on I want a kids killing kids film that was the
00:36:14
mission and so I remember saying to her you know uh we're not so sure these guys
00:36:20
are guilty it's just not adding up but you know just want you to know that we're going to go down some other lanes
00:36:25
and to her great credit she said well well if they're innocent that sounds even better stick with it so we did
00:36:31
stick with it and we never imagined it would actually go to trial because there was literally no forensic evidence at
00:36:37
the crime scene connecting them to the crime there was no blood at the crime scene there was just so many problems
00:36:43
that I did not yet H have the dimmer view of the justice system that I was going to say you still believed in I
00:36:50
used to be like that I believed in the justice system until Paradise Lost You know cuz actually Brothers Keeper was
00:36:57
somebody being you know brought you know brought into the system who is everyone
00:37:01
thought was innocent and ultimately he got acquitted because of all the support the town brought to the table so that
00:37:07
was a positive view of the justice system even though somebody was wrongfully arrested here you know this
00:37:13
is this was my baptism um and I just I just couldn't imagine it would go to trial because we were seeing so many
00:37:22
holes in the case and yet it goes to trial and I witnessed to this day I haven't witnessed anything
00:37:29
like it it was like no evidence at the crime scene of you know no real evidence of murder no blood at the crime scene
00:37:37
but the fact that Damian Eckles liked Stephen King novels the fact that he liked Metallica which started my long
00:37:45
time relationship with Metallica was over this film because you know Metallica lyrics were actually
00:37:50
introduced into the trial as evidence that these guys are killers which is absurd on it's offensive like anybody's
00:37:57
taste in music should not be a factor in whether or not they're they're a killer
00:38:02
and if you and Metallica lyrics had nothing to do with with uh devil worshiping they're anti-authoritarian
00:38:08
but they're not devil there is a branch of heavy metal that's you know satanic oriented and it's not music I like or
00:38:14
listen to but Metallica is in a class by itself and has nothing to do with Satanism and so it's just it it just
00:38:22
that was the trial Metallica lyrics you know he he liked antton Le you know I mean but where's the evidence like
00:38:29
where's the it feels like you're in like an alternate universe when you like are
00:38:32
watching it actually like happen you're like surely everyone sees what I'm seeing like exact it's not going to end
00:38:38
that way exactly and then there's a you know the final scene of Paradise Lost you you see Damen Eckles and by the way
00:38:46
we put that camera everywhere I still can't believe the access we got I mean people really should see that F it's a
00:38:50
great example unbelievable it's a great example of pure Cinema ver which is so much harder to pull off these days cuz
00:38:56
people are so camera aware and like it's like are you really getting authenticity
00:39:00
in some of these verit situations but this this was just pure ver when I say Cinema ver that's a style of film making
00:39:08
but where you just observe and uh I'm just amazed where we put the cameras and we were in that room as they were being
00:39:17
chained up and being sent off to death row well Daman to death row Jason life without parole and I Bruce and I and
00:39:24
cameraman Bob richond were just like emotionally gut punch we just couldn't believe what we had witnessed we
00:39:30
couldn't believe these guys were were falsely convicted and that's when the light bulb went off or the calling or
00:39:36
whatever I think my film making up to that point was much just much more about the Aesthetics of documentary and how
00:39:43
can we make documentary more narrative feeling and how can we give them how can we take them out of PBS style talking
00:39:49
head historical and make them you know just more commercially I mean it was my interest in documentary up until this
00:39:56
moment was much more the Aesthetics of film making not any social justice thing but I realized we were sitting on a pile
00:40:04
of footage that shows these guys that hopefully will show that these guys have been wrongfully convicted and it just
00:40:10
became our mission uh you know and the first film came out and I thought that was going to blow the doors off the
00:40:15
prison you know prison cell but the state of Arkansas just put up a note on their website saying hey HBO is an
00:40:22
entertainment company this is a work of fiction ignore it basically so we made a
00:40:26
second film we made made a third film and finally uh they were let out of prison it took a long time and a lot of
00:40:33
work 18 years and and look when I said you know the real heroes are the investigators Lori Davis daman's wife
00:40:41
who like kind of corraled all sorts of resources um Peter Jackson played a big hand in in uh paying for forensic uh
00:40:51
research you know like the films get a lot of credit you know and of course I like some of that cuz if it wasn't for
00:40:58
us Damian himself Damen himself said has said he would have been dead but it's the people who got these guys out of
00:41:06
prison are all the hero the you know the pro bono lawyers the investigate you know so but these films were definitely
00:41:12
a catalyst for getting these guys out of prison you know oh absolutely absolutely
00:41:17
are you still like in touch with them are are you CU I know they're still pushing for testing it it's unbelievable
00:41:22
that that case is kind of in the same position it's crazy it's again it's like I think it I think it should be illegal
00:41:28
for a prosecutor to block DNA testing in a postconviction situation you know obviously West you know it's complicated
00:41:35
you know your listeners would have to like go do a deeper dive they were they were not technically exonerated they
00:41:40
were they were released on an Alfred plea which means they agreed to they agreed they stood up in public and said
00:41:48
