If there’s anything true crime fans love more than stories about unsolved murders and serial killers, it’s speculating wildly about serial killers and unsolved murders. Playing armchair sleuth has become something of a sport in itself, and entire podcasts are devoted to little more than gossamer theories about who may have been behind which crimes. It’s gotten to the point that there are even true crime parody podcasts that mock the genre, featuring hosts with wildly irrational or unfounded conspiracy theories sandwiched between inappropriately timed commercials for smart toothbrushes and boxed mattresses.
- 7/18/2019
- by EJ Dickson
- Rollingstone.com
This might be the end of the line for Brendan Dassey. The United States Supreme Court just ruled it will not hear the Making a Murderer subject's appeal — denying his petition for a writ of certiorari, or request to review a case. However, his attorney told Laura Nirider told E! News that her legal team will "continue to fight to free Dassey." Brendan's uncle Steven Avery was arrested in 2005 for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach. Brendan, who was 16 at the time, was interrogated and eventually confessed to being involved in the crime. He later recanted the confession, with lawyers claiming the statement was coerced. Dassey's Iq was described as being in the "low to borderline" range. (Photo Credit: Netflix) The dissenting Judge Ilana Rovner argued at the time, "What occurred here was the interrogation of an intellectually impaired juvenile. Dassey was subjected to myriad psychologically coercive techniques but the...
- 6/26/2018
- by Anna Quintana
- In Touch Weekly
Is this a brilliant discovery, or totally crazy? A Great Falls policeman named John Cameron has become convinced that one man — a now-deceased serial killer named Edward Edwards — could be responsible for some of the most notorious unsolved slayings of American history, from JonBenét Ramsey to Black Dahlia. All of his evidence will be revealed in a six-part docuseries called It Was Him: The Many Murders of Edward Edwards, to premiere on the Paramount Network tonight at 10 p.m.. But who exactly is Ed Edwards — and how could he have gotten away with such infamous crimes? Who is Ed Edwards? Edwards was born in Akron, Oh in 1933, and he reportedly had a troubled childhood. According to the documentary, his mother committed suicide when Edwards was two years old, and he was placed in an orphanage — where he was the subject of bullying. ABC News reports that Edwards escaped from jail...
- 4/16/2018
- by Emy LaCroix
- In Touch Weekly
April Balascio always knew her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, had a troubled past. He grew up in an orphanage where he claimed he’d been abused, gotten dishonorably discharged from the Army and eventually turned to a life of crime, spending time in prison for arson and robbing gas stations, and even appearing on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.
But by the time Edwards met Balascio’s mother, Kay, he claimed to be completely reformed.
What no one suspected was that he wasn’t just lying — he was a killer.
Charming and intelligent, Edwards used his past to gain fame and notoriety,...
But by the time Edwards met Balascio’s mother, Kay, he claimed to be completely reformed.
What no one suspected was that he wasn’t just lying — he was a killer.
Charming and intelligent, Edwards used his past to gain fame and notoriety,...
- 1/17/2018
- by Gillian Telling and Adam Carlson
- PEOPLE.com
When April Balascio realized her dad, Edward Wayne Edwards, may have had something to do with a double-homicide in a Wisconsin town where the family had once lived, she struggled with the decision to call authorities.
“She agonized over whether she should call the detective for a while,” explains People Senior Editor Gillian Telling in an exclusive clip (above) from a PeopleTV special about what Balascio ultimately discovered.
“She actually called her sister first and said, ‘I’m thinking of calling the detective,’ ” Telling continues. “Her sister said, ‘If you have to do it, do it.’ She called detective Chad Garcia,...
“She agonized over whether she should call the detective for a while,” explains People Senior Editor Gillian Telling in an exclusive clip (above) from a PeopleTV special about what Balascio ultimately discovered.
“She actually called her sister first and said, ‘I’m thinking of calling the detective,’ ” Telling continues. “Her sister said, ‘If you have to do it, do it.’ She called detective Chad Garcia,...
- 1/17/2018
- by People Staff
- PEOPLE.com
Eventually, April Balascio would discover that her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, was a serial killer — and then she’d help bring him to justice.
But even before that terrible revelation, she and her siblings had discussed the fact that their dad had a dark side — which he sometimes took out on the family.
