A list of additional records submitted to the court includes surveillance video, recordings of specific voicemails, non-police tape-recorded conversations and copies of items seized from Barbara Hamburgs bedroom safe. Upon hearing this new information, Beach alters her opinion of Ali as the murderer. And I've been really careful not to have hunches and not to express any opinions about what I think happened cause I think that's the biggest challenge with any investigation. As he revealed in a video update on Dec. 8 through HBO's YouTube channel, he is currently combing through these files for additional information that could eventually help solve the case. HBO's new docuseries "Murder on Middle Beach" is a moving exploration of one woman's life and murder, and how her family dealt with the aftermath of her death. It is more than a reasonable possibility, pun intended, that the Connecticut Appellate or Supreme Court will review this decision. In the doc, she admitted to having tried to hire a hitman to kill Barbara years prior over a custody battle involving her son, but the two were later able to make up. According to the doc, Platt believed Barbara was inviting too many unqualified people into the scheme, thinking that these peoples' lack of funds would lead the tables to collapse. But to date, no one has ever been charged with Barbara's murder. That all falls out of your test, doesnt it?. HBO's '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. Barbara's sister had a rocky relationship with her sibling. But it's also really challenging for both my aunts, my sister and my family, so we've had a lot of conversations. I know what I've set out to do and tried like hell to fulfill that, to challenge the conventions of true crime and the way that we tell the story, and just to hear people think it's goodjust to think that people were watching and telling other people about it and it was a part of the conversation outside of the people in my immediate circle was just, I don't know, maybe it's silly, but it's something that is really gratifying. On March 3, 2010, Barbara Beach Hamburg was found murdered in the backyard of her Madison, Connecticut, home. But even if the. And one of them was, if we don't solve my mom's case, then the documentary becomes a tool for me to get my mom's story out there and provide some momentum. On the other hand, Dugas, the attorney for the Madison Police Department, argued the case was very much active. Have you found anything surprising in the new police files that you received last month? Throughout the mini-series, the main suspect seemed to be Barbara's ex-husband and Madison's father, Jeffrey Hamburg. Klau reviewed the case and found in August that the police department cannot use the mere theoretical possibility of a future law enforcement action to keep the investigative files secret but conceded there is little precedent for how investigators or the FOIC should determine what constitutes such a future action. But first here are the facts: According to the doc, Barbara Hamburg was a 48-year-old single mother who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in the front yard of her Madison, CT home on the morning of March 3, 2010. It was Beach who discovered Barbara's body on the morning of the murder, but claims she was cleaning out the basement of a 90-year-old neighbor at the time of the murder. The documentary follows the murder of a Connecticut woman, Barbara Hamburg. Barbara Alexandra Hamburg, who now goes by Ali, is the youngest member of the Hamburg family. A spokesperson for the Connecticut State Police Public Information Office said the State Police had not released any evidence regarding the murder of Barbara Hamburg. That was mandatory to me, I wanted everybody to see how they come across and have a conversation about it to prepare them for what it's gonna be like when we release this thing. Madison police have not yet filed a brief outlining the grounds of their appeal with the Appellate Court, and attempts to reach the department this past week were unsuccessful. From the jump, the suspect list was long. 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. When my mom died I really was kind of orphaned and Savannah became like a home, and I turned to faculty, people I worked with, people in the community as surrogate parents in a way, and so I kept in touch. While Madison police initially questioned Hamburg after Beach Hamburg's murder, he was never formally charged with a crime, despite being named as a suspect. It would not be in the interest of our own investigation to release it any further, said Drumm. One issue that was resolved in the documentary was the status of Ali Hamburg, Madison's sister and the daughter of Barbara, as a potential suspect in the case. But one thing that surprised meI remember the first message I got after the release of episode one. Back in 2010, in Madison, Connecticut, a quiet town on the shoreline, on the serene Middle Beach West, a crime occurred that shook the community to its core - Barbara Hamburg's murder. Madison police step up fight to withhold, Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Madison police step up fight to withhold Barbara Hamburg murder investigation files from HBOs Murder on Middle Beach filmmakers, Police track shooting suspect by following his footprints in snow in Bloomfield, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy defends giving Fox host Tucker Carlson Jan. 6 footage access, You cant trust sleep advice found on YouTube: study, Tom Sizemores family deciding end of life matters after actor suffers brain aneurysm, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Murder on Middle Beach didn't decisively eliminate any other suspects. But they're in a really good spot now. It was looked at routinely and remained a top priority of the department, he said. Judge Daniel Klau upheld the commissions decision that the files must be turned over in a ruling of his own last month, but last week the police department appealed that decision, too. We filmed a lot and the story just kept going and going, and my professor realized we weren't gonna finish this project. We got a lot of questions like, how does it end? 