hey we are not guilty but we can see how the state has enough evidence to convict
00:41:53
us if there was a new trial so we accept the Judgment of the Court even though we
00:41:56
protest test it and in exchange the death sentence got commuted to time served and that's how that's how they
00:42:02
got out of prison so they're they're not officially exonerated in fact when Paradise loss 3 came out which
00:42:09
documented their release uh and also you know it was that was I that was you know
00:42:16
very popular film it you know so it was invited to all sorts of film festivals and nominated for an Oscar over there
00:42:22
there sound like I'm dropping names but but it was a film that it was film that got around and the point I'm trying to
00:42:29
make in my Babble is that you know I took Jason Baldwin to the Berlin Film Festival to Toronto Damien came to a
00:42:38
couple of festivals like I was I took them around and every time we crossed the border there was a huge riger roll
00:42:46
you know at at Customs they're still felons yeah they're convicted felons convicted child murders you can't bring
00:42:51
that person into the country so that shadow linger lingers over them to this day and so that's why you know they they
00:42:59
need this DNA testing and their names need to be clear but of course like in Boulder people just don't want to admit
00:43:06
they authorities just can't seem to admit that they made a mistake although this is what I don't get going back to
00:43:12
Boulder it's a new police chief it's a new regime that's what I'm saying they do admit that it was incredibly [ __ ]
00:43:19
up you know as to how they got here so like why the continued opusc is is troubling you know maybe you're right I
00:43:28
hadn't even thought that they lost the evidence but maybe you're right maybe well John's the one that posed that to
00:43:32
me I it's totally possible I don't know there's a lot of weird stuff at play in that case like politically that I
00:43:41
haven't totally been able to wrap my head around but I'm like a little convinced it must be part of the reason
00:43:48
I don't know yeah no it's it's an interesting Theory but you know I'm hoping the pressure now is loud enough
00:43:54
that they you know they're either going to have to come clean or going to have to do the testing you know is this
00:43:59
something like paradise loss where you would continue to follow and maybe release that fourth episode or is this
00:44:07
something that you you're like okay I've done what I can do it's time to walk away from it um honestly Paradise Lost 2
00:44:13
was a struggle that was uh advocacy in search of a film it's actually not a very good film the second one um but we
00:44:20
felt that we had to keep banging the drum because the first film came out and Arkansas didn't pay attention to it and
00:44:28
while it attracted a lot of celebrities you know Eddie veter came into the fold Johnny Depp came into the fold Natalie
00:44:34
Ms a whole chorus of well-known people raised money and started advocating but it was kind of slow and I didn't quite
00:44:41
realize the power of all that at the time so all we knew is our film came out and we were getting lots of pats on the
00:44:46
back in fact I not to be falsely humble but um you know I actually felt embarrassed sometimes going up and
00:44:55
getting a prize like cuz the film won a lot of prizes you know that's what I was
00:44:58
joking about before but but you know like it's now 3 years after the convictions Damian's on his third year
00:45:07
of death row and I'm giving some speech thanking people for my Emy and I'm thinking well wait a second the film
00:45:13
didn't actually do anything you know like the film didn't achieve its objective it's
00:45:19
great that it's getting recognized creatively but like these guys are still in prison and nobody seems to care so we
00:45:25
made the second film which I think is not a great film I mean it's good on a certain level it tells
00:45:31
the story of Kathy bachan and and the and the West Memphis 3 support group that sprung up and their part of the
00:45:36
storytelling is good but it it lacked a present tense unfolding kind of narrative you know
00:45:44
which is you know that Cinema ver unfolding thing is what I was you know hoping for um and the third film we made
00:45:52
to to continue to shine a light not cuz we wanted to keep making films so that's
00:45:57
my long way of saying I generally like to be done with a subject and move on and that's the wonderful thing about
00:46:02
this kind of a career is just dipping into Worlds you never could imagine dipping into and learning so much and
00:46:07
then moving on to the next thing but if if I feel like additional pressure is needed if the case is still stuck in a
00:46:15
year if doing another show would help I certainly would what world are you planning on dipping your toe
00:46:22
next uh good question um you you know as much as I love the crime stuff um it's it's it's almost become too popular and
00:46:33
like that's all Netflix wants from me is what's your next crime show Joe uh and I'd really like to do another music film
00:46:40
so you know or something that's a little more life affirming but I you know you haven't picked it yet though I haven't
00:46:48
and and and actually I don't like to say what I'm doing just cuz I don't want to
00:46:52
jinx it or whatever but uh but I'm trying to get a a project in the music space off the ground you know I just
00:46:58
need I I need a pallet cleanser from all this I was going to ask you death and destruction especially like a a child
00:47:06
murder case is really really tough how long did it take you or is it taking you to kind of like get out of that world
00:47:14
and and to like wash that away yeah and then I want to ask you the same how you deal with it when you cover all these
00:47:21
stories but um you know early on in my career I had a an epiphany which was during the editing of uh Paradise Lost
00:47:31
so it's 94 I have a you know 10-month-old or 11-month-old child in a crib in her Nursery beautiful daughter
00:47:41
who's now 30 uh and I remember that there was a particular day where we were going
00:47:50
through horrible autopsy photos uh police crime scene footage remember the film opens with this
