I'd much prefer a more interesting, fact-based account of the town's history, an approach used by my all-time favorite true crime series, "City Confidential," which for 88 of its 152 episodes was narrated by the incomparable Paul Winfield, whose silky voice and sly delivery did so much justice to scripts that were the best-written of all programs in this category.
(Keith David took over after Winfield died in 2004. I enjoy David's acting, particularly in the series, "Greenleaf," but he couldn't match Winfield when it came to conveying the script's eye-winking humor.)
INTERVIEWERS on these shows too often put words into the mouths of family members who are being asked to recall murder victims or how they felt when they were informed of the crime.
Call me hard-hearted, but I cringe when I hear, "My world came crashing down," "My stomach fell to the floor," "I fell to my knees," "It was like my heart stopped beating." A word that pops up in almost every episode is "surreal."
Female victims? "She had a smile that lit up a room." Male victims? "He'd give you the shirt off his back."
By now you know most married or divorced victims are killed either by a spouse or former spouse, of by someone hired by a spouse or former spouse, though occasionally an in-law or former in-law is behind the crime.
The motive usually involves a child custody dispute or life insurance. (Perhaps the most stunning thing about the latter is how people with little income are able to secure life insurance policies worth half a million dollars — or more.)
MOST TIRESOME clichés? "They were the perfect couple" and "They were living the American dream." And it's a cruel joke to have a friend recall, "We all thought she had found Prince Charming."
Useless clichés aren't confined to friends and family. I'm tired of hearing police says there was no sign of a forced entry (most killers either have keys or knock and are let in), that someone or something "raised a red flag," that ruling out a suspect took police "back to square one" (didn't they just learn something important about the case), or that it may have been was a robbery gone bad . (In the worst single episode of any crime show I've ever seen — “Unholy Matrimony” on ABC’s “20/20” — network reporter Deborah Roberts used the phrase "a legitimate robbery." Is there such a thing?)
Another line that should be expunged from crime series — whether documentaries or police dramas — is "He had no police record, not even a parking ticket." Since when it illegal parking a gateway crime?
And it's not always true that a particularly gruesome murder was committed by someone "who knew him/her and really wanted him/her dead." Often such a killer is a stranger who panicked and got carried away.
Many police are quoted as saying "it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up" and that murders were committed "in cold blood."
People don't go missing, they disappear into thin air or from the face of the earth. New evidence often flips the case on its head or turns the case upside down. The result is a game changer. And many people continue to say "at that point in time."
REGARDLESS of how clumsily the information is presented, there's much to be learned from these programs. At the top of the list: Do not have children until you are mature enough to be a parent. I'm appalled by how many mothers recall the moment their high school student daughter, since murdered, announced she was pregnant. "She was so happy!" Until the baby arrived and she became involved with a boy who was not her baby's father. Oops! Pregnant again.
Other lessons: |