Sulla scena del delitto: i Texas Killing Fields

Obviously a hideously horrendous story, in terms of the victims and family left behind. However, this actual documentary... I don't feel it did any of that justice.

Sooo many shots of photos on a table, random streets, woods, the sky, etc etc. Genuinely in every five minutes of screentime, three minutes of that are just random scenery shots or the exact same repeated shots of headstones/photos.

I also felt it was really quite disjointed and jumped about on the timeline and victims with no real cohesion.

A LOT of time is spent with one of the victim's fathers. Of course the viewer feels deeply for him, but so, so much time is spent with him with not a lot of information gleaned from it. He seems incredibly miserable and I wanted someone to just say to him, "you can stop." The documentary also kind of jumps over the fact that he harassed and possibly drove a person of interest to suicide as he became obsessed with him and pinning the crime on him. That was... unsettling.

In relation to that, there's very, very little actual critique of the police department and the absolute farce of so much of the initial investigations. It's again kind of mentioned then glossed over.

And a more nitpicky critique - when they're talking about the court records and it's stated that the murderer "had sex with and then murdered (victim)" - Jesus wept, he did not 'have sex with', he raped her. A huge difference.

Again; a horrific story. Just... very poorly documented.

This is no "making a murderer".

Starts slow, becomes intriguing, but by the final episode you'll be saying "huh?" "what?" " wait..". Because the storytelling is so convoluted.

By the end you'll be slightly confused and wondering why the story wasn't just told in a straightforward manner, as opposed to "drama" and "suspense" being artificially and unnecessarily imposed by withholding so much key information until the end.

So many times Necessary Information is doled out long after it is required. You'll be asking obvious question as it goes along that won't be answered.

Re: the skull fracture: "we have technology now that we didn't have then"...huh? You mean like...eyes? Was this just an interrogation technique? Oh no photos from '85? That's interesting ...so Where was the info about the '85 pathologist who presumably was incompetent or corrupt and botched the whole case? There's none!

The wrap up texts at the end felt tacked on and raised so many more questions. (24M lawsuit, the story of the final confession, the crime that he plead out to, the other girls, all were glossed over. The final 10 min could have been properly told in a whole other episode.

All in all a good true crime story very poorly told...the final outcomes were interesting and complex but it all wrapped up far too quickly in a way that makes you think they pretty much botched the whole story from the start.

Every now and then Netflix comes out with a good true crime docuseries. Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields is one of them and certainly worth watching if you're into that kind of documentaries. There are better ones but this one is only three episodes long so you can easily binge watch the entire season in a day. Some other reviewers thought it was too long but those are just inpatient people. What struck me the most was the incompetence of the investigating police forces. A real disgrace if you ask me. As for the justice department it wasn't much better. Obviously there will always be a difference in who's dying and/or missing. If an "important" person would be missing they would turn over every rock until they found him, which was clearly not the case here. Good interviews from all kind of people involved in the case. Worth watching.

Split across 3 episodes, this docu-series tackles a spate of mysterious deaths arising in Texas and, more specifically, along the I-45 highway in Houston. In the mid 1980's, the bodies of three women are found in the Calder Road field. Fast forward to 1991 and another body is found, with the area eventually dubbed as "The Texas Killing Fields."

As more victims are found - all the while showing bad police work, suspicious culprits and shocking revelations - it soon becomes apparent that this case is much bigger than it initially appears. But who is responsible? Is it a serial killer? Are there multiple killers? Or is there a conspiracy with law enforcement? All of this is investigated in more detail, although those looking for all the answers may find themselves a little dismayed by the ending.

The only spoiler in this review is that there are no spoiler's because we all know how Netflix documentaries turn out. Netflix, please pull yourself together. There were at least 2 dozen victims. Episodes 1 and 2 were ok but 3 was just tunnel vision. This reminds me of the Netflix documentary with the catholic nun. There was a whole series of events with multiple victims, but the documentary goes off on some singular tangent. These documentaries are getting worse in terms of telling a story about multiple victims. The subject in these Netflix documentaries ends up changing at some point in the series. Just like their other documentaries, we are led down a path in one direction but then we are pushed off a cliff so we land in the opposite direction. Definitely worth the watch if you want to learn about the area, but do not expect to learn about more than 1.5 victims stories out of a few dozen victims.