Killer Women With Piers Morgan: Face to face with the she-monsters behind bars
Week two of Killer Women With Piers Morgan and the sinister stars of the show are all-American murderers Amanda Lewis and Rhonda Glover.
AJ gives evidence in Killer Women With Piers Morgan
Week two of Killer Women With Piers Morgan and the sinister stars of the show are all-American murderers Amanda Lewis and Rhonda Glover.
Both putting on their best butter-wouldn’t-melt act as Piers grilled them about their horror stories and they protested their innocence. Hands up who believed them. Anyone?
Okay, in the evil charts, family slayer Erin Caffey – the blonde assassin who sang Amazing Grace and dodged all the questions in the first chilling episode - is still at number one.
But the latest frightening females in ITV’s hall of infamy aren’t far behind. Definite top ten material. Unless they’re telling the truth. Are they victims of injustice? You decide.
Either way, Morgan has hit on a winning formula here. Face to face with the she-monsters behind bars. The more they deny their brutal crimes, the more cold and calculating they seem. The viewers are invited to make up their own minds. You the jury.
Which brings us to Amanda Lewis who drowned her eight year-old daughter Adrianna in a garden splash pool. A tragedy that was written off as an accident until, incredibly, Amanda’s infant son A.J. testified against her.
At seven, A.J. was the youngest ever witness in a murder trial. Without him, his mother would never even have been charged. Let alone been found guilty.
Astonishing scenes as the tiny youngster saw his weeping parent across the courtroom and burst into tears. When he waved goodbye to her it was the last time they ever saw each other.
In a Florida penitentiary, eight years into her life sentence, former care worker Lewis still insists that Adrianna fell into the water and by the time she spotted the body it was too late to save her.
After giving his grandparents a different version of events, A.J. drew pictures of what he remembered and told shocked police officers: “She killed my sister. She started holding her face. So Adrianna started screaming. So I went pow pow pow with my gun.” It being the USA, it’s probably worth pointing out this was a toy gun.
In fairness, Amanda passed a lie detector test. And says that her little boy had a big imagination and a tendency to make up stories. The one about his murdering mum sent her to jail for the rest of her days.
Compelling television as she told Piers: “No matter what I will always love him. And no way do I blame him for what happened.”
In an emotionless monotone, Lewis also admitted that ADHD sufferer Adrianna was hot to handle. “Sometimes she was really rambunctious,” she recalled. “She was quick to throw a fit. But she was still a good child.” Now she’s an ex child.
Meanwhile, over in Texas, former beauty queen Rhonda Glover maintains she pumped ten bullets into her wealthy lover in self-defence.
At one point oil millionaire Jimmy Joste paid Rhonda a £7,500 a month allowance and even wrote her a cheque for a million dollars spending money. In 1994 Rhonda gave birth to their son, Ronnie.
But ten years later she confided to a friend that Joste was a crack smoking devil worshipper and she had to get rid of him. After taking shooting lessons, she bought a Glock 19 handgun and waited for him at his mansion in Austin. When he walked into his bedroom, she opened fire and shot him dead.
“Do you still love him?” enquired Piers. “Yes,” she sobbed. “We have a child.” Naturally, the carnage wasn’t her fault. An Oscar-worthy performance from a prisoner whose release date is set for 2050.
Undoubtedly Morgan’s finest TV work so far, this engrossing two-part documentary relied on convicted killers giving the type of interviews that don’t happen in Britain. The host turns them into theatre.
Why concentrate on women? Because they are three times more likely than men to murder someone they love. It’s an undeniably fascinating subject. Piers should make a full series. Maybe call it Piers Morgan’s Death Stories.
There are 4 Comments
Review by Hazeleyes
Submitted by Hazeleyes on Wed, 18/05/2016 - 22:00 Piers Morgan killer women
Amanda Lewis all the evidence points that she did it, children of that age say what they see, from the way she was talking she either has given up, or realised she was guilty.
Rhonda very scary, calculated, and trying to convince piers she did not do it. From what I have seen this series so far has been great very informative and also very scary that there are people out there so calculated they could do that.
Also the scone story of Rhonda shows how gun laws should be changed over in the USA . Great series
Killer women loses viewers
Second episode of Pers Morgan's interview with the killers show lost a sizeable (600k) chunk of viewers for its second episode this week.
Borrowing heavily from the US factual crime shows, the programme mixes interviews with the perpetrator and brief walkthroughs of the crime with predictable results, but without delivering on either part.
Morgan is a seriously good interviewer, but as with his 'life stories' they barely scrape the surface, whilst the crime explanations cherry pick facts to fit the narrative that the director has decided.
High production values don't compensate for a Hello Mag take on the genre.
Killer Women with Piers Morgan.
INTERESTING, INTRIGUING AND YET AGAIN......IMPARTIAL PIERS!
The opening to this second episode was that dramatic that I half expected the famous duff duff drum beat from Eastenders to start playing any second. My jaw nearly dropped to the floor as we were informed how in 2008 a woman was convicted of murdering her own daughter by the testimony of her seven year old son. This second installment was interesting, intriguing and Piers yet again was impressively impartial throughout. Even though the first programme had a stronger emotional impact on me, this second one nevertheless was definitely a worthwhile watch.
Prosecutor : "Can you tell me what a lie is"?
AJ : "It's not the truth".
Prosecutor : "Can you tell me what the truth is"?
AJ : "It's not a lie".
This courtroom dialogue above weighed heavy on the heart because AJ is the seven year old boy who testified against in mother in court back in 2008. This first case that Piers looked at took place in Florida and involved Amanda Lewis being convicted of drowning her young daughter Adrianna Hutto. Amanda to this day we were told still protests her innocence of this crime. Again like last week, the case was presented to us via a good mix of archive footage(such as courtroom footage, police questioning) together with present day interviews.
What needs to be applauded here is how Piers challenged almost everything he was told. He challenged Amanda over certain aspects of the case. For example, why did Adrianna's bedroom have a strong odour of urine to it he quizzed her? Why would AJ make up such a story? Likewise though he strongly pressed the people who firmly believe Amanda is guilty of this crime. He pressed Chief Prosecutor Larry Basford and Holmes County Sheriff Dennis Lee about the validity of AJ's testimony. Piers put to them that there were inaccuracies in some of the statements that AJ had said.
The second murder case Piers looked at was that of Jimmy Joste. In Texas 2006 former beauty queen Rhonda Glover was convicted of his murder, her lover at the time. Dramatic tension was then amplified by us being informed how women are three times more likely as men to kill someone they love. As with the first case both sides were presented to us. We heard Rhonda profess that she had acted in self-defence, contrasting with people from law enforcement who saw her as a cold calculated murderer.
What I liked about this documentary was that there was a moving poignancy to it like there was in the first episode. Stylistically, there is almost something slightly poetic about seeing a bright sunny clear day in the present tense, against then being told about the grave subject of murder in the past tense. Poignancy was also conveyed through words and the most moving thing I heard in the programme came from Jimmy Joste's former business partner Danny Davis towards the end. Regarding how he now felt towards Rhonda, Danny told Piers,
"I'll say hello to her, I'll sit down and have lunch with her, you know I'm not going to hate her. You forgive a lot when you get older, you don't have time for hate anymore".
I guess it was not just what Danny said but also how he said it in such a wistful way that moved me so much.
I have said up to this point how I liked the impartiality of Piers Morgan in this programme. He never tried to shove his own personal opinