Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / ‘My Brother’s Killer’ Is a True Crime Doc with Deep Wisconsin Roots

Transcript

‘My Brother’s Killer’ Is a True Crime Doc with Deep Wisconsin Roots · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, usually when we talk about murder investigation, there's, well,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: there's this underlying expectation of precision, right?
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Like, it is an equation to be solved.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: It is treated almost like engineering. You find the scene,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the physical evidence points in a clear, undeniable direction, and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the detective basically just connects the dots and says, well,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: case closed. Right.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: It's a very binary, solved or unsolved, clean lines, clear motives, and...
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You know, a satisfying narrative arc that wraps up in
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: 45 minutes before the commercial break. We like things to
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: be visible and easily categorized because it just makes the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: world feel safe.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: It really does. But step into the cold cases involving
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: marginalized communities and that precision machinery just completely shatters.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, it falls apart instantly.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It does. And we're looking at an investigative landscape today
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that defies literally every convention of a standard procedural.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're entering the absolute definition of investigative muddy waters.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're dealing with missing files, witnesses who were
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: completely terrified to speak, and frankly, institutions that often didn't
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: even care enough to ask the right questions in the
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: first place. Right.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: And that is the exact territory we are navigating today
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: in this deep dive. So we're looking at a story
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that recently surfaced in an April 2026 feature for Milwaukee
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: magazine by Tad Kriofske-Menela.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: A fantastic piece of journalism, by the way.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Truly. And it focuses on a documentary called My Brothers
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is Killer. And I just want to say right up front,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to this expecting a standard sensationalized true
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: crime recap, you know, obsessing over the macabre bloody details
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of a crime scene.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the usual stuff. Right.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Well, you might want to adjust your expectations because we
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: are taking a much deeper journey into history, into community
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: networks and into a marginalized group's absolute fight for basic visibility.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Which, honestly, when you look at the landscape of true
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: crime media today is the much more vital story to tell.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: We are drowning in the how of murder, you know,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the logistics, the weapon, the timeline.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: But this investigation forces us to stare directly at the why.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And let's look at the sheer improbability of how
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: this specific story unfolded. I mean, we're talking about an
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: unsolved murder spanning nearly 40 years.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Four decades. It's staggering.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It really is. It stretches geographically from the snowy rural
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: roads of Wisconsin all the way to the grim realities
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: of a dumpster in Los Angeles. And it was blown
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: wide open. And this is the wild part. Not by
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: some multimillion dollar DNA genealogy database.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Right. No high tech magic here.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And not by a sweeping federal task force with
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: infinite resources either. It was cracked by a local magazine
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: article and the serendipitous intervention of a man who just
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: happened to share the victim's exact background. I mean, it
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: sounds entirely like a Hollywood script.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It really does. But I'd argue it is actually far
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: more complex than fiction. Because it requires us to understand
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: why this specific community was so incredibly vulnerable to predators
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: in the first place. Yeah. And why it took four
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: decades to properly investigate a brutal death. And really why independent,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: community-driven storytelling is fundamentally shifting how we seek justice.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So let's start with the human being at the center
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of this, right? Because we need to look at a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: young man named Billy Newton. Billy was a native of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Which back then was a very different world.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Just think about the cultural landscape of a smaller
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Midwestern city in the 1980s. For a young LGBTQ plus
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: person of his generation, the environment wasn't just like unwelcoming.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: It was actively hostile.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Openly hostile, yes.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: As a young gay man, Billy faced immense crushing rejection.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: He was shunned by his broader community. And this is
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the most devastating part. He was shunned by his own father.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that level of isolation for a young developing person
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: is just staggering because when you are ostracized by your
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: primary caregivers, your baseline for safety is entirely eradicated. Right.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You have no net.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You aren't just dealing with social awkwardness at school.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: You are dealing with a fundamental lack of shelter, both
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: emotional and physical.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And seeking acceptance or maybe just purely seeking an escape
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: from that suffocating rejection. Billy left. He hitchhiked his way
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: through the American heartland.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Which is terrifying in itself. Right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Just picture that vulnerability for a moment. A young, rejected
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: kid standing on the side of a highway, eventually landing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: in the sprawling, overwhelming chaos of Los Angeles. And to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: make a living, to just survive and eat in that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: hyper-competitive environment, he began working in gay pornography.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: And we really have to pause here and look at
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the sociological mechanisms at play, because this was a defined
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: structural pipeline in that era.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: A pipeline, right. Explain that a bit more.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Well, the journey from a place like Eau Claire to
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles is not merely a geographical shift. When a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: marginalized youth is severed from their primary support systems, their
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: vulnerability to exploitation just skyrocket.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Right, because they don't have anything to fall back on.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They aren't arriving in California with a trust fund
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: or a co-signer for an apartment or some corporate job offer.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: They're arriving with deep emotional trauma, a few dollars in
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: their pocket. and an immediate desperate need for a place
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: to sleep.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: But I do want to push back on something here, though,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: because I can hear some people listening to this and wondering, well,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: why pornography?
