Here are the facts: on March 3rd, 2010, Barbara Beach Hamburg was beaten to death in front of her modest house in Madison, Connecticut. Madisons mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg, before her 2010 murder. Many ancient pipes in CT aren't up to the task of draining storm water, yet officials just seem to shrug. What if theres concerns about corruption or incompetence and now its five years, now its 10 years a reporter wants to know or a family member wants to know. Yet the strangest thing was when Conway stated that Barbara, a week before she was slain, told her about a dream where she was violently murdered but refused to reveal who was behind it. To this day, the case that shocked a wealthy, idyllic seaside town has remained unsolved. I was a drug addict at the time, and really fell into my addiction and hit my rock bottom. What details, if any, does Conway remember about the person she planned to hire to kill Barbara? On the other hand, we have a very, very compelling I would argue a more compelling interest in finding a murderer, and not letting a murderer run loose, Dugas said. Retracing the path of controversial Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe includes many stops in Connecticut. In October 2020, they passed over 1,600 documents about the case which he is now poring over - and hopes it will give him a definitive answer about who killed his mother. Barbara Beach Hamburg, Madison's mother, was killed in 2010 in Madison, Connecticut. She frequently cried when talking about her sister, and more than once, displayed anger towards what happened. The story sort of chronicles and parallels my journey in making this. Moreover, allowing the public access to 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 it is to prejudice that outcome.. The department denied the request, citing a portion of the state Freedom of Information Act exempting certain law enforcement records from release if the disclosure of such records would not be in the public interest because it would result in the disclosure of information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action if prejudicial to such action.. Im hoping that this comes through sooner than later so that the town can hopefully work with these two other agencies and not foot a tremendous legal bill, he added. "Thank God that HBO saw the potential and the rest is history.". Dowling said the Board of Police Commissioners and the Board of Selectmen were working on setting up a joint meeting, and that the lawsuit would be a topic of discussion for the meeting. So I was at film school when my mom died, in this doc class, and I told my immediate group. as well as other partner offers and accept our. There are strong public policy reasons for denying the general public unfettered access to investigation files, while the police are actively investigating a crime and continuing to collect new evidence and pursue new leads, Klau wrote in his decision. On March 3, 2010, Barbara Beach Hamburg was found dead in her Connecticut house. But it's been tough watching this go week to week and having breaks in between where people on the internet can react to my family. The television series, Murder on Middle Beach, documents the story of Madison Hamburgs search for the story behind his mothers murder. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Madison Hamburg and producer Anike Niemeyer had requested the files while filming the series and were summarily denied by the department. 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. It was a. Drumm, however, told CT Examiner that his reasoning for appealing the decision was two-fold: the potential of damaging what he said were ongoing efforts by the department to solve the case, and the need to protect the interests of the family. Who do you think did it? 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. Once this financially-strapped individual realized she couldn't get her money back, the individual or perhaps the individual's angered husband, as Beach claims to have seen a masked man prowling through Barbara's yard the day before the murder opted to take out their frustrations on Barbara in a violent manner. 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. [1] Contents 1 Production 2 Episodes 3 Reception 4 References Production [ edit] The documentary series began as a student film while Hamburg was in college. I think the pendulum swung really hard in that direction when we started to really dig in in 2016 and I didn't really hold back with my family members, but once we partnered with HBO, that's when I started realizing that this could have adverse affects on my family. So Im not quite sure why theyre resistant, he said. She also suffered numerous stab wounds to her face, chest, and hands. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. In setting out to do this, I didn't have an expectation that we would solve my mom's case, but there are many goals I have had throughout this process and they sort of evolve. Dugas acknowledged the court was dealing with competing interests, one of which was the publics right to know. How Did Barbara Hamburg Die? She's just such an amazing, beautiful human being and I think that really comes through. We have to maintain the integrity for them, he said. There have been corroborating leads, correcting things, things that we didn't know about. ------------------------------------------, 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. 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. Those screenings were the most difficult family screenings. How did you balance your craft and the desire to tell a captivating story from a film perspective with the personal elementworking with your own family members and telling your own painful story? The Connecticut Supreme Court will decide whether the Madison Police Department must release records compiled in its investigation of the 12-year-old unsolved murder of Barbara Hamburg. HBO. Having access to these files and what the police are doing is one of the key ways we have to hold police accountable, which is a huge issue today. I got my crew together, but before at that point I was very much a family member asking these questions with a camera in the room. The latest true crime series Murder on Middle Beach just hit HBO. On March 3, 2010, Barbara Beach Hamburg was found murdered in the backyard of her Madison, Connecticut, home. HBOs four-part documentary series is the compilation of eight years of work for Madison, who was 19 when his mother was found bludgeoned to death outside their Connecticut home in 2010. The day Barbara was found killed, she and Jeffrey were actually due in court to discuss Jeffrey's claim that he could not afford his child support and alimony payments. 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. 