“The only way we can have oversight.”Īccording to Schulz, the Madison Police Department “took a completely inappropriate approach” to deciding which documents to release. The Madison Department of Police filed an appeal on September 2. We have to maintain the integrity for them,” he said. “We also have to honor the victims and their families. He said it was also important to preserve the rights of victims and family members, who he said he didn’t believe would want information released while police officers were still working on their case. “We certainly don’t want to give a heads-up or give away some information that only somebody who was at the scene or perpetrated the crime would know.” “It’s something that really has to work its way through the court,” he told CT Examiner. So I’m not quite sure why they’re resistant,” he said.ĭrumm, 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. “Allowing that type of information to come out may be more likely to help them solve the crime than keeping everything secret. Schulz echoed the judge’s world, noting that his clients planned to use the information as part of a documentary. “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.” “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.
Murder on middle beach recording police trial#
The case was then brought to trial in the Superior Court of New Britain, which last month upheld the Freedom of Information Commission’s ruling. 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. 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. 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.
Murder on middle beach recording police series#
The four-part series was released at the end of 2020. The television series, Murder on Middle Beach, documents the story of Madison Hamburg’s search for the story behind his mother’s murder. There was no stone they had left unturned.” A cold case? The people in the State’s Attorney’s office who oversee the cold case reviews agreed with them that there were no new leads to follow. “They’ve done multiple cold case reviews. But they have had no new leads for years,” he said. It would not be in the interest of our own investigation to release it any further,” said Drumm.Īccording to David Schulz, a lawyer representing the plaintiff, the department was only withholding the information on the off chance that new information about the case should come to light, and that there really was not an ongoing investigation. “We work on this case weekly, we have a state’s attorney assigned to us who works on this weekly. “That means that if you have a victim of a crime in your household tomorrow, they could start each and every single day in the investigation,” said Drumm.ĭrumm 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. In a meeting of the town’s 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. Her death in 2010 was the subject of an HBO true crime documentary series produced by her son Madison Hamburg. 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.
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