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's a common question.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Like, couldn't a young guy in the 80s or 90s
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: just get a job waiting tables or working retail to survive?
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Why does that pipeline lead so directly into those specific
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: survival economies?
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: It's a crucial question. It really is. But you have
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: been entirely disconnected from the grid.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: To get that retail job, you need a permanent address.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: You need clean clothes. You need identification, a phone number, references,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and a bank account. Oh, wow.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Right. And if you're a runaway or a throwaway youth,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: you have literally none of those things. The formal economy
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: locks you out instantly. So you turn to the informal economy.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: That makes total sense.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the source material notes he made a living
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in gay pornography. In the late 80s and early 90s,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: this was a cash business that didn't ask for a resume.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And while sex work itself is a profession, the specific
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: historical context in which these young displaced men were entering
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: it was fraught with unimaginable danger.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Because they were already marginalized.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They were operating in the deep shadows of a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: society that already viewed them as expendable outcasts.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Which tragically makes them the perfect prey. Completely.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: This systemic marginalization creates an absolute paradise for violent predators.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: A serial killer or a violent offender doesn't just look
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: for an easy physical target. They look for a social void.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: A social void.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: They look for targets whose absence will not ring any
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: alarm bells. They want someone whose family isn't going to
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: call the police and someone whom law enforcement will likely
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: just ignore, even if they are somehow reported missing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Because society had already signaled very loudly that it did
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: not care about these young men. Exactly. Like when a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: father shuns a son, when a hometown turns its back
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and essentially says, you are no longer one of us.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: It sends a ripple effect into the wider world. It
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: signals a complete lack of protection.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It's an open invitation to predators.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's almost like Billy was pushed off
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the edge of his own map by the very people
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: who were supposed to be his anchor.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: That's a powerful way to put it. The societal failure
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: is literally the preamble to the crime. We cannot detach
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the violence of his murder from the violence of the
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: shunning that set him on that path in the first place.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Right. And that leads us to the grim timeline. On
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: October 29th, 1990, and this is just days before Billy's
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: sister was due to fly out from Wisconsin to visit him,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: by the way.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's just heartbreaking.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It really is. You can imagine the sister arriving and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: that anticipation just instantly turning to panic. 25-year-old Billy Newton disappeared.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: His remains were later discovered in a dumpster in the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles area.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Just discarded.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, discarded. And from that brutal moment on, his murder
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: remained unsolved for nearly 40 years.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: 40 years of absolute silence, files moved to a basement,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: a life completely reduced to a cold case number.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And I have to ask you, based on how we
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: consume media today, are we completely conditioned by the true
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: crime industrial complex to focus purely on the gruesome end
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: of a victim's life?
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Without a doubt.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Like the dumpster, the crime scene tape, the autopsy, rather
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: than examining the societal failures that forced them into those
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: vulnerable situations in the first place. It feels like we
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: are obsessed with the bullet and completely ignore the person
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: who was actually shot.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: We absolutely are. Because traditional true crime is largely voyeuristic, right?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: It provides the thrill of danger without the burden of
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: societal responsibility.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Looking at a crime scene is easy. Looking at how
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: a community's homophobia contributed to a young man's death. That
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: is incredibly uncomfortable because it implicates the normal, everyday people
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: who created that hostile environment.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: It points a finger back at us.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Well, realistically, Billy's story could have easily just faded away
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: into that discomfort. He could have been permanently archived as
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a tragic statistic in a filing cabinet from 1990. But
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the narrative takes a sharp, almost logic-defying pivot decades later.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: And thank God it did.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Right. And it is all thanks to a man who
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: walked almost the exact same path.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. We are talking about Clark Williams.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Right. Clark Williams. Now, Clark is also an Eau Claire native.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: He grew up in the exact same era as Billy Newton. But...
