An unspeakable crime by the most unlikely of perpetrators. Courtesy of Netflix.What is it about true crime shows? I often wonder that. I mean, these shows dive into some seriously tragic, grotesque cases. Why would we wish to subject ourselves to such dark and heavy topics? Something is definitely happening, this increasing love of true crime stories. You go on Apple Podcasts and the first dozen shows that pop up are true crime ones. On Netflix, one of the top streamed movies or shows for that week is always a true crime one. I guarantee that. So, why the fascination? (If you’re as curious as I am, read this excellent NBC News article all about it.)
For me, I think curiosity is a natural response to the true crime topic. It’s like when you hear of a tragic case, your gut reaction is, “Geez, what the heck happened?” As a viewer or listener, you want to understand how these tragedies occur. How can someone murder someone else? True crime isn’t like how they depict it in horror movies where there’s a motive for an axe-wielding or knife-stabbing murderer that is revealed in the end. Sometimes, in real life, we never know the motive for these crimes. It’s all a mystery, and as frustrating as that is, we just need to accept it. That is very much the case in Netflix’s four-part docuseries THE MOTIVE¸ a mystifying true crime series based on a real event that took place in Jerusalem.
Sadly, too often when we hear about a shooting or murder in Israel, we are quick to assume that it was a terrorist attack or hate crime. The crime in THE MOTIVE, however, had nothing to do with terrorism or politics. It was an ordinary Sabbath night in Ein Karem, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, when shots were heard in the middle of the night at a family home. When policeman Avi Samuel arrived, he found an M16 army rifle in the living room. He entered a bedroom to find a man and a woman, husband and wife Nissim and Leah, shot at close range, the woman barely alive. (Leah would later die on the way to the hospital.) In a chilling shot, we see the woman’s hand sticking out from under the covers, under the blood-spattered wall near the portrait of her and Nissim’s wedding photo. Upstairs, the sight would only get ghastlier when Avi discovered two young women, sisters Anat (19) and Shira (18), also shot to death in their beds.
It’s a deeply unsettling moment, both seeing the actual footage from the forensics team and listening to Avi’s testimony. It’s never easy to be a cop or a forensics officer. If you walk into a room and see a family murdered, that doesn’t just leave your brain the next day. You can see the tenseness in these interviewees’ eyes, that dread and guilt of having to relive these memories.
“I felt like some kind of vulture that was swooping down on the bodies,” says Haim Siani, the forensics detective assigned to the case. That line really stuck out for me in this show. I don’t know how these people do it, coming in and “cleaning up” a murder scene.
So, what happened? Was it a terrorist attack? A burglary? If it was a burglar, then why would he shoot the parents downstairs and then make his way to the second floor without stealing anything? This was a normal, everyday Jewish Israeli family with no criminal ties. Even more bizarre, how did the sisters not appear to awake from the gunshots downstairs? It’s a mystery that’s super similar to the Ronald Defeo Jr. case, more commonly known as the “Amityville Murders.”
Pretty soon, Avi and the rest of the detectives found out that another family member, a 14-year-old boy, was hiding at his neighbor’s house next door. They spoke with him, and he claimed that a burglar broke in. The police are skeptical. There’s just… something off about this kid. The boy goes into further detail and says that on the previous Thursday, his father, Nissim, came back from his military reserve duty and taught his son how to use the gun. That Friday, they had dinner as a family, watched a movie, and went to bed. At about 1:15 that night, the boy took his father’s gun and killed his family. Why? He says that he heard church bells near his home, which triggered this “voice” calling out to him to commit the murders. In another testimony, he says a “green body” told him to do it.
What? Exactly. None of this sounds even remotely rational. Voices? What is this boy talking about? Did he commit the crime alone? Was he “possessed?”
“Yes, I did it,” he tells the investigators, “but it wasn’t me.”
It’s a shocking case, no doubt. In episode 2, we see actual footage Haim recorded of the boy recreating the crime in his own home, the blood stains still visible on the wall. His expression is stone-cold. He is emotionless, doing as he is told and pretending to aim the gun at the bed. His lack of any remorse may prove him to be a stone-blooded killer, but how could he be? How could a scrawny-looking, 14-year-old Jewish boy with no history of violence, family trouble, or erratic behavior commit such an unspeakable crime?
The creators/directors of the show, Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudri, do a great job of not glorifying the murders or the killer himself. In fact, the boy’s real name is never even mentioned, and that’s a good thing. Like any tragedy, the real focus should be on the victims and not the name of the perpetrator. The duo’s crosscutting of footage of the boy’s trial with 35mm family videos of him as a boy with his joyful family only confuses us more for figuring out the motive of the crime. Every former student and teacher who knew the boy say the same thing: he was fine. He was the polar opposite of a troubled child.
Near the end of episode 2, we slowly piece together a possible cause of this tragedy when we’re introduced to Yossi Arnon, the boy’s defense attorney. He is still shaken all these years later. He is torn in that he wants justice for this crime but also protection of the boy. Does he know something? Shemesh, off-camera, constantly asks him if he knows anything we don’t. Yossi refuses to answer. The same goes for Shmuel Tiano, the boy’s psychiatrist. Both men are mute on this question. They know more than we do, and we are baffled as to how this boy’s testimonies to them have affected them on such an emotional level.
In the final episode, we meet Ruthie Yovel, a journalist who had the opportunity to interview the boy years after the crime. What she recounts doesn’t solve all the answers, and that’s something that may disappoint viewers of THE MOTIVE. This was a VERY weird case, and we don’t know the answers. There is possibly a reason for this, but maybe we’re wrong. Who was this boy? More than that, how could a child do this?
THE MOTIVE isn’t looking to be a scandalous, tawdry true crime series. It avoids diving into conspiracy theories and ridiculous motives for this boy’s actions and reminds us that none of that even matters at this point. Perpetrators are unpredictable. Anyone we see up and down the street can do this, and that is the important thing we should remember. Bad things happen. People kill. Sometimes, as frustrating as it is, we can’t ever find a reason for it. We can’t always leave satisfied.
(PLEASE NOTE: This trailer is dubbed in English. The show is in Hebrew with English subtitles)
THE MOTIVE is now available to stream on Netflix.