Ashlie D. Stevens is Salon's deputy food editor. The answer much like some of the details presented in "Murder on Middle Beach" is complicated. It was possible new information or new technology could help solve the case down the line, he said, adding investigators fear releasing information in the case file, including details only known to the perpetrator, could harm prosecution efforts. He also works to eliminate several of his family members as potential suspects in his mother's murder. That's a question that I've asked myself a lot. The Madison Department of Police filed an appeal on September 2. Stay up to date with what you want to know. Drumm told CT Examiner that the Police Department had gone through all the files relevant to the case. Especially my sister, she's the person closest to me, who can empathize the most. Madison, now 29 years old, talked to Esquire before the finale of Murder on Middle Beach airs on HBO this Sunday. "We miss her dearly, and it is a great loss to not have her with us," she said at a 2011 vigil, the New Haven Register reported at the time. On the morning of March 3, 2010, Beach Hamburgwas found dead in the front yard of her home by her sister, Conway Beach, and Ali. My college was really supportive of me, Savannah College of Art and Design. accessed ), memorial page for Barbara Beach Hamburg (29 Apr 1961-3 Mar 2010), Find a Grave Memorial ID . While her murder and its aftermath are explored on the show, it also paints a vivid portrait of who Beach Hamburg was before her death, and how her family is managing to cope with their loss 10 years later. The matter now is in the hands of the Connecticut Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments Wednesday. Where homicides involved I think the interest is too great not to err on the side of not disclosing.. Her cover photo, quite fittingly, is one of her and Barbara, and the first thing youd see when you go to her profile is the headline GRATEFUL Conway may not have a concrete alibi for her sisters murder, but no one can deny that she loved and still misses her. According to Schulz, the Madison Police Department took a completely inappropriate approach to deciding which documents to release. We filmed a lot and the story just kept going and going, and my professor realized we weren't gonna finish this project. In a genre that so often luridly dehumanizes its victims, specifically women, as a means for salacious storytelling, "Murder on Middle Beach" is less about clinically dismantling family secrets for their evidentiary value, than it is about assessing how those family secrets bond and tie us and what it means when those bonds are severed. She totally got it and they made us an offer. Barbara Beach Hamburg, Madison's mother, was killed in 2010 in Madison, Connecticut. We also have to honor the victims and their families. While the Madison Police Department has released some records, including the 911 call that led police to Barbara Hamburgs body, it challenged the commissions decision in court. Harmon, however, said police did not say whether the new information led to new activity. Sadly, her life was taken on March 3, 2010 in Madison, Connecticut. Even asking these questions, it's just surfacing stuff that we were gonna have to work through and if we didnt work through it, this could end unresolved and cause more destruction than there was when we started. As the series progresses, Madison gains new insight into his mother's life before her murder, including her troubled relationship with his father and Beach Hamburg's ex-husband, Jeffrey Hamburg. You watched the last time I talked to my dad. ", initially questioned Hamburg after Beach Hamburg's murder, said her ex-husband failed to make alimony and child support payments, behind on mortgage payments for their property, primary custody of Madison and Ali, while their father received visitation rights, 'I'll Be Gone In The Dark' director believes we're drawn to true crime stories because 'you can close the book, you can turn off the TV, when in real life, you don't have that power', The 7 best true crime podcasts you can listen to right now, Watch the haunting new trailer for 'I'll Be Gone in the Dark', HBO's latest true-crime docuseries, The best true crime shows you can watch on Hulu right now. Hamburg was 41 years old when she was found dead outside her home from what the medical examiners office called blunt and sharp force injuries.. The documentary follows Madison as he investigates the shocking murder of his mother Barbara Beach Hamburg. At the end of the series, Madison wins his case with the Freedom of Information Commission to receive case files relating to his mother's homicide investigation. It would compromise the case investigation. he said. So many people had the opportunity, the motive, the means. During the last four minutes of of HBO's docuseries "Murder on Middle Beach," a black screen pops up with a single, heartwrenching sentence: My family still lives without answers about my mother's death. Jeffrey was eventually arrested for failing to make those payments in 2012, and as of 2018 he was still fighting in the courts to avoid paying. So in a sense, it feels like we as viewers are coming full circle, which raises the question: What actually makes for a satisfying end for a true crime series? The department denied the request, and Neimeyer appealed to the state Freedom of Information Commission, according to a Memorandum of Decision from the Superior Court in New Britain. