There is great expectation for the series The Lady of the Lake, starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram (in place of Lupita Nyong’o) and yes, because more than the adaptation of a best seller, it is inspired by two true crimes. True Crime, drama, and suspense? Unbeatable formula. Do you agree? Let’s see the true stories that inspired the Apple TV Plus series.

About the series with Natalie Portman

The Lady in the Lake is the adaptation of Laura Lippman‘s best seller, which follows Maddie Schwartz (Portman), a middle-aged housewife who leaves her husband and son to pursue a career in journalism. Maddie becomes involved in the investigation into the disappearance and death of Cleo Sherwood (Ingram), an African-American woman whose body was found in a fountain.

With a non-linear narrative structure, with multiple perspectives (including that of the dead), the novel explores themes of race, gender, and social change during a turbulent period in American history, the 1960s, marked by the struggle for Civil Rights and the Feminist Movement. , with Maddie’s determination to reinvent herself and free herself from society’s expectations is a central theme.

The author named the book not after the common horror story legend, but after a real crime that happened in her hometown, Baltimore, in the 1960s. The Lady in the Lake alludes to the mystery surrounding the death of Shirley Parker, a 33-year-old black woman who was found dead in the fountain of the Druid Hill Park Reservoir and who was ignored by the media at the time. The book, and in the series, it’s about the death of Cleo Sherwood and the broader implications of her story in the context of the social issues of the time. Through Maddie’s investigation, Lippman highlights the often-forgotten stories of marginalized individuals and the impact of systemic inequalities.

The second crime that will be included in the plot will be the kidnapping and murder of Esther Lebowitz, a girl of just 11 years old, a white Jewish girl whose death was heavily publicized at the time. And it is precisely this difference that will involve Maddie in her investigation.

The plot is officially described as follows: When the disappearance of Tessie Fine, a young woman, hits the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving Day 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to free herself from a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to make ends meet. your family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes obsessed with Cleo’s mysterious death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around her in danger.

The True Story of Shirley Parker, Lady of the Lake

On the night of June 2, 1969, a maintenance crew was called to the Druid Hill Park Reservoir in Baltimore to replace the burned-out lights in the fountain in the middle of the lake. Accidentally, when the place was illuminated again, one of the employees discovered the body of a woman in a state of decomposition. It was that of Shirley Lee Parker, a 33-year-old, twice-divorced woman, mother of two boys, reported missing since April.

Her body was face down in about two feet of water, dressed in brown pants, a yellow, orange, and white blouse, and brown boots, the exact outfit from the last time she was seen alive when she was out with some friends. That night, she discovered that her boyfriend at the time, Arno West, was not only unfaithful but also used her money to buy gifts for his lover. Witnesses reported that the couple had a “heated argument” after Shirley discovered the truth and, according to Arno, to “cool off”, they went for a walk from which she never returned.

According to his report, after going to a bar, Shirley asked to get out of the car to walk around the park and he, “worried”, followed her and tried to convince her “not to swim in the lake”. According to his statement to police, he left Shirley at home, but her mother claimed she never returned. The lie detector confirmed that the report was flawed, but the police released it because no actual crime was committed.

The disappearance of Shirley Parker generated commotion in the black community of Baltimore, with conflicting information. Only one medium in the city stated that she was receiving vibrations and that Shirley’s death would “soon reveal one of the most horrific crimes in history.” In the three-week search, the police searched the area without finding anything, many think because they searched the lake and Shirley was found in the spring.

As we will see in the series, with Cleo Johnson, to support her son (one was with her and the other with her ex-husband, in Pennsylvania), Shirley Parker worked as a “window model” in a network of and department stores, as well as waitress and secretary.

The advanced state of decomposition of the body hindered the autopsy, but they confirmed that she was not strangled, stabbed, or shot, nor did she use narcotics. The conclusion was that it was “death from hypothermia”, even though they believed she had drowned before being placed in the fountain. Officially, without being able to rule out even suicide, the case was filed as a “questionable death”, but not “a murder”.

Arno West, the last one to have Shirley still alive, is the only suspect, but circumstantial evidence prevented a formal accusation (as did the machismo of the time, of course). Many believe that Shirley was drowned or left unconscious by him, who then hid her body in the middle of the fountain and, if she was still alive, left her to die. Some witnesses said they saw a rowboat in the water that night, among other accusations. The children bet more on an unfortunate accident, that Shirley swam in the lake to clear her mind, but when she was ready to leave, she got up, fell back, and hit her head on the spout where the water comes out, drowning. Remains yet to be seen what version of the series The Lady of the Lake will retell.

The disappearance and death of Esther Lebowitz

The character Tessie Fine represents the cruel murder of Esther Lebowitz, also in Baltimore in the same year, 1969. Esther was 11 years old when was sexually abused and killed on a September afternoon, with her body being found in a ditch near her home after two long days of searches that mobilized the city and the country.

According to witnesses, on the way home from school, Esther was last seen alive when she stopped at the tropical fish store owned by Wayne Stephen Young. When she didn’t return from school, her parents called the police and soon the newspapers turned the search into sensationalist coverage.

Esther’s lifeless body, badly bruised, was found dumped in the woods near a deserted area, not far from where she lived. The investigation suspects that the murder took place during a rape or attempted rape, but the charges were dropped.

In addition to witnesses seeing Esther in Wayne’s store, the gravel found on the girl’s corpse matched the gravel from the aquarium in the store, and when police searched the store’s basement, they discovered strands of her hair and a hammer with her blood on it. Furthermore, when questioned, Wayne, who was only 23 years old at the time, failed a polygraph test and confessed to the murder.

Changing the confession to “momentary insanity”, psychology experts were divided, with some believing him (he had a repressive mother, with whom he had recently fought and had an outburst) and others identifying premeditation and coldness. The jury took less than 30 minutes to sentence him to life in prison, but the death sentence was not given precisely because of the conflicting testimonies about his sanity. Wayne died behind bars in 2015.

Tension and mystery in the series version

The Lady of the Lake will mix the differences and similarities of the two crimes, promising to generate a lot of discussion these days. The series premieres on July 19th. Let’s follow!

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