00:47:57
horrible police crime scene footage which at the time was quite bold choice that people like I was going to those
00:48:03
one of the things I was going to ask that was like that was a bold choice and people kind of freaked out about it but
00:48:08
it was intentional because I wanted to show we wanted to show just how horrific the crime was so that you could
00:48:14
understand how the town could have fallen for this Collective delusion of satanic Panic you you needed to
00:48:20
understand the fear that people must have had that was my reason but but you know and back in those days we were
00:48:26
still editing on a steenbeck you know linear editing digital editing didn't exist yet so everything took longer so I
00:48:34
was you know looking at horrible images that nobody should look at you know deciding what few
00:48:41
minutes was going to make it into the film and I remember driving home with these images on my brain and I walked
00:48:47
into my daughter's nursery and I picked up my newborn my first child I guess I'm
00:48:53
I don't know 30 years old 31 something like that uh 32 uh and I'm looking at my beautiful
00:49:00
sweet young 10-month-old child and flashing on some of the worst images of of horror inflicted on a child you could
00:49:09
ever imagine and I really I was I like I was moved to tears to because I felt like this project was robbing me of my
00:49:19
fatherly innocence and I don't want to be thinking about these gross images while I'm holding my child and it really
00:49:26
was a very powerful moment and so from that day on I've just somehow compartmentalized things and I made a
00:49:32
promise to myself that when I walk in that door I leave the work behind and I've I've basically have kept that
00:49:39
promise to myself but it is hard to deal with the subject matter it really is how
00:49:43
do you deal with it I I've I've always said I think that the the way that there will be like you
00:49:51
know people who work in law enforcement for their entire careers or people who work in very dark SE S I think some
00:49:58
people are built to do it that doesn't mean it's easy um but I think I was someone who's like I can I'm built to
00:50:04
like live in case files and in in some dark stuff that doesn't mean like I don't take it home um I think that the
00:50:12
only thing that it keeps me going if all I was doing was consuming this day in and day out I don't think I could get up
00:50:19
in the morning the world does feel too dark and the justice system is broken and there's so much wrong with the world
00:50:25
I think the key thing that keeps me go going is our mission behind everything and being like if if I wasn't here doing
00:50:32
this like things would be worse we're at least making things better even if it's
00:50:36
for like a single victim or or their family or like the action is what helps otherwise if I felt like we nothing was
00:50:46
happening like it would be completely overwhelming yeah that's that's great and then super important I mean you hit
00:50:51
the nail on the head having a sense of mission and I think that's what distinguishes good True Crime from bad
00:50:56
bad True Crime stuff that's just wallowing in the misery of others without any social justice message
00:51:02
without any reason for being I think that's where the genre you know needs to take a good cold look in the mirror but
00:51:09
if you're trying to advance Justice or Advance a cause or change laws then then it's it's a fertile area you know do you
00:51:19
feel like you've seen the True Crime space change in for the good or do you feel like you keep seeing it getting
00:51:25
worse and worse and there's just like a couple good apples there's more than a couple of good apples but there's a lot
00:51:30
of really bad stuff out there I'm sorry there's a lot of there's just the tone of stuff certainly and the Integrity of
00:51:37
the reporting you know even previous coverage of this case it's like you're having it both ways like I was very
00:51:44
clear in my structure of the show episode one like I didn't want people to leave oh gee maybe they did do it let's
00:51:52
debate it let's like let's have our cake and eat it too episode one was the case
00:51:56
against the Ramsay as as people experienced it episode two is well wait a second it's not what you think and
00:52:03
then episode three is these are possible new suspects but you can't walk away from my show thinking that I have any
00:52:09
lingering belief that the Ramsay had anything to do with it so I think that's where some of the past storytelling has
00:52:15
been super irresponsible and where irresponsibility in general you know like have a firm reportorial point of
00:52:23
view and deliver the goods if you're going to take on somebody's real life story it's not just a piece of
00:52:28
entertainment you know if it's a scripted thing do whatever you want but I mean not scripted of a real life story
00:52:34
if it's a fictional thing and it's scripted do you know that's the place to like play with people's heads or
00:52:40
whatever but when you have somebody's story in your hand whose real life has been defined by a tragedy you have a
00:52:47
moral obligation to do right by that story and I don't see that standard in a lot of the the new the the the stuff
00:52:54
that's out there well you're setting a new standard I love it for you well thank you so much I appreciate
00:53:02
I know you're dealing with a back injury right now so I appreciate you sitting for this long worries good so wonderful
00:53:08
I'm such a fan of your work same here same here thank you thank you so everyone if you haven't already again
00:53:14
I'm guarantee my audience has but feel free to do it again go watch Cold Case who killed John B Ramsey currently
00:53:20
streaming on Netflix and you haven't listened already like we did a crime Junkie episode on it as well and we did
00:53:27
a bonus interview with John Ramsey that you can watch on our YouTube channel don't forget to follow this show add it
00:53:33
to your library and don't forget to follow crime junkie we will be back thank you very much Joe oh thank you it
00:53:40
was fun appreciate it crime