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Murder by the Coast
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Woman is wrongly accused due to homophobia; violence.
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Murder by the Coast
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What's the Story?
MURDER BY THE COAST revisits the 1999 murder of a Spanish teenage girl Rocio Wanninkhof and that crime's aftermath. Her death creates a media frenzy that results in the arrest and conviction, without any evidence, of the lesbian ex-lover of the girl's mom. Homophobic bias and stereotypes about violent tendencies in "masculine" women" lead a jury to send an innocent woman to jail. When a strikingly similar crime is committed nearby, police discover DNA and other evidence that exonerates the convicted woman and points a spotlight on the police and community attitudes that led to the miscarriage of justice and allowed another innocent girl to be killed. The actual killer is apprehended.
Is It Any Good?
While Murder by the Coast exposes the unfairness of a police investigation based on homophobic bias, it otherwise presents its subjects in a fairly routine, bland, and unimaginative manner. Like any number of other documentaries about murders, this one relies on TV news clips and headlines from newspapers of the time, as if the filmmakers were following a step-by-step guide on how to make a generic documentary. Lots of slow pans of the bedrooms of dead girls and overhead shots of local fields and roadways are used as visual filler, adding nothing while the audio of talking-head interviews runs.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the ongoing pain of parents and loved ones who lose a child to senseless murder. How can families of victims heal from their loss?
Why do you think it took so long for the police to capture the actual perpetrator?
Why do you think the police were willing to arrest someone based on no evidence and a jury was willing to convict a defendant without evidence?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: June 23, 2021
- Director: Tania Ballo
- Studio: Netflix
- Genre: Documentary
- Run time: 88 minutes
- MPAA rating: PG-13
- Last updated: February 19, 2023
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