The case’s twists and turns (and Balascio’s central role) will be the focus of Monday night’s People Magazine Investigates, on Investigation Discovery, exclusively previewed above.
• For more on Edward Edwards’ dark secrets and his daughter’s search for the truth, subscribe now to People...
But even before that terrible revelation, she and her siblings had discussed the fact that their dad had a dark side — which he sometimes took out on the family.
The case’s twists and turns (and Balascio’s central role) will be the focus of Monday night’s People Magazine Investigates, on Investigation Discovery, exclusively previewed above.
• For more on Edward Edwards’ dark secrets and his daughter’s search for the truth, subscribe now to People...
- 1/15/2018
- by Adam Carlson
- PEOPLE.com
April Balascio was an adult with three children when she finally sat down to search for answers to a question that had eaten at her for years: Was her father — a charming and violent man, obsessed with crime — capable of something monstrous?
The truth, she eventually learned, was yes.
She connected the dots in part because of her own internet sleuthing, and her dad, Edward Wayne Edwards, was arrested in 2009 after a fateful phone call Balascio made to investigators with what she knew.
His eventual confession showed he had murdered at least five people, including his own son.
The case...
The truth, she eventually learned, was yes.
She connected the dots in part because of her own internet sleuthing, and her dad, Edward Wayne Edwards, was arrested in 2009 after a fateful phone call Balascio made to investigators with what she knew.
His eventual confession showed he had murdered at least five people, including his own son.
The case...
- 1/12/2018
- by People Staff
- PEOPLE.com
Growing up, April Balascio says she always had suspicions about her dad, handyman Edward Wayne Edwards. He was obsessed with murder and detective stories and loved to ingratiate himself with the cops, inserting himself into local investigations wherever they lived.
Stranger still, Edwards would often move his family in the middle of the night without warning — Balascio’s first clue that something wasn’t quite right.
“Kids aren’t stupid,” she tells People.
But it wasn’t until 2009, as a 48-year-old mom of three grown children, that Balascio decided to look deeper, sure that she had to act on her nagging concerns.
Stranger still, Edwards would often move his family in the middle of the night without warning — Balascio’s first clue that something wasn’t quite right.
“Kids aren’t stupid,” she tells People.
But it wasn’t until 2009, as a 48-year-old mom of three grown children, that Balascio decided to look deeper, sure that she had to act on her nagging concerns.
- 1/11/2018
- by Gillian Telling
- PEOPLE.com
One day in 1980, when April Balascio was 11 years old, her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, woke up the household and told his wife and kids to start packing. They were leaving Watertown, Wisconsin, where they’d lived for about a year — and they were leaving immediately.
The scenario wasn’t unfamiliar: The Edwards family was nomadic, roaming from town to town every six months to a year, at their father’s whim, and often without warning.
“He’d tell us the we had to move in secret because he was protecting us, because there were people who wanted to hurt him or us,...
The scenario wasn’t unfamiliar: The Edwards family was nomadic, roaming from town to town every six months to a year, at their father’s whim, and often without warning.
“He’d tell us the we had to move in secret because he was protecting us, because there were people who wanted to hurt him or us,...
- 1/10/2018
- by Gillian Telling
- PEOPLE.com
The 2016 Summer Olympics are coming up very soon, and even the Goldberg family is capitalizing on the hype with an episode this week inspired by the real-life story of Edward Edwards. Appropriately titled “Edward ‘Eddie the Eagle’ Edwards,” this week’s new episode of The Goldbergs sees Barry (Troy Gentile) attempting to popularize his personal “sport,” Ball Ball, in an effort to gain more respect. There’s a new film coming out soon about Eddie the Eagle, so this episode of The Goldbergs looks like a way to capitalize on hype in many different ways. I’m excited! Take a look at the synopsis for
The Goldbergs Preview: Ball Ball Returns (in a Big Way)...
The Goldbergs Preview: Ball Ball Returns (in a Big Way)...