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Conway Beach is Barbara Beach Hamburgs elder sister and the woman who, unfortunately, discovered her body. Jeffreyrefuses to discuss the case or his marriage with Madison, except to point to Barbara's alcoholism and, prior to recovery, her pattern of black-out drinking as evidence that Barbara wasn't necessarily to be trusted a line he holds even once Madison finds boxes of documents in the final episodes that could potentially implicate him in unethical (and potentially illegal) business practices that made Barbara feel unsafe. One suspect was definitively eliminated from consideration. But they have had no new leads for years, he said. There have been corroborating leads, correcting things, things that we didn't know about. That's essentially a thousand more opportunities to discover not just what happened to his mother, but to find another slash in the family tree. I moved to Austin after school and found out there was this alumni artist residency that the president of SCAD was funding personally, and so I reached out to them about it. Arguably the most popular theory on Reddit suggests that Jeffrey Hamburg hired someone to kill his ex-wife. While waiting for the person to arrive, she grabs a drink at the lobby bar. Im not trying to suggest anything was done improperly here, but theres no way to know without seeing what they did. In October of 2019, Anike Neimeyer, the producer of Murder on Middle Beach, submitted a FOI request to the Madison Police Department on behalf of herself and Madison Hamburg requesting records of the case. We got a lot of questions like, how does it end? Barbara's sister had a rocky relationship with her sibling. I went to rehab and when I came back to school I was a year behind everybody, and I didn't tell anyone what had happened to me cause I didn't want that label of the kid whose mom was murdered. Copyright 2023 Design by Julia Balfour, LLC, Federal Grant will Help Stamford Police Catch Auto Thieves, Hundreds of Elevator Malfunctions in Stamford and No Clear Fix, With Ambulance Response Times of as Much as 40 Minutes, Legislators Propose a Funding Fix, Researchers Target Housing in Pilot Program to Reduce Gun Violence, Firefighter in Rehab Calls on Department Leaders to Bolster Brotherhood, As More Weapons are Brought to Schools, Parents and Administrators Seek a Safe Path Forward. Throughout these four episodes, Madison Hamburg, and us, learned the truth about the life Barbara Hamburg really lived - that she was a recovering alcoholic who, at the . The police could have an incentive to just not become the focus of second-guessing, Ecker said. Here, we see how that leads him to investigate his own father, a pyramid scheme The Gifting Tables that his mother was involved in, his sister, and his aunt, Conway Beach. Prior to her death, she'd been engaged in a legal battle over child support with her ex Jeffrey Hamburg, who's also the father of Madison and his younger sister Ali. Police Commission Chair Ed Downing warned at the meeting that the appeal could require significant legal resources that could be costly for the Town of Madison. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. I started in 2013 really fresh and very amateur to documentary. Although it seems like Conway is living a quiet life, she has mourned her sister publicly over the years, holding vigils and vowing to keep her memory alive. 7: Caught in a Bad Romance, Brandon Sklenar is the Baddest Dutton of Them All, The 'Outer Banks' S3 Finale Is Intense as Hell. As the pyramid scheme required a $5,000 "gift" to join, the thinking goes that Barbara could have recruited someone to the tables who couldn't actually afford to make such a payment. All rights reserved. But even if the. Madison Hamburg and his late mothers sister, Conway. I'm also so close to this, and I've seen it a thousand times over the past eight years that I don't have perspective as to what is objectively good or bad. Madison Hamburg and producer Anike Niemeyer had requested the files while filming the series and were summarily denied by the department. "When my mom died, I didn't tell anybody," says Hamburg. Those screenings were the most difficult family screenings. I think the hidden conflict is the sacrifice of the act of making this, having over 1000 hours of footage and over 200 shooting days. But as soon as I started asking questions I realized it was much bigger than that. There was sort of shame attached to that, telling someone that with the connotations around murder and true crime. I started the project in a documentary film class. There was no stone they had left unturned.. He said it was also important to preserve the rights of victims and family members, who he said he didnt believe would want information released while police officers were still working on their case. It's really interesting. As we see in the documentary, some even suggest that Conway was envious of Barbara because of