thedetectivesdigest

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Bullet points covering the Bullet-ridden

YouTube’s value as a creative platform extends the average home-made music video and short film: it has become a treasure trove for those interested in true crime. Created in 2016, the channel ‘Criminally Listed’ covers just that and showcases the increasing popularity of the genre.

Murders, mysteries, cryptids and more: they have it all.

The video-sharing platform YouTube remains a host-site for a never-ending stream of the fascinating and the occult. Among the plethora of available user-based content, we see an influx of content for the true crime connoisseurs. From popular channels like Rob Dyke and Cayleigh Elise, to the more commercialized Buzzfeed Unsolved, true crime reporting has become a user-based art; among the names of the established lies Rob Grimminck’s Criminally Listed channel that provides a unique, chilling voice as it does material.

Rob Grimminck- creator of Criminally Listed.

The channel describes itself as “a Canadian-based YouTube channel for fans of true crime” and currently sits at nearly half a million subscribers with view counts totaling to over 73 million.

This explosive success is not undeserving.

Each video is presented impressively professionally for its user-generated origin, and disruptive advertisements placed in the content are welcomed by viewers who hope and wish for the channel’s continued success. The cases covered stray far from the high-profile North American tabloid stories that most YouTube channels prefer to focus on, and the varied intensity and length of the videos allows even for the most pressed-for-time fans to indulge.

I love your channel you guys always post stories that aren't very well-known and the extensive research behind it shows in the production value Eddie Caligula (2018. July, 2.) FaceBook review.

Criminally Listed channel introduction card.

Aptly named “Criminally Listed”, the narration guides the viewer through the most complex cases in a helpful and concise bullet-point delivery, with all videos sorted on his channel into useful categories for easy-searching. Despite the concise format of the videos, the Criminally Listed channel does not forego grisly details and in-depth coverage even when pressed for time.

While Grimminck’s monotonous, dead-pan voice may not be for the impatient nor drowsy, it adds a charm to the creepy tone of his videos. The subtle jingling of chimes paired with the ominous music that blares at the beginning of every video sets the viewer up for what will more often than not be an absorbing and twisted narrative. With a commitment to finding true crime stories that even true crime buffs have not heard of and an equal commitment to consistency (videos are released twice a week, every week), the channel boasts professionalism at its core. Sooner than later, you might find yourself looking forward to the new week solely to hear the familiar introductory tune to a Criminally Listed video.

You can find Criminally Listed videos here

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Matricide: Munchausen's Mother Knows Best

Directed by Erin Lee Carr, the HBO insider documentary film ‘Mommy Dead and Dearest’ (2017) explores and uncovers the details of the 2015 murder of Dee Dee Blanchard in Missouri, USA. While this premise may seem ordinary, the film surprises in a way you wouldn’t expect: with narration from the convicted.

“Things are not always as they appear,”

Jim Arnott, sheriff of Greene County, Mo., looks up at the gathered reporters from his podium as he speaks in a press conference about the June 2015 stabbing murder of 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard. With the victim’s wheelchair-bound and terminally ill daughter Gypsy Rose convicted in the murder, his statement becomes something short of an understatement. While all aspects of a matricidal case are disturbing, the most disturbing news was delivered when Gypsy was found to be capable of walking, and the myriad of medical issues her mother had insisted she suffered from—and was treated for—were fictitious.

Documented as the most severe and high-profile case of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome in recent years, it’s hard to overlook the headlines surrounding the Blanchard tabloid story, but director Erin Lee Carr does just that with her second true-crime documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017). Gathering various insider voices—from neighbours and family to medical experts—the director expertly sews together different media to explain how a mother and daughter’s seemingly loving bond was nothing short of a suffocating stranglehold.

Ready for the small-screen, Carr’s documentary manages to evoke as many questions as she answers, yet she does so without intruding on the story. The film presents facts of increasing shock value, and with interrogation footage as well as press conference clips presented into the mix, the end product is nothing short of objective and professional. When the case file notes had been expended, and the viewer has gained a strong disdain for Dee Dee after her longtime abusive behaviour, Carr introduces the narration and emotional interview with Gypsy herself—in her stripes and chains and all.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard (left) and her mother Dee Dee Blanchard (right), a seemingly loving and unseparable duo.

To hear her harrowing stories of abuse suffered at the hands of a parent meant to protect is chilling and compelling all at once. By the end of the documentary, you may find yourself agreeing with Dee Dee’s family members: she had it coming.