- 2/24/2016
- by Jasef Wisener
- TVovermind.com
An amazing movie about the downfall of scrappy Panamanian strongman Manuel "Tony" Noriega, "Noriega: God's Favorite" looked great on the big screen of the Granada Theatre, where the Roger Spottiswoode-directed film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Alas, despite its availability to distributors, the less than-$6
million production has not landed a theatrical deal. It is set to air April 2 on Showtime.
Although more festival showcases are certainly in order, most of the intended mature audience will discover the project's many virtues over time through cable play dates and a long ancillary shelf life. Written by journalist and nonfiction author Lawrence Wright, adapting his just-published debut novel "God's Favorite", "Noriega" stars Bob Hoskins in another superb performance -- arguably his greatest yet -- with a well-picked supporting cast of veterans and relatively unfamiliar faces.
Starting with the torture and murder of Noriega's well-known foe Hugo Spadafora in 1985 and climaxing with the general's seeking shelter from American soldiers and outraged Panamanians inside the Vatican Embassy, "Noriega" is a wild tale that many potential viewers are probably not fully acquainted with.
The filmmakers and Wright make no promises of accuracy on every detail, conversation, date or even names and faces. But in the tradition of art "re-imagining" reality, "Noriega" is a major success, bringing to a potentially wide audience a film that is literate, challenging, even a tad controversial in its occasionally sympathetic portrayal of the "Little General".
Intricately constructed around the spiritual and international crisis Noriega confronts when the invasion of 1989 ends his corrupt career -- using a fictional confession to periodically provide insights into the protagonist's complex mind -- "Noriega" is intelligently lurid, unabashedly funny and sickeningly violent.
It holds too many oddities and subtle storytelling flourishes to begin to do justice to a one-of-a-kind experience that, for example, features a sunny scene on a boat with Gen. Tony, a bevy of topless girls and Oliver North (Edward Edwards) talking about their troubles with Contras and Colombians.
Or, if that's not wicked enough, there's the scene where tough chit-chatting Fidel Castro (Michael Sorich) sticks Tony with the bill at an intimate summit in a Havana nightclub.
An alcoholic despot whose primary beliefs are "forget the past" and that God has given him extraordinary luck, Tony is a big, bad, bisexual barrio boy turned "tin-pot fascist," with a sultry mistress (Rosa Blasi), a witch doctor, loyal second in command Roberto (Tony Plana), who "knows too much," and, last but not least, a jealous wife (Denise Blasor).
After the Spadafora affair, Noriega drives Panamanian President Nicky Balretta (Luis Avalos) to resign and also banishes Roberto, while making a big show of holding elections. As the forces of betrayed drug lords, American intelligence and military and his own internal critics close in, Noriega brutally overturns the results of the election and stops a coup by Roberto's replacement (Nestor Carbonell) in its tracks with a well-placed phone call and his own fierce personality -- a tremendous sequence that Hoskins pulls off spectacularly.
With an excellent soundtrack of Latin-flavored songs and instrumentals, the well-paced, entirely absorbing scenario concludes with Noriega and a savvy papal nuncio (Jeffrey Demunn) enduring the U.S. military's barrage of hard-rock music in a bizarre standoff.
And Tony's story is not over yet, we learn in the finale. Convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking and serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison in Miami, Noriega is eligible for parole this year.
Filmed in the Philippines, the production is first-rate in all regards. Pierre Mignot's cinematography, Owen Paterson's production design and Florence-Isabelle Megginson's costumes work together magically to help fully realize the perceptive, at times playful, cinematic ministerings of Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies", Showtime's "Hiroshima").
NORIEGA: GOD'S FAVORITE
Showtime Networks
Showtime and Regency Enterprises present
A Nancy Hardin/Industry
Entertainment production
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriter: Lawrence Wright
Producer: Nancy Hardin
Executive producers: Arnon Milchan,
Nick Wechsler, Roger Spottiswoode
Director of photography: Pierre Mignot
Production designer: Owen Paterson
Editor: Mark Conte
Costume designer: Florence-Isabelle Megginson
Casting: Judith Holstra
Color/stereo
Cast:
Manuel "Tony" Noriega: Bob Hoskins
Papal nuncio: Jeffrey Demunn
Roberto: Tony Plana
Maj. Giroldi: Nestor Carbonell
Vicky: Rosa Blasi
Felicidad: Denise Blasor
President Nicky Barletta: Luis Avalos
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Alas, despite its availability to distributors, the less than-$6
million production has not landed a theatrical deal. It is set to air April 2 on Showtime.