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Clark didn't just passively read about this cold case. He
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: stepped directly into the center of a modern investigation and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the documentary, My Brother's Killer.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And the catalyst for this is just fascinating.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: It is. Clark read a 2021 Milwaukee Magazine story written
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: by a journalist named Archer Parkett about Billy's cold case.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: One single piece of local journalism.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Just one article. And reading that compelled Clark to act.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: He reached out to the director of the documentary, Rachel Mason,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: and he essentially said, look, I know this world. I
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: can tell you about life in Eau Claire for a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: young gay man in that era.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: He offered them the context they were missing.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. He offered his lived experiences. And because of that
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: initial connection, the documentary was able to uncover what the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee Magazine feature calls mind-blowing connections between Billy's early life
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: in Wisconsin and and his ultimate murder in Los Angeles.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: The connections are wild.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the film features intimate interviews with family, friends, and amazingly,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: people who are still considered active suspects at the time
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of filming.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Which is crazy because getting that level of access to
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: suspects in a 40-year-old case is virtually unheard of in
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: traditional policing.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's mind-boggling. The article actually uses the word kismet to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: describe this coming together of forces. And to me, it's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: almost like trying to crack a rusted combination lock.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: That's a good analogy.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Like, you could pull on the padlock for years, but
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the tumblers are just frozen solid. It takes decades of
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: weathering for the rust to finally flake off so things
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: can click into place.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: But I'm struggling with this concept, honestly. Let's look at
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: this purely from an investigative standpoint for a second.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: We are taught that the first 48 hours of a
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: murder are the most critical, right? Memories fade. Physical evidence
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: rots or gets lost. Witnesses die.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: That is the standard doctrine, yes.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: So how on earth does waiting 40 years and then
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: publishing a local magazine article in 2021 actually crack open
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the psychological and investigative doors of a murder from 1990?
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: That sounds completely counterintuitive to everything we know about police work.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: It does sound counterintuitive, I'll give you that. But it
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: raises a really profound point about the nature of time
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: in investigative work, especially within marginalized communities.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: You're right that in a standard case, time is the enemy.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: But what this case demonstrates is that temporal distance can
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: actually be a massive asset when a crime is wrapped
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: in intense social stigma or fear.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Wait, unpack that for me. How does time become an
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: asset that feels so backwards?
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Well, think about the immediate aftermath of Billy's murder in 1990.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Put yourself in the shoes of a potential witness. You
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: might be a closeted gay man living in Los Angeles
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: or Wisconsin. Right. If you go to the police with information,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: you are immediately outing yourself. to an institution that is
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: historically hostile to you. In 1990, being outed in a
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: police report could literally mean losing your job.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It could mean your family disowning you, much like Billy's
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: father did. It could mean losing your housing. The stakes
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: of speaking up were catastrophic.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: So you stay absolutely silent purely out of self-preservation.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly that. You compartmentalize the trauma and you just survive.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: But fast forward 30 or 40 years to 2021. Okay.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Things are different now.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Very different. The immediate threat of physical harm from the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: killer may have vanished. But more importantly, the social landscape
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: regarding LGBTQ plus rights has shifted seismically.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see what you mean. Right.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: So a witness who was a terrified 25 year old
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: in 1990 is now a 60 year old man. The
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: fear of being outed doesn't carry the same catastrophic professional
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: or social weight anymore.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: They might be out. They might be married.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They might be retired. They might be married to
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: a man. They are finally in a safe enough position
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: to tell the truth. That temporal distance is what allows
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: the rust to flake off your metaphorical combination lock.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: That makes so much sense. But even if the witnesses
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: are finally ready, they still need a reason to speak up. Yes.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: And that is the immense localized power of independent journalism.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: A national television broadcast is too broad. It lacks intimacy.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: It's too polished, maybe. Right.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: But a deeply researched, localized piece of writing like Archer
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Parkett's 2021 article acts as a flare shot directly up
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: into the night sky of a very specific community. It
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: signals to people like Clark Williams that someone is finally
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: looking and that it is safe to come forward.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Because Clark possesses the exact missing cultural and geographical context
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that a traditional homicide detective in Los Angeles simply lacked.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, an LAPD detective in 1990 is not going
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to understand the social nuances of growing up gay in
