The True Crime Stories You See on TV Are Leaving Out Something Big

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In 2018, a letter landed on Robert Chambers’ cell bars in a New York prison. It was from Ricki Stern, someone he knew from his prep school years on the Upper East Side. She was now a filmmaker and writing to ask if he’d participate in a docuseries she was making about the 1980s. He never replied.

In 1986, at 19, Chambers had strangled 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, an occasional lover, under an oak tree in Central Park. It was one of New York City’s most sensational cases, and Chambers would never shake the name tabloids gave him: Preppy Killer. He wasn’t surprised when, about a year after he received Stern’s letter, a trailer for a show about him appeared on the TV in the cell block.

In early 2020, The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park, a limited series, aired on A&E for three nights, and men congregated in the common area of the block to watch each episode. The series explored if the press would have covered the case so salaciously in the post-#MeToo era. It also suggested that Chambers may have been sexually abused by Theodore McCarrick, a cardinal who was defrocked for molesting altar boys around the time Chambers was one. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable it was, having a cell block of convicts wondering if he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. During commercial breaks, guys stood at his cell and asked if certain things were true. Eventually, he hung a sheet across his bars, which meant “Do not disturb.”

Chambers recounted all this to me when I landed in his cell block that summer. I told him I had watched the series about him and that my case had also been rehashed on a true crime show. He told me he hated the whole genre. But I tell true crime stories from an unusual and unfortunate point of view.

In 2001, when I was a 24-year-old drug dealer, I shot and killed a friend turned rival in Brooklyn and wound up with 28 years to life. A creative writing workshop showed me good writing, I took to personal journalism, and by 2018, I was publishing magazine stories about life in prison. That fall, HLN producers contacted me about participating in a series, supposedly about redemption, called Inside With Chris Cuomo. Schmoozing me, they left out a key word in the title: evil.

True crime is everywhere, but how true is it, really? An accurate portrayal of my life should include the darkness. But was it fair for the producers to approach subjects in the series with the theme—evil—already predetermined? I was taught that journalists should come to a story with an open mind and discover the heart of it in the material itself, in the characters. And if creators can get their subjects to participate only by obfuscating what they intend to do, the end result cannot be totally true.

Who can most honestly tell our stories? I live with the men I write about. We share the same label, and, regretfully, I have more of an understanding of what they did than any other true crime storyteller does.

The cultural power of the genre cannot be understated. Americans younger than 55 have never lived in a safer time. Despite the deep decline in homicides in U.S. cities, a recent poll found that more than half (54 percent) of Americans believe the opposite. Perhaps this is because 56 percent of the country watches true crime shows about murder. I have a hunch that the content increases the public’s thirst for punishment.

Robert Chambers is one of the men I profile in my new book, The Tragedy of True Crime^[2]. When reporting out his story, I contacted Stern, the filmmaker and old prep school chum who made The Preppy Murder. In that initial letter she sent Chambers, I asked, why didn’t she just tell him she was looking to do a documentary about him that reexamined the media’s role in his case. Why be vague?

“I did write him a letter but I truly don’t remember what I wrote,” Stern replied in an email. “To answer your question specifically, if I had reached out to Rob and was vague, then it was probably to see if I could have a chance to speak with him. But if he agreed to speak, then I would have explained the nature of the series.”

To be fair, I believe that Stern’s body of documentary work is impressive, but I don’t know what to make of her comments.

Others in the business are pretty clear that they don’t care about being honest. Take Claire St. Amant, a former field producer for 48 Hours, who reveals the mindset of the true crime creator in her recent memoir, Killer Story. “I didn’t imagine I’d end up … buddying up to murderers,” she writes. “But I must admit, it gave me a thrill to think I’d fooled a master manipulator into believing I actually liked him. Killers didn’t deserve my honesty, and the last thing I’d feel was any guilt for playing them.”

In hindsight, I was naive to trust those HLN producers. I was proud of the recognition my reporting had earned me, and I thought the show would document my comeback. They did, but not to prove that redemption is possible—they did it to antagonize the family of the man I murdered^[4]. I realized this when I watched the episode, “Killer Writing,” on the TV in my cell. The camera cut to his sister, her face stained with tears, expressing disapproval of my writing, right before a clip of me boasting about my career. It made for good TV. But it made me feel terrible—and I imagine she did too.

There’s a profound responsibility that comes with telling someone else’s story. Our perspectives, lived experiences, and biases all shape and color how we craft a narrative. You can distort a timeline, smudge the facts, and leave others out to pursue one angle in favor of another, depending on your agenda. It’s hard to leave all that at the door and give your subject as fair a shake as possible—but it’s necessary. The stakes are only heightened, and more complicated, when you deal with people who have committed horrible crimes, people who at first glance seem to be nothing but evil.

True crime’s not going anywhere. The reason these stories are so popular is because they are supposedly true: They reveal the dark side of human nature. But creators come to these stories with agendas, not open minds. They manipulate and exploit both the victim and the convicted to fit the narratives they want to create. I’m a murderer and a journalist, and I know that’s complex, but at least I’m telling the truth.

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