Although more festival showcases are certainly in order, most of the intended mature audience will discover the project's many virtues over time through cable play dates and a long ancillary shelf life. Written by journalist and nonfiction author Lawrence Wright, adapting his just-published debut novel "God's Favorite", "Noriega" stars Bob Hoskins in another superb performance -- arguably his greatest yet -- with a well-picked supporting cast of veterans and relatively unfamiliar faces.
Starting with the torture and murder of Noriega's well-known foe Hugo Spadafora in 1985 and climaxing with the general's seeking shelter from American soldiers and outraged Panamanians inside the Vatican Embassy, "Noriega" is a wild tale that many potential viewers are probably not fully acquainted with.
The filmmakers and Wright make no promises of accuracy on every detail, conversation, date or even names and faces. But in the tradition of art "re-imagining" reality, "Noriega" is a major success, bringing to a potentially wide audience a film that is literate, challenging, even a tad controversial in its occasionally sympathetic portrayal of the "Little General".
Intricately constructed around the spiritual and international crisis Noriega confronts when the invasion of 1989 ends his corrupt career -- using a fictional confession to periodically provide insights into the protagonist's complex mind -- "Noriega" is intelligently lurid, unabashedly funny and sickeningly violent.
It holds too many oddities and subtle storytelling flourishes to begin to do justice to a one-of-a-kind experience that, for example, features a sunny scene on a boat with Gen. Tony, a bevy of topless girls and Oliver North (Edward Edwards) talking about their troubles with Contras and Colombians.
Or, if that's not wicked enough, there's the scene where tough chit-chatting Fidel Castro (Michael Sorich) sticks Tony with the bill at an intimate summit in a Havana nightclub.
An alcoholic despot whose primary beliefs are "forget the past" and that God has given him extraordinary luck, Tony is a big, bad, bisexual barrio boy turned "tin-pot fascist," with a sultry mistress (Rosa Blasi), a witch doctor, loyal second in command Roberto (Tony Plana), who "knows too much," and, last but not least, a jealous wife (Denise Blasor).
After the Spadafora affair, Noriega drives Panamanian President Nicky Balretta (Luis Avalos) to resign and also banishes Roberto, while making a big show of holding elections. As the forces of betrayed drug lords, American intelligence and military and his own internal critics close in, Noriega brutally overturns the results of the election and stops a coup by Roberto's replacement (Nestor Carbonell) in its tracks with a well-placed phone call and his own fierce personality -- a tremendous sequence that Hoskins pulls off spectacularly.
With an excellent soundtrack of Latin-flavored songs and instrumentals, the well-paced, entirely absorbing scenario concludes with Noriega and a savvy papal nuncio (Jeffrey Demunn) enduring the U.S. military's barrage of hard-rock music in a bizarre standoff.
And Tony's story is not over yet, we learn in the finale. Convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking and serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison in Miami, Noriega is eligible for parole this year.
Filmed in the Philippines, the production is first-rate in all regards. Pierre Mignot's cinematography, Owen Paterson's production design and Florence-Isabelle Megginson's costumes work together magically to help fully realize the perceptive, at times playful, cinematic ministerings of Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies", Showtime's "Hiroshima").
NORIEGA: GOD'S FAVORITE
Showtime Networks
Showtime and Regency Enterprises present
A Nancy Hardin/Industry
Entertainment production
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriter: Lawrence Wright
Producer: Nancy Hardin
Executive producers: Arnon Milchan,
Nick Wechsler, Roger Spottiswoode
Director of photography: Pierre Mignot
Production designer: Owen Paterson
Editor: Mark Conte
Costume designer: Florence-Isabelle Megginson
Casting: Judith Holstra
Color/stereo
Cast:
Manuel "Tony" Noriega: Bob Hoskins
Papal nuncio: Jeffrey Demunn
Roberto: Tony Plana
Maj. Giroldi: Nestor Carbonell
Vicky: Rosa Blasi
Felicidad: Denise Blasor
President Nicky Barletta: Luis Avalos
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/10/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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