A brand-new documentary managed to help solve a murder from 1990 that had gone unsolved for almost four decades, eliciting an on-air confession from the murderer.
While incredibly rare, this is not the first time that a documentary has managed to crack a case that left detectives stumped.
Famously, HBO’s The Jinx led to Robert Durst accidentally confessing to murder in a shocking admission in which he forgot his microphone had been left on.
The documentary film My Brother, My Killer has a similarly shocking reveal, with the director not only helping find the killer but interviewing them in prison, where they gave detailed information about the death.
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The doc follows the death of Billy Newton, who was murdered in 1990 in a case that remained unsolved ever since.
Newton was a man from Midwest America who moved to California in 1984, and later would film several gay pornographic videos under the name ‘Billy London’.
In 1990, Newton was found dead in gruesome fashion, with his head and feet discovered in a dumpster.
The newspaper clipping which started it all
Despite numerous attempts to revive the case, no successful leads were found until documentary-maker Rachel Mason stumbled across it by mistake.
It came after a newspaper clipping fell out of a stack of documents belonging to an interviewee for another doc.
The headline read: “Cops Have No Clues in Grisly Killing of L.A. Porn Actor.”
After further investigation, she found out about other amateur sleuths who were digging into the murder, including a stay-at-home dad, Clark Williams, who decided to investigate the case after coming across a post about it on a local Facebook page.
Williams had begun digging deep into the gay pornographic films being produced at the time. The amateur investigator came across interviews with a member of a white supremacist skinhead group, who had admitted to carrying out a homophobic killing in Baltimore, and an unnamed one in Los Angeles.
They were called Darrell Lynn Madden and Williams found this name in several gay porn films at the time, realising it was the same person as the skinhead who had admitting to killing someone in Los Angeles.
This was further confirmed in a ‘surreal’ moment in which Mason came across archival footage that showed the skinhead who admitted to killing Newton.
The director said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “There’s a videotape of a memorial award show from the gay adult industry in the early '90s.
“It’s basically a time capsule of that era. And in that footage, you see someone who later became the suspected killer actually walk on stage. It’s chilling.”
Madden was living a ‘triple life’
They have since come out as a transgender woman and is known as DarraLynn Madden, with My Brother’s Killer featuring her on-camera confession.
Madden was living a ‘triple life’ at the time of the killing, working as a sex worker, a gay adult star, and also being part of a white skinhead Neo-nazi gang that would rob and attack predominantly gay people.
Madden has not faced charges for the killing, with prosecutors citing a lack of evidence outside of her confession and the fact she was already behind bars for previous crimes.
'What struck me most was how charismatic she was'
Speaking about the moment Madden confessed, Mason said: “It was intense. We were taken into a maximum-security unit.
“She came out in double shackles with a guard standing extremely close behind her. But what struck me most was how charismatic she was.
“The detective who interviewed her said the same thing — she’s very charming, very funny.
“Someone you could easily imagine having a conversation with over a beer. That makes it even more disturbing.”
My Brother’s Killer premieres at SXSW on March 13.
Topics: True Crime, TV and Film, Film, Documentaries, Crime, US News, LGBTQ
Michael Slavin