#Murder on middle beach full#

In 2014, a New Haven Register Journalist tweeted, 'RT Madison cops arrest Jeffrey Hamburg, the ex-husband of slain resident Barbara Hamburg, on larceny charge,' along with a CNN's story link, which is now unavailable. When it came to Barbara's murder, he was never charged with anything. Police say this was in relation to funds he was allegedly stealing from his family. Apart from that, he stole nearly $100,000 from his children's trust accounts from 2008 to early 2010.Īccording to a 2012 news story by Patch, it was revealed that Hamburg, was sent to jail in 2010 because he failed to pay anything toward the $138,000 he owes to his daughter, Ali (also known as Barbara).' Back in 2010, Jeffrey was interrogated, and later arrested and charged with first-degree larceny.

Along the way, Madison uncovers a web of familial and local secrets, connections to shadowy figures, and years-old resentments in his. In the following years, between their separation and her death, Barbara claimed that her ex-husband was unable to pay the alimony and child support payments. Madison Hamburg directs this four-part HBO documentary that examines the cold case of his mother, Barbara Hamburg, brutally murdered in the upper-middle class enclave of Madison, CT. And if they can keep it closed forever, you’ll never be able to hold them accountable or give them an incentive not to cover something up.The couple got married in 1989 and in 2002 they got divorced. First-time filmmaker Madison Hamburg tries to solve his mothers violent murder near her Connecticut home in 2010. “I’m not trying to suggest anything was done improperly here, but there’s no way to know.

“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. “If you say you’re going to keep a file closed forever on the chance that something might develop, that means the public in most cases will never get to look at these files,” Schulz said Friday. In this intriguing series, Madison himself investigates her mysterious case to find some concrete answers. Madison police have not yet filed a brief outlining the grounds of their appeal with the Appellate Court, and attempts to reach the department this past week were unsuccessful.Īttorney David Schulz, a Yale Law professor and member of the school’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic that has worked with Hamburg and Niemeyer on the records fight, called Klau’s decision “thorough and thoughtful.” He agreed the eventual conclusion of this case could help set new precedent for how the public access old police case files across the state, which is an important tool for holding investigators accountable, he said. Directed by first-time filmmaker Madison Hamburg, HBO’s ‘Murder on Middle Beach’ is a docu-series that chronicles the life and death of his 48-year-old mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg, who, on March 3, 2010, was found murdered right outside their Madison, Connecticut home. But it wasnt until he made a documentary about her that he got to know who she really was. Precisely how much time should pass between a case going cold and when the files should be accessible to the public is up for debate, Klau conceded, but he kicked that decision to the legislature, arguing state lawmakers are in the best position to set out in writing a clear timeframe for when and how such records should be made available. Madison Hamburg has spent a decade wondering who killed his mom and why. “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. Klau reviewed the case and found in August that the police department cannot use the mere “theoretical possibility” of a future law enforcement action to keep the investigative files secret but conceded there is little precedent for how investigators or the FOIC should determine what constitutes such a future action. In late December, Niemeyer filed another complaint with the FOIC over the missing records, and the department responded by appealing the commission’s original order to release any of the documents in the first place.

Weeks of back-and-forth ensued as the show premiered on HBO. 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 Hamburg’s bedroom safe.

#Murder on middle beach full#

The department did turn over two full boxes of documents to Hamburg and Niemeyer in October 2020, but the filmmakers alerted investigators in early November that dozens of files were apparently missing from those records. The commission ruled in August 2020 that because the department could not identify any specific “prospective law enforcement action,” they had to turn the documents over to the filmmakers, court records show.