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. We also have to honor the victims and their families. Due to Conway's addiction, she lost custody of her son to Barbara, after which Conway attempted to hire a hitman to kill Barbara because she "snapped. "In setting out to do this, I didn't have an expectation that we would solve my mom's case, but there are many goals I have had throughout this process and they sort of evolve," Hamburg also told Esquire. It's something that I've been dealing with throughout this process since partnering with HBO last year, but the idea that this was going to be in the public eye and that these vulnerabilities that my family has trusted me with were going to be exposed didn't enter the equation until the stage was realized. So when she eventually got evicted, she moved to Florida, where she spent her days sleeping on park benches and just awaiting her death. She welcomes feedback and story ideas from readers. It's terrifying, and I think that something that was really important for me was naming and identifying the adverse effects of doing something like this in the documentary itself, because I just think that's one of the unique aspects of the point of view. The theorists point out that Jeffrey had the most obvious motive while also having an alibi that was almost too perfect. According to her own accounts, after Ali chose to live with her father, Jeffrey Hamburg, he became "super controlling" and implanted "a lot of fear" in her. 5 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. 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. On March 3, 2010, Barbara was found brutally murdered in the yard of their Connecticut home. We have the tip line, BarbaraHamburgTips.com, and I've requested a reward with the state, and the amount of tips, the amount of messages that we've received, and you never know what small detail is going to make a difference in an investigation, that's been really surprising. Meghan Friedmann is a reporter with the New Haven Register, covering North Branford, Guilford and Madison. He never forcefully denies killing Barbara in the series. So he made a deal with us that he would give us an A if I never stopped working on it. What were the reactions of Ali and Conway like? It was a huge learning process, balancing those two roles of family member and investigative documentarian. Through interviews with family members and friends of his mother, Madison is able to come to a better understanding of who his mother was as a person. The last time I talked to my dad was on camera. She was a woman who was known to be head-strong. 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. Directed by Barbara's son, Madison Hamburg, the docuseries is a chronicle of Madison's return to his home as he is determined to understand . What it did do, though, was bring light to the case and start a conversation around it. The following contains spoilers from the ending of HBO's "Murder of Middle Beach.". So we took the 160 hours and made a sample that turned out to be like 14 minutes. Platt also cut off her relationship with Barbara, and drew hard lines on what areas were Barbara's Gifting Tables "territory" for recruitment and which were Platt's. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. The resulting documentary series was picked up by HBO, and the four-part Murder on Middle Beach premiered late last year. 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 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? 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. 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. If a department cannot show there is a prospective law enforcement action and that disclosure of the records would be prejudicial to such an action, then the publics right to access the records wins out, Harmon said, arguing the Madison Police Department failed to meet its burden of proof in this case. It doesn't have a tidy ending, but grief rarely does. It would not be in the interest of our own investigation to release it any further, said Drumm. 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. It's funny cause I feel like those are some of the more authentic moments in the documentary, from the earlier footage. It is difficult to understand how denying public access to criminal files in perpetuity serves the public interest in solving crimes and bringing perpetrators to justice, wrote Judge Daniel Klau in his decision. This issue warrants appellate scrutiny.. Like I really didn't want to create caricatures of my family members. Have you found anything surprising in the new police files that you received last month? 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. Both Ali's father, Jeffrey, and Beach accuse Ali of hating her mother in the documentary, which Ali denies. In the series, Madison does some digging and is able to obtain school records that show Barbara did indeed drop Ali off at school on the morning of her death, confirming Ali's alibi and eliminating her as a suspect. The Madison Police Department is appealing a court ruling upholing an order by the state's Freedom of Information Commission that the department release all records except signed witness statements related to the unsolved murder of Barbara Beach Hamburg. In one example, Justice Steven Ecker asked Dugas about the competing interest of uncovering police corruption or incompetence. Do you know if your dad has watched or is watching? Alex Murdaugh Faces Life In Prison For Allegedly Killing His Wife & Son, Heres What Happened To Riley In 'The Last Of Us' Video Game, Twitter Is Losing It Over Succession Ending With Season 4, Everything To Know About 'And Just Like That' Season 2, Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter. She blacks out and wakes up the next morning upstairs on a bed, naked and cashless. 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? But just because the finale has aired, that doesn't mean the story is over. When Barbara Hamburg was brutally bludgeoned to death outside her home on Middle Beach Road in Madison, Connecticut in 2010, her sister Conway Beach publicly mourned her loss. An anonymous witness also revealed that she was scared of Conway as she had allegedly threatened her by leaving dead animals on her doorstep, implying that she had the guts and the motive to commit a murder. But even if the. From the jump, the suspect list was long. The horrific 2010 murder of 48-year-old single mom Barbara Hamburg in front of her Madison, Connecticut, home remains unsolved, but there have been plenty of theories as to who could have. 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. Beach Hamburg and Hamburg married in 1989, but divorced in 2002. June 3, 2021 8:00AM. ', 6,000 checks go out to Yale workers in class-action settlement involving wellness program, Police: Stolen car found riddled with bullets after gunfire in New Haven near Yale, West Haven mayor under fire after city is left without a finance director at start of budget season, Convicted DiMassa codefendant requests acquittal, new trial in West Haven fraud scheme case, The Best Private High Schools near New Haven, Guide to Legal Cannabis Dispensaries in CT, The Best Private Preschools Near New Haven. DNA found at the scene of the crime also did not match his own. Hamburg, for his part, said Beach Hamburg was behind on mortgage payments for their property . In a statement ahead of the hearing, Hamburgs son, Madison Hamburg, who helped make an HBO documentary series about his mothers death called "Murder on Middle Beach," called for the records release. Last time I talked to my dad was on camera really did n't about. 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