![]() ![]() What we’re left with is one of the odder, more heartbreaking coming-of-age stories in quite a while. ![]() The more Hamburg digs into his mother’s past, the more animosity and dark secrets he unearths among his loved ones. Murder on Middle Beach is less about solving a crime and more about investigating the pain and resentment that have been bubbling under his family for years - starting with his own strained relationship with his combative, distant father, who steadfastly doesn’t want to talk to his son about Barbara’s killing, making vague comments about outstanding legal issues. But although his passion project certainly investigates the possible explanations for who murdered Barbara, you sense that he’s more interested in clearing family members of any possible wrongdoing than delivering a big ah-ha moment. I’ll avoid spoilers, but Hamburg has stressed that he wasn’t interested in making a whodunit, which would have given Murder on Middle Beach a marketable hook during a time when cable and streaming services are awash in true-crime series. But those reminiscences are complicated not just by the conflicting impressions different people had of Barbara - was she a bright light or a depressed alcoholic? - but also by the fact that her murder has yet to be solved… and that several family members suspect other family members of being involved in her killing. ![]() Murder on Middle Beach, which will air on HBO, is a documentary series about Hamburg’s memories of his mother, combining home movies, photos and interviews with family members and friends who knew her. Over the next four Sundays, the world will witness the culmination of a project that consumed much of Hamburg’s 20s. “My professor actually was like, ‘You didn’t turn in the project because it was way bigger than a 10-minute student film.’ We did a trailer, and he said, ‘I’ll give you guys an A if you promise to never stop working on this.’ We hopefully fulfilled that promise.” “The school I went to, Savannah College of Art and Design, was really good for me,” Hamburg, now 29, tells me. It was supposed to be just a short, but he quickly realized his ambitions were much grander than that - and that he’d never be able to complete the assignment in time. Devastated, Hamburg turned to drugs, a common problem in his extended family, which had battled alcoholism and addiction for generations.īut after finally getting sober, Hamburg, who was taking a documentary class at his college and had been interested in making movies since childhood, decided he wanted to work on a project about his mom. Brutally murdered - it looked like she had been beaten with a blunt object like a hammer - Barbara, 48, was in the midst of divorce proceedings with her husband Jeffrey, who was Hamburg and his younger sister Aly’s father. The 18-year-old’s mother Barbara was found dead by her home in Madison, Connecticut, the sort of ostensibly safe neighborhood where such grisly crimes never occur. On March 3, 2010, Madison Hamburg’s life changed forever. ![]()
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