the money, success, and love the latter was able to attain. Just doing that over and over. Barbara Beach Hamburg, Madison's mother, was killed in 2010 in Madison, Connecticut. Drumm also said that he hoped the Chief States Attorneys Office and that Attorney General William Tongs Office would file amicus briefs on their behalf. Hamburg, for his part, said Beach Hamburg was behind on mortgage payments for their property. Retracing the path of controversial Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe includes many stops in Connecticut. I'll admit, on my first watch of the finale, I was a little frustrated by the lack of answers. It's also worth noting that at the time of Barbara's murder, she was set to receive $40,000 from her latest table, as the doc alleges. In 2019, Madison Hamburg and Niemeyer requested the departments investigative files under the states public records law, but the department refused, claiming the case remains an open and ongoing investigation. This was actually where the four-part series began, as first-time filmmaker Madison Hamburg set out to investigate the events surrounding the murder of his mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg, who was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death outside her home in an affluent Connecticut suburb in 2010. I was most worried about Conway throughout this whole process and I think she's in a good spot. Associated Press articles: Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. She also suffered numerous stab wounds to her face, chest, and hands. . Back in 1996, when Conway was out of control with her substance abuse, Barbara took her to court to get custody of her son, Tyler. The four-part docuseries explores the 2010 murder of 48-year-old mother of two, Barbara Hamburg, who was discovered blugeoned and stabbed to death at her own home in Madison, Connecticut in. She's just such an amazing, beautiful human being and I think that really comes through. The people in the States Attorneys office who oversee the cold case reviews agreed with them that there were no new leads to follow. But the court has no doubt that this decision is not the last word on this issue, nor should it be, Klau wrote in his conclusion. The first is to further understand his mother as a person because, as he says early in the first episode, children rarely know who their parents actually are. Before joining the Register, she worked on an independent journalism project about migration in Berlin, Germany. So when she eventually got evicted, she moved to Florida, where she spent her days sleeping on park benches and just awaiting her death. Evidence of a struggle was strewn across the lawn. It's like crack, I can't stop going through and analyzing and its incredibly rewarding. Drumm told commissioners that a number of agencies, including the Madison Police Department, had already released information about the case, and that releasing further evidence could compromise the ongoing investigation. Drumm said in the meeting that, along with the request from Madison Hamburg and Neimeyer, the department had received three other requests from media outlets from the other coast for the full case files. Jeffrey, who was an exorbitantly wealthy former CEO of Southern Electric International, and Barbara had an incredibly acrimonious divorce. So Im not quite sure why theyre resistant, he said. The pace picks up in the fourth episode in such a way through the confirmation of Ali's alibi and the discovery of Jeffrey's financial records that it felt like we were rocketing towards a last-minute reveal that would position "Murder on Middle Beach" as the next "The Jinx," the shocking 2015 HBO docuseries, which shows Robert Durst in the final moments of the series mumbling what sounds like a confession on a still-hot lapel microphone: "What the hell did I do? It was a really tough thing to balance with telling a compelling story, but I think it was knowing that the goal was to subvert the genre in a way, to lean in to those more kind of compelling conventions in order to eventually break them. That said, in the final episode Ali's alibi is confirmed: her mother dropped her off at school the morning that she was killed. Through interviews with and secret recordings of his immediate family and the police, Madison and his crew tell the story of Barbara Beach Hamburgs full life and tragic death. Her body was discovered by Madison's aunt Conway and his sister, Ali; his father . The commission in August 2020 ordered Madison police to release all records responsive to the request except for signed witness statements. She frequently cried when talking about her sister, and more than once, displayed anger towards what happened. The old adage about a fresh pair of eyes is particularly apt. HBOs Murder on Middle Beach, from first-time filmmaker Madison Hamburg, is a four-part documentary series that examines the life and death of his 48-year-old mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg. In the following years, they appeared in court together numerous times after Beach Hamburg said her ex-husband failed to make alimony and child support payments. I left him a voicemail. 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