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They wouldn't know the local haunts, the
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: whisper networks, or the specific brands of ostracization these kids faced.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: No, they wouldn't even know what questions to ask, let
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: alone who to ask them of. So Clark stepped in
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and acts as a cultural Rosetta Stone for this investigation.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Rosetta Stone. I like that.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: He really is. He isn't just a geographical match to Billy.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: He is a temporal match. He lived the era. He
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: survived the specific pressures of that exact moment in time.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the broader context of that era.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Because to really understand Clark's immense value to this investigation
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and to truly grasp the weight of the documentary My
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Brother's Killer, we have to look closely at the incredibly
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: perilous landscape that both of these men were navigating. Yeah.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: You cannot understand the crime without understanding the atmosphere in
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: which it occurred.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And the Milwaukee Magazine article dives into Clark's reflections
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: on coming of age in Milwaukee during the 90s. He
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: talks about living there with his partner, Robert. And Clark
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: emphasizes something really profound. The universality of lived experience for
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: gay and bisexual men of his and Billy's generation.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: It was incredibly consistent across the country.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Right, like it didn't matter if you were in Wisconsin
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: or California. The baseline of danger was identical.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It was a shared reality built on sheer survival.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And the source material explicitly highlights that this era was
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: marked by severe, rampant anti-gay violence. And crucially, this was
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: violence that was often entirely ignored and uninvestigated by law enforcement.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Completely swept under the rug.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Add to that the devastating apocalyptic toll of the AIDS
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: epidemic sweeping through the community at the exact same time.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: The documentary's director, Rachel Mason, states that Clark's era's generation
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: went through a type of hell that is rarely grasped
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: by people today.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: It is a history that has been heavily sanitized, honestly.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: We look back at the 80s and 90s through a
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: lens of pop culture and neon, but for this specific demographic,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: it was an absolute battleground.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: When I try to visualize this, it's as if an
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: entire demographic of people was living in a parallel, incredibly
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: dangerous dimension, all while walking the exact same physical streets
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: as everyone else.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to visualize it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Imagine walking down a sidewalk where you're constantly scanning for
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: physical threats, knowing that if you are attacked, The people
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: meant to protect you will likely do nothing. But the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: straight couple walking 10 feet ahead of you feels completely safe.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: It's a dual reality.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: But this brings up a massive structural issue regarding justice.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: How do you actually solve a murder when the institutions
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that are supposed to protect the public like local law
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: enforcement were apathetic or in many cases openly hostile? and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: mocking toward the victim.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: What you're describing right there is the core mechanism of
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: institutional betrayal.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Institutional betrayal.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it's a compounding psychological trauma. The primary trauma
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is the actual violence, the physical attack, the murder of Billy,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: the epidemic of violence in the streets. But the secondary trauma,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: which is sometimes even more insidious and long lasting, is
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the institutional response to that violence.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: So to ground this in human terms, it means The
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: cops you pay taxes to, the ones who swear an
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: oath to serve and protect, are literally leaving you to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the wolves.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Well, worse than leaving you to the wolves, they are
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes opening the gate for them.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When police routinely refuse to investigate anti-gay violence or
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: when they mock the victims in their reports, they aren't
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: just failing at their bureaucratic jobs. They are broadcasting a
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: profound society-wide message that certain lives are completely disposable.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's an endorsement of the violence. Exactly.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They are signaling to predators that you can commit
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: violence against these specific individuals with absolute impunity. It essentially
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: creates a state-sanctioned hunting ground.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: The psychological toll of that on a community has to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: be immeasurable. It completely alters the atmospheric pressure of your
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: daily life. You can never let your guard down. Never.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: It forces the marginalized community to turn entirely inward for protection.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: You build a wall around yourselves because you know no
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: one else is going to defend you. And that creates
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a deep, incredibly justified distrust of all authorities. Right.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: So when a tragic murder like Billy's happens, the very
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: people in the community who might have crucial information are
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: too terrified of the police to come forward. Why would
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: you give information to an officer who might use it
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: to ruin your life?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Right. It's a vicious cycle that essentially guarantees these cases
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: will go cold.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And that grim reality is what makes Clark's involvement in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: this documentary so incredibly poignant. The article highlights a really
