Of Dolls and Murder | |
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Directed by | Susan Marks |
Produced by | John Dehn |
Narrated by | John Waters |
Cinematography | Matt Ehling |
Edited by | John Dehn |
Music by | John Dehn |
Release date |
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Language | English |
Of Dolls and Murder is a documentary film about a collection of dollhouse crime scenes and society's collective fascination with death. It was released in April 2012. [1]
In the 1930s and 1940s, heiress Frances Glessner Lee created dollhouse crime scenes to help train detectives in the art of reading crime scenes.
The dollhouses, known as The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, are on permanent loan to the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore, and are not open to the public. [2]
The film follows how these intricate dioramas are still used to train homicide detectives, despite all the technological advances in death investigation. The dioramas also provided inspiration for The Miniature Killer, a recurring villain in season seven of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation . The villain's modus operandi is to leave behind accurate dioramas of her crime scenes. [3]
In a further exploration of morbid curiosity, the filmmakers also shadow a Baltimore homicide detective, and visit The Body Farm, a famous forensic anthropology site in Tennessee where researchers study the decay of bodies. [4]
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police drama television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from January 31, 1993, to May 21, 1999, and was succeeded by Homicide: The Movie (2000), which served as the series finale. The series was created by Paul Attanasio and based on David Simon's book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). Many of the characters and stories used throughout the show were based on events depicted in the book.
Frances Glessner Lee was an American forensic scientist. She was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 20 true crime scene dioramas recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale, used for training homicide investigators. Eighteen of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are still in use for teaching purposes by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the dioramas are also now considered works of art. Glessner Lee also helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard University, and endowed the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine there. She became the first female police captain in the United States, and is known as the "mother of forensic science".
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Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets is a 1991 book written by Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon describing a year spent with detectives from the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit. The book received the 1992 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.
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Lester Freamon is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Clarke Peters. Freamon is a detective in the Baltimore Police Department's Major Crimes Unit. He is a wise, methodical detective whose intelligence and experience are often central to investigations throughout the series, particularly with respect to uncovering networks of money laundering and corruption. He sometimes serves as an avuncular figure to several of the characters.
William "Bunk" Moreland is a fictional character in The Wire, played by Wendell Pierce. Bunk's character is based on a retired Baltimore detective named Oscar "The Bunk" Requer. He is portrayed as a generally competent, if profane and curmudgeonly detective. Like his best friend Jimmy McNulty, he also has problems related to infidelity and alcohol abuse, although he is more mindful than McNulty of the department's chain of command.
Jay Landsman is a semi-fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire based upon the real life Baltimore City police officer Jay Landsman. The fictional character of Jay Landsman is portrayed by actor Delaney Williams.
The Baltimore Police Department plays an integral part in The Wire.
The second season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation premiered on CBS on September 27, 2001, and ended May 16, 2002. The series stars William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger.
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are a series of nineteen intricately designed dollhouse-style dioramas created by Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962), a pioneer in forensic science. Glessner Lee used her inheritance to establish a department of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1936, and donated the first of the Nutshell Studies in 1946 for use in lectures on the subject of crime scene investigation. In 1966, the department was dissolved, and the dioramas went to the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. where they are on permanent loan and still used for forensic seminars.
"Gone for Goode" is the first episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII. The episode was written by series creator Paul Attanasio and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson. "Gone for Goode" introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Wendy Hughes, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito, and Kyle Secor.
"Son of a Gun" is the third episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on February 10, 1993. The teleplay was written by James Yoshimura based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana, and the episode was directed by Nick Gomez. In the episode, recurring character Officer Thormann is shot while on duty, and his close friend Crosetti takes the investigation personally.
"Law & Disorder" is the 15th episode of the third season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC on February 24, 1995. The episode was written by Bonnie Mark and Julie Martin and directed by John McNaughton. The episode concludes elements of a storyline about the shooting of Beau Felton, Kay Howard, and Stanley Bolander.
Speakeasy Dollhouse is a series of immersive plays based on Cynthia von Buhler's investigations of mysterious deaths in site-specific, historic locations. Original funding for the project was obtained via Kickstarter in 2011. The plays are currently produced by Russell Farhang and Cynthia von Buhler's production company, Smoosh & Smoosh Inc. The Bloody Beginning opened in New York City in 2011. The Brothers Booth ran in 2014. Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic opened in Spring 2015.
The Dollmaker is the name of several supervillains appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.
The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its crime rate, which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 when the population was nearly 125,000 higher.
James Warner Wallace is an American homicide detective and Christian apologist. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He has authored several books, including Person of Interest,Cold-Case Christianity,God's Crime Scene, and Forensic Faith, in which he applies principles of cold case homicide investigation to apologetic concerns such as the existence of God and the reliability of the Gospels. He has been featured as a cold case homicide expert on Fox 11 Los Angeles, truTV, and NBC.