Despite the expertly produced technicalities of cinematography and editing, the film fails to address a few questions: how did the mother manage to convince medical professionals of her daughter’s ailments with no previous medical history? While the film touches on the perception that Dee Dee was a master manipulator and thus seasoned at fraud, more details in the film would have added more substance and better coherence.

All in all, Erin Lee Carr’s film Mommy Dead and Dearest (2017) is a well-produced documentary that explores the tricky dilemma of justifiable homicide without the overdone embellishments accompanying such high-profile cases. The film is distressing yet fascinating, and with its concise 90-minute run-time, it is highly recommendable for those interested in cases stranger than fiction.

You can watch Mommy Dead and Dearest(2017) here

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Facts Stranger Than Fiction: This Is Forensic Files

Debuting in 1996, the American true crime documentary-style series ‘Forensic Files’ did more than solve criminal mysteries: it became a gateway to an emerging genre. Revisiting the show more than 20 years post-release of its first season, we take a look at its legacy.

Can you solve a mystery?

Audiences everywhere are all too familiar with the burdensome questions posed by the exhausted authors and their repetitive narratives with the cliché trope of whodunit. From kid detective idols like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys from our childhood days to the convoluted crimes and mysteries we’ve seen solved by Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes later in life—we are no strangers to the pursuit of justice. There seems to be an innate moral desire to see criminals caught and convicted for their crimes: the more grisly the crime, the more satisfying the conviction. It might explain the continued prevalence in media of heroes and villains, the good versus bad, and perhaps even now, the ever-increasing popularity of new Netflix series following fictional psychopathic criminals. All these are fueled by our strangely common yet morbid fascination surrounding the flaws of the human condition.

But there is something that the fictitious likes of our childhood detectives and their stories will always lack, despite their skills and splendour.

Peter Thomas June 28, 1924 – April 30, 2016) was an American announcer and narrator of television programs.

The very something that allowed for a true crime documentary series like Forensic Files (1996) to air for as long as it did:

The fact that it was indeed, real.

Each episode hooks you in seconds: introducing each mystery and its victim(s) is true crime narrator Peter Thomas (whose voice is both iconic and comforting). By the time the short synth theme drops and the 90s graphics title card flashes into view, you are already invested in the story and its characters. At its core, the show is indeed just another story—compactly equipped with compelling narrative elements and shrouded in mystery with its own heroes, villains, and bittersweet conclusions. While it doesn’t spare you the gruesome and at times uncomfortable details (photographs of bodies and blood and all) of the examined crime, you are taken through the judicial system’s efforts and introduced to a myriad of scientific processes that facilitate justice even after stagnant periods in cold cases.

Forensic Files best of season 1 titlecard.

With its detailed talk of breakthroughs in forensic science and its broadcasting of real criminals captured via microscopic evidence or sheer slip-up, the series also serves to deter criminal behaviour. While longtime viewers might begin to feel that with all the ill knowledge they have gathered from watching vast amounts of Forensic Files (1996) they'd have a more promising professional criminal career than most convicted on the show, each episode only serves to remind us all that the perfect crime doesn’t exist—justice will come eventually. And the show does all this without falling into the slow-paced, overly detailed bore that other crime documentaries risk with their heavy, repetitive dialogue and dragged out re-enactments. Plus, there’s no other true crime series that’s also mastered the art of distracting you from the gravity of the topic with punny episode titles.

But this doesn’t go to say that the show is not without flaws. Themes pertaining to drugs and sex are treated with a bias more progressive shows avoid and the show plays on victim-blaming in some situations such as prostitution. In retrospect from a more progressive era, Forensic Files (1996) borders on the offensive at times—though it is understandable (though not acceptable) given the time period in which it was produced—that it rendered certain themes taboo and shamed certain social groups.

Forensic Files (1996) has taken the whodunit narrative structure and applied it to reality and its facts. Catering to our Sherlock Holmes-esque, mystery-solving need to find the perpetrator, the show also appeals to our empathetic human nature with real stories and people. Its flaws are a rare enough sight that they don't prove to be distractions from the captivatingly cruel crimes in each episode.

What’s left at the end is a gripping show that educates as it fascinates; it could ultimately serve as your gateway drug into a genre of media it has so inspired.

Perhaps if you are keen on mystery-solving, you might like to solve the ultimate enigma: how can you stop watching a timelessly addictive series like Forensic Files (1996)?

You can start watching Forensic Files(1996) season 1 here