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: powerful contrast presented by the director. She points out that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Clark represents what she calls the actualized life.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: That's a beautiful term.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: It really is. Clark survived that era. He navigated the hellscape.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: He married his partner, Robert. He had a daughter. He
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: got to live the full, complex, beautiful life that Billy
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Newton was brutally denied.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And there is a heavy survivor's responsibility inherent in that.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: And that contrast is exactly why My Brother's Killer is
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: functioning as much more than just a murder mystery. It
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: transcends the true crime genre entirely. It becomes an act
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: of historical reclamation. For Clark, stepping into this investigation isn't
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: just about finding the person who killed Billy. It's about
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: honoring a completely lost generation. As Clark notes in the
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: source material, Billy's story reflects the unlived potential of thousands
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: of young people who didn't survive that era, whether they
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: were taken by violence or the AIDS epidemic.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: They didn't get to tell their story, so Clark is
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: making sure Billy's is heard. He's giving a voice to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a cohort of peers who were silenced. It is such
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a profound act of community solidarity across decades. of time.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: It is. And, you know, when you are dealing with
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: a story that carries that much historical, communal and personal weight,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the methodology of how you tell it becomes incredibly important.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Which is a perfect pivot to how this film was
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: actually made and distributed, because Telling a story like this
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: requires a very specific type of care. It can't just
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: be churned out for cheap entertainment.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: The source material outlines director Rachel Mason's absolute uncompromising adherence
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: to independence. She flat out rejected what she called corporate overlords.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: The true crime industrial complex, essentially.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Right. Streaming networks, massive production companies.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I want to look at the mechanics of why she
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: said no to them. Because if you land a massive
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: deal with a major streaming platform, They generally mandate exclusive
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: coastal premieres, right? Oh, always. They demand the film debut
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: in New York or Los Angeles in glossy theaters to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: maximize industry buzz, get the reviews out, and drive subscription numbers.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: But Mason refused. Instead, she prioritized Midwest screenings. She specifically
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: chose to premiere the film at the Milwaukee Film Festival.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge statement.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It is. She stated it was structurally vital to allow
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Billy's sisters to attend. to allow Clark to experience it
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: surrounded by his community, and to validate the local Midwestern
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: community where this entire tragic story originated.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It makes total sense when you frame it like that.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: But I want to play devil's advocate for a second here.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Sure, go ahead.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: If the goal is to get Billy's story out to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the world, wouldn't a massive corporate release with a huge
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: marketing budget accomplish that better? Like, why is it so
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: structurally crucial for the family's healing and for the integrity
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of the story itself That this premiere happens in a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: theater in Milwaukee rather than on a global streaming homepage
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: right out of the gate.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: It comes down to the ethics of true crime consumption.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, talk to me about that.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Well, when a massive corporate entity takes a deeply personal,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: hyper-localized tragedy and premieres it in Los Angeles or New York,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: geographically and emotionally detached from the epicenter of the grief,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: it almost inevitably turns the trauma into a spectacle.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: A spectacle, right.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: It commodifies the pain. The story is packaged for mass
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: consumption by strangers who have no skin in the game.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: The victim's life just becomes content to binge on a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It is an extractive process. They take the tragedy
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: out of the community, polish it, and sell it back
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to the world.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It feels so gross when you say it like that.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: It is gross. But by insisting on a Milwaukee premiere,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Rachel Mason is engaging in a process of community healing.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: She is actively returning the narrative back to the people
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: who actually own it. Allowing Bilioro sisters, Clark, and the
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: local LGBTQ plus community to witness the story together in
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: a shared physical space of mourning and validation is an
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: act of profound respect. Wow. Yeah. It tells the community, look,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: this happened to your people in your home, and you
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: deserve the right to process it first on your own terms.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It prevents the story from being exploited. And that ethic
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of deep respect extends directly into the artistic choices made
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: in the editing room, too.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: The Milwaukee Magazine piece highlights the film's editor, Dion, who
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: painstakingly pieced the narrative together. And they made a remarkable,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: really unconventional choice. They included Billy's own poetry as a
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: guiding force in the film.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: That is a stunning directorial choice, and it radically alters
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the traditional true crime framework.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It really does. Think about the corporate true crime docs
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you usually watch. They can feel like a factory assembly
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: line of trauma. They pump out the gore, show the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: dramatic crime scene photos, get the clicks, and move on
