Real stories of Mindhunter season 2: Episode 7

The seventh installment of Mindhunter real stories brings up the inspiration for Dr. Carr’s character, the S.T.O.P. march and the Bowen Homes Explosion.

The seventh episode of Mindhunter season 2 is the one where the writers seemed to stretch their creative muscles the most, and I’d expect that to be the case the rest of the way. It started with the suspect that they questioned.

As mentioned in the last piece, there was no evidence that this arrest occurred. Therefore, the awkward (because we know the guy didn’t do it) staged interrogation never happened. We also hit a rough patch for Agent Carr both professionally and romantically. Carr’s life outside of the job is fictionalized, as the person she is based on was heterosexual. What about the work issues? This episode culminates with the march led by Camille Bell and STOP, which had several elements that are worth digging into.

Wendy’s work problems

This season we’ve seen Dr. Carr get out into the field to do interviews with mixed results. You can tell she enjoys it though and she plans to get back out into the field. That is until Gunn calls her into his office and tells her he needs her there doing analysis instead. She pushes back some but not strongly and the conversation ends with her accepting her role in the basement.

Did this happen to Dr. Burgess?

No. In the show, Dr. Carr has moved to Quantico to work with the team. In real life, Dr. Burgess never left Boston College, according to a report. She was simply a consultant for the team and did so without leaving home. There are some fans of the show that don’t like the way Dr. Carr’s story is being handled, but it has been clear this season that the show wants to show us how much of a boy’s club the bureau and politics are/were.

The STOP march

One scene that I wish had been handled more from the viewpoint of the families is the March through Atlanta led by Camille Bell and the other mothers of the victims. I feel like this could have been a powerful scene to show the weight of the situation, but instead, we followed Holden trying to get ahead of the parade to place a cross.

This whole ordeal stood to show us how much red tape the team had to work through to get something as simple as a cross delivered to set up as a memorial for the victims. The more jarring thing to me was seeing a white man run through downtown Atlanta, weaving around marching black people with a cross. I was worried that someone would mistake him for a Klan member during this scene. That felt like a huge oversight. How much of this was real?

Did stop march through Atlanta?

Yes. There were two marches and Corretta Scott King actually joined the second. The march went from city hall to Morehouse College.

Was S.T.O.P. investigated to see how money was being appropriated?

I was unable to verify if the organization was investigated but it would fit with the way things were being handled and the way the mothers were viewed. They did indeed take donations and there were almost as many mothers as there were investigators on the task force at this point and the mothers were accomplishing a lot with little resources.

Did kids march with tape on their mouths?

While I could not find pictures from the S.T.O.P. marches to confirm that there were children with tape over their mouths, I did find one powerful picture of a child with a poster that reads: “It could be me.” There are many posters in the crowd during the scene including ones with the names of the victims listed. These were accurately portrayed. The use of tape over the mouth is definitely something that is used today in the “Black Lives Matter” movement so this likely inspired the images. It’s definitely jarring to see.

The Bowen Home Explosion

In the middle of the Atlanta Murders an unfortunate accident occurred. An explosion at a daycare center inside a housing complex killed several people. According to a report I was able to find, at least five children and two adults were killed (three children were reported in the show.)

The daycare center had 83 black children in it at the time. Though it was blamed on a gas leak, the fact that the victims were young black boys was too coincidental for the people who blamed it on the Klan.

As the season winds down there will likely be a lot more fiction than fact but we’ll have to see how the investigation winds down.

Mindhunter season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.