Flightless Bird: True Crime

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

In this week's Flightless Bird, David Farrier talks to Terra Newell, who you may well know from the Dirty John podcast. We look at what makes the True Crime genre such a big deal, and some of the ethical questions it raises. David also shares his favourite 10 True Crime bits of media with Monica and Rob - which are:

Dear Zachary (2008): A filmmaker decides to memorialize a murdered friend when his friend's ex-girlfriend announces she is expecting his son.

Blackfish (2013) / The Cove (2009): A documentary following the controversial captivity of killer whales, and its dangers for both humans and whales.

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015): Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki examines the complicated life of reclusive real estate icon Robert Durst, the key suspect in a series of unsolved crimes.

The Staircase (2004): The high-profile murder trial of American novelist Michael Peterson following the death of his wife Kathleen Peterson in 2001.

Last Call (2023): As the AIDS crisis intensifies in the early 1990s, homophobia and hate crimes increase, and a serial killer preys on gay men in New York City by infiltrating the queer nightlife to identify his victims.

6 The Thin Blue Line - 1988 (Errol Morris): A film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.

Paradise Lost (1996): A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.

Capturing the Friedmans (2003): Documentary on the Friedmans, a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family whose world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.

The Imposter (2012): A documentary centered on a young man in Spain who claims to a grieving Texas family that he is their 16-year-old son who has been missing for 3 years.

In The Dark Season 2: The second season of In the Dark explored the legal odyssey surrounding Curtis Flowers, who was accused of shooting four people to death inside Tardy Furniture, a Winona, Mississippi store, in July 1996

Honorable mentions: A Very Fatal Murder, American Vandal

Other OGs: Helter Skelter (1974), In Cold Blood (1966), Making a Murderer (2018), Serial (2014)

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