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. The dispute over the records goes back to 2019, when Anike Niemeyer, a filmmaker working with Madison Hamburg, requested all the departments investigatory records from the his mothers case. Barbara was found dead on the morning of March 3, 2010, in the yard of her rental house on Middle Beach Road in Madison, Conn. Police responded at 11:25 a.m. to a 911 call reporting an injured . Barbara's daughter was a teenager in 2010, and was with Beach when Barbara's body was discovered. The 48-year-old mother of two lived on Middle Beach Road in Madison, Connecticut. And sort of realizing that what I wanted as a character in the story and as a person is to know what happened to my mom, but I think what I need, and my sister said so beautifully as the beginning of the last episode, is peace. I didn't necessarily fit the mold, but SCAD agreed to a really unique deal with me where they funded 10 weeks of production and we shot all of our master interviews. If you say youre going to keep a file closed forever on the chance that something might develop, that means the public in most cases will never get to look at these files, Schulz said Friday. On March 3, 2010, Barbara Beach Hamburg was found dead in her Connecticut house. Moreover, allowing the public to access cold case files after an appropriate period of time is far more likely to improve the odds of an arrest and successful prosecution than it is to prejudice that outcome.. Who do you think did it? Madisons mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg, before her 2010 murder. Her body was discovered by Madison's aunt Conway and his sister, Ali; his father . By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider 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 cant. HBO. You can watch the trailer below. But the uncomfortable history between the two made Conway come under scrutiny for her murder. Im not trying to suggest anything was done improperly here, but theres no way to know without seeing what they did. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. If Barbara dropped Ali off at 7:47 am and the court hearing was at 9:30 am, perhaps the father had enough time to commit the murder. In a meeting of the towns Board of Police Commissioners on Thursday evening, Police Chief John Drumm said that if the courts ultimately ruled in favor of releasing the records, it could create a precedent that would affect police investigations across the state. It would compromise the case investigation. he said. 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. He also works to eliminate several of his family members as potential suspects in his mother's murder. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Harmon, however, said police did not say whether the new information led to new activity. 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. Its been twelve and a half years since my mother was killed, he said. Weeks of back-and-forth ensued as the show premiered on HBO. Beach denies this, too. Emilia Otte covers health and education for the Connecticut Examiner. The decision also said police failed to prove that, even if there was a prospective law enforcement action, disclosure of the requested records would be prejudicial to such action.. I started the project in a documentary film class. If I didn't ask these questions, the questions would go unasked, but I've tried my hardest to do this what I consider the right way. Director Madison Hamburg's relentless pursuit of the truth throughout his quest to find his mother's killer turned over a lot of stones, and even though the TV series has concluded, Madison's work continues off-camera. Because of the case's mysterious nature, the Internet is full of theories pondering who killed Barbara Hamburg. Elizabeth Benton, communications director for the Attorney Generals Office, said the office was not involved in the case. On March 3, 2010, Barbara was found brutally murdered in the yard of their Connecticut home. The medical examiner later ruled her death a homicide, noting that she died as a result of "multiple blunt and sharp force injury.". Police never made an arrest in the case, though Floyd Dugas, the attorney representing the department in the records dispute, told the court Wednesday the agency long has had a prime suspect. NOW WATCH: We break down 'Chernolbyl's' Emmy win, the new 'Rambo,' and what we know about 'Birds of Prey' so far, Visit Insider's homepage for more stories, ruled her death a homicide, noting that she died as a result of "multiple blunt and sharp force injury. Dec. 10, 2020 HBO The HBO true crime documentary series Murder on Middle Beach has reached its conclusion, without any grand reveal regarding who killed Barbara Hamburg. In the series, she denies killing Barbara while showing little to no remorse for her past crimes. 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. 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. In HBOs Murder on Middle Beach, we watch as a nervous Madison Hamburg tapes a hidden microphone to his shirt and zips up his jacket before heading out to meet his Dad for a beer. HBO's new docuseries "Murder on Middle Beach," directed by Madison Hamburg, focuses on the death of Hamburg's mother, Barbara. The theorists point out that Jeffrey had the most obvious motive while also having an alibi that was almost too perfect. In August 2020, the Freedom of Information Commission ruled that the Madison Police Department needed to release the requested records, including investigatory records, interrogation recordings, and crime scene recordings, including photos and videos, with the exception of signed witness statements. It was a huge learning process, balancing those two roles of family member and investigative documentarian. At the end of the day, it's not really important that Murder on Middle Beach didn't solve the murder of Barbara Hamburg because that isn't what the documentary set out to do. Killed them all, of course.". But as soon as I started asking questions I realized it was much bigger than that. You watched the last time I talked to my dad. Since 2016 there have been multiple cold case reviews and none of those reviews have turned up a new avenue of investigation, a new lead to follow or new steps to take, she said. Beach Hamburg and Hamburg married in 1989, but divorced in 2002. Charles Bright. He also said that he had new evidence on the case that he did not want to share. ------------------------------------------, details presented in "Murder on Middle Beach", killed by someone she had crossed through her participation in "The Gifting Tables,", "The Jinx," the shocking 2015 HBO docuseries, "true criminal justice" documentaries and docuseries. When she's not reporting, you can find her hiking Shoreline trails and eating her way through New Haven. Updated: 10:25 AM EDT October 19, 2022 MADISON, Conn. There are new developments in a Connecticut cold case that was the subject of the HBO documentary "Murder on Middle Beach." One of the. 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