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to the next victim. The victim's narrative usually starts and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: ends with a crime scene. But this independent approach feels
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: completely different. By centering Billy's own words, his own artistic expression,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: what does that practically do to the viewer's experience of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the story?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: It forces the viewer to confront the victim's humanity. In
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: so many true crime narratives, the victim is reduced to
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: an object, you know, a body in a dumpster, a
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: chalk outline on the pavement. They are defined entirely by
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the absolute worst thing that ever happened to them, which
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: is their brutal end.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Which is so unfair.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Completely unfair. But by centering Billy's poetry, the filmmakers refuse
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: to let him be defined merely by his victimhood. They
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: are reviving his inner life.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: They are letting him speak for himself.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They are allowing him to be the narrator of
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: his own emotional journey. He remains an active participant in
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: his own story. The audience hears his hopes, his fears.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: his unique perspective on the world.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: That's incredible.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the source material even notes that the director
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: felt Billy's... As he was putting the disparate pieces of
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: footage together.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: It shows they were actually listening to the victim, not
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: just studying the mechanics of the crime. It restores his humanity, which,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, is the ultimate counter-narrative to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a killer who tried to erase him and a society
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that tried to pretend he didn't exist in the first place.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It is a radical act of empathy.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, that gives me chills. And what is truly amazing
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: about this deep dive is that this idea of centering
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the victim isn't just an artistic, poetic choice for a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: documentary film.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: No, it goes much further than that.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It does. As we move into the final aspects of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: this investigation, we see that it is actually the foundation
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of a highly rigorous, real-world investigative methodology that that Clark
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: is now championing.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: It moves seamlessly from artistic expression back into absolute, gritty,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: real-world application.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: It really does. The source explains that Clark's overarching goal
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: in all of his work is promoting what he specifically
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: calls a victim-centered investigation.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: A victim-centered investigation. Right.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: He points out that back in the 1980s and 90s,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the gay community was practically begging local police to utilize
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: their insider knowledge. The community knew where to look. They
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: knew the whisper networks. They knew the right questions to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: ask and who the dangerous individuals were.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: That had all the intel.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Yes. And Clark's hope is that modern law enforcement will
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: finally swallow their pride and start leveraging this immense wealth
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: of lived experience to crack these remaining cold cases.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: He is advocating for the utilization of hyperlocal community intelligence.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: And Clark is so dedicated to this methodology that he
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: has already moved on to his next mission. The article
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: mentions that while he waits to see My Brother's Killer,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Completely pure on the big screen at the Milwaukee Film Festival.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And side note, he actually refused to watch early screeners
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: so he could experience the raw emotion with his community.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Which I think is a beautiful detail.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Right. But while he's waiting for that, he is simultaneously
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: actively investigating another local cold case. He is looking into
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the 1983 homicide of a man named Eric Hansen.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Another tragedy buried by time and apathy. Yes. Yes.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: And the way Clark is going about this investigation is fascinating.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: He isn't just putting up generic, have you seen this man,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: flyers around town.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Right, that wouldn't work. No.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: He is publicly seeking information from anyone who frequented very
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: specific 1980s gay bars in the Walkers Point and Third
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Ward neighborhoods of Milwaukee. The article specifically names these locations.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: See Rest La Vie, Ball Game, The Phoenix, Rec Room,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and Paradise Books and Video. He is putting a call out.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: asking anyone who was embedded in that specific scene to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: reach out to him directly.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: That level of specificity is a masterclass in how to
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: conduct a community-based investigation.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It feels completely different from a standard police tip line,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Traditional police work often feels like it just studies the
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: physical bullet and the trajectory. But a victim-centered investigation, the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: way Clark does it, studies the entire atmospheric pressure, the temperature,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and the mood of the room long before the gun
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: was even drawn.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: That's a really sharp way to look at it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: But this brings up a deeply frustrating reality for me.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: If community members like Clark have always known the right
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: questions to ask, the right bars to check, and the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: right people to lean on, why has law enforcement historically
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: been so incredibly resistant to accepting this highly specialized, highly
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: accurate help? Why would a detective turn away a free
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: road map?
