In pop culture, we are still riding a gigantic wave of real crimes. Streaming services have guides designed for the genre, annual book sales on real crimes have jumped by nearly $ 600,000 over the past five years, and when Oxygen presented “12 Black Days of Serial Killers”, a series of programs on mass killers in April 2020, the network reported its most watched week in five years.
As with any genre, there is a spectrum of quality when it comes to content – ranging from lustful fetishization of serial killers at the expense of victims to deeply nuanced and defying boundaries, like “Murder on Middle Beach” and “I ‘I will go in the dark. ”
Regardless of the caliber of several true crime projects, most still revolve around stories of white, middle or upper-middle class victims. Think of the most talked about true crime series and documentaries in recent years: new episodes of “The Staircase”, “The Jinx”, “Amanda Knox”, “I Love You, Now Die”, “The Confession Killer,” and “American Murder “.
Stories about white women or children being killed or kidnapped make international headlines and provoke outrage around the world – as we saw in Netflix’s “The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann” – while stories about victims of color are like a sign on the radar. such a subtle message about who is worthy of the concern of the community behind the genre.
However, filmmakers and documentarians are slowly making moves to rectify this, through projects like “The missing and murdered children of Atlanta”, “The trials of Gabriel Fernández” and now “Night Stalker: the hunt for a murderer in series “from Netflix.
Directed by Tiller Russell – whose previous documentary included “The Seven Five” and “The Last Narc” – this four-episode series shows how two detectives, with the help of community members, tracked down a serial killer dubbed “The Night Stalker” by the media during the 1980s in Los Angeles.
The series begins with archival footage from 1985, featuring a young Mexican-American detective named Gil Carrillo. He relays an announcement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department: “The Sheriff’s Department is currently conducting an investigation into a series of homicides and sexual assaults in Los Angeles County. The suspect used guns, knives, tire irons, handcuffs , handcuffs … “
Carillo was a leading detective in the Night Stalker case, alongside homicide detective Frank “The Italian Stalion” Salerno. While Carillo, a Vietnam veteran whose parents had basically summoned him to keep him off the streets, was a newcomer to the homicide department, Salerno was a stoic veteran in the police; As a reporter interviewed by Russell said, “When you heard his name, I knew it was a serious crime.”
Their partnership serves as the lens through which this series revisits the infamous case, and although the two detectives are never together in the same interview room (a missed opportunity, but apparently due to the pandemic’s production constraints), you have a sense their dynamics and their stubborn determination to discover how dozens of murders, assassination attempts, home invasions, sexual assaults and molestations were connected.
His current collective view of the case is augmented by a wealth of archival footage, as well as interviews with journalists who covered the crimes, with survivors of the Night Stalker attacks and with loved ones of their victims, many of whom were people of color. .
There are also a fair amount of crime scene reenactments and dramatic court scenes; most of them look a little clumsy – think of slow-motion shots of a bloody gun falling from a frame or a finger pulling the trigger – especially when combined with some cliché punctuation choices designed to invoke suspense. It’s unnecessarily extravagant packaging for a series of documents that does a really solid job of ensuring that the killer’s victims are not simply numbers in a body count.
There was the 9-year-old Chinese-American girl Mei Leung, who the rapist raped, beat and stabbed before hanging his body in a San Francisco hotel; Jennie Vincow, 79, who was nearly beheaded at her home; Maria Hernandez, 22, who survived the attempt to shoot her in the face; Dayle Yoshie Okazaki, 34, who was shot in the forehead; Tsai-Lian “Veronica” Yu, 30, who was shot several times; Anastasia Hronas, 6, who survived being molested, thrown into a backpack and deposited on the side of the road.
The list goes on and on. The Night Stalker finally killed at least 14 people and raped and tortured at least two dozen more during the spring and summer of 1985. (It should be noted that this docuseries does not shy away from the terrible details of the crimes perpetrated and, although it is narratively important understand the magnitude of the atrocities perpetrated, it can be difficult for some viewers to watch.)
“The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” treats all victims as equally important, and it’s clear – at least through Russell’s lens – that detectives saw them that way, too. They are positioned here as mothers and fathers, daughters and community members, defined by their lives and not how they were killed. You didn’t have to be a white victim to take the case “seriously”. I think this is probably due to the fact that Carrillo is on the case. He describes in the documentation how he felt the murders were “close to home” for him and his neighbors.
Because of the wide-ranging nature of the crimes committed, and with a clear lack of a “type” of victim, the Night Stalker terrorized Los Angeles for months. Weapon sales soared and individuals who had never thought of locking their doors sealed their doors and windows (even during that summer’s wild heat wave). A robust selection of archived news clips featuring concerned citizens discussing their fears for themselves and their communities clearly demonstrates how this serial killer dominated the collective conscience.
When, in the fourth and final episode, Carillo and Salerno finally identify the murderer and place him in custody (aided by a band of community members), it appears that justice has been served – narratively and, most importantly, to the victims.
“Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” is currently streaming on Netflix.