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: To understand that resistance, you really have to look at
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: the deep historic friction between marginalized communities and institutional power structures.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Police departments operate on strict hierarchies, rigid chains of command,
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and standardized methodologies. Historically, there has been an immense ego-driven
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: reluctance to admit that a decorated homicide detective with a
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: gold shield might know significantly less about how a neighborhood
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: operates than a civilian who lives there.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Wow. So it's a massive institutional ego trip.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It's ego, heavily compounded by systemic bias and homophobia. Right.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: If the prevailing institutional culture of a police precinct in
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the 1980s viewed the LGBTQ plus community with suspicion, mockery
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: or outright disdain, they certainly were not going to view
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: those same people as credible, reliable, investigative partners.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: They just wouldn't trust them.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They dismissed the very people who held the keys
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: to solving the cases. They would literally rather a case
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: go cold Then admit they needed help from a community
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: they disrespected.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Which is exactly why these files sat in basements gathering
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: dust for decades. And that context is why Clark's methodology
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: for the Eric Hansen case is so incredibly brilliant. Look
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: at what he is doing by publicly naming those specific bars. Sylvie,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Rec Room, The Phoenix. He isn't just listing geographical locations
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: or addresses on a map. He is invoking deep, emotional,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: cultural landmarks.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: For the gay community in Milwaukee in the 1980s, these
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: bars weren't just places to get a cheap drink on
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: a Friday night.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: They were absolute sanctuaries. They were communication hubs. They were
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the only places you could truly let your guard down.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: They were the only safe havens in a city that
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: was otherwise hostile to them.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Yes. So by naming those specific spaces in his public plea,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Clark is instantly triggering community memory. He is bypassing traditional,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: intimidating police barriers and speaking directly to the survivors of
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that era in a cultural language they intimately understand.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: That's so smart. It is.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: When he says rec room, he's signaling, look, I am
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: one of you. I understand the context of our lives
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: back then. I know what it smelled like, what it
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: sounded like, and what we were all afraid of. It
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: completely disarms the fear that usually prevents marginalized people from
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: coming forward to the authorities.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Because they aren't calling an intimidating police precinct where they
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: might be mocked or ignored. They are emailing Clark Williams,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a peer who understands their history.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: He is acting as a trusted intermediary, a bridge between
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the cold evidence... and the warm beating heart of community memory.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: It proves that the community always held the collective puzzle pieces.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: They just desperately needed someone they actually trusted to ask
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: them to put the puzzle together.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: That is such a powerful fundamental shift in how justice
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: can be pursued. We have covered a massive amount of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: ground today on this deep dive.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: We really have.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: We started by looking at the heartbreaking tragedy of Billy Newton,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a young man shunned by his Wisconsin home, who fled
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to the dangerous streets of Los Angeles survived through the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: underground gay pornography industry, and was brutally murdered in 1990.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: A tragedy born entirely of societal failure.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: We watched how that tragedy sat in agonizing silence for
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: nearly 40 years. And then we saw how the kismet
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: of a 2021 Milwaukee Magazine article by Archer Parkett caught
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the eye of Clark Williams, finally breaking that silence.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: We unpacked the profound, compounding generational trauma of the 80s
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and 90s the uninvestigated violence, the devastation of the AIDS epidemic,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: and the absolute failure of institutions to protect their citizens.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: And we saw how independent art guided by Rachel Mason
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and editor Dion utilized Biller's own poetry to restore his humanity,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: prioritizing community healing in Milwaukee over corporate profits and true
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: crime spectacle.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Ultimately leading us to Clark's current vital mission, building a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: victim-centered investigation model, applying the painful lessons of the past
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to cold cases and like the 1983 murder of Eric Hansen,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: using the memories of sacral places like the rec room
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and paradise books to finally unearth the truth.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: What is most vital to remember here is that knowledge
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: is only truly valuable when it is actively applied. Billy's story,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: as devastating as it is, is no longer just a
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: tragic piece of history. Thanks to this documentary and Clark's
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: ongoing relentless work, it is a functional blueprint. It shows
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: exactly how marginalized communities can bypass broken, apathetic institutions, reclaim
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: their own narratives, and demand accountability on their own terms.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: It is entirely about taking the power back. And as
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: our listener, with a final thought to mull over. We
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: talked at the very beginning about how the precision machinery
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of justice was broken, how the investigative waters were deeply
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: murky for marginalized people. But think about the sheer power
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of what we just learned today.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It's immense.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It is. If one local magazine article from 2021 and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: one dedicated community member with a shared history could cut
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: through 40 years of rust and institutional apathy to rewrite
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the ending of Billy Newton's story. How many of their
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: lost voices from the 1980s and 90s are out there
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: right now, hidden in dusty police archives, just waiting for
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: their own Clark to read a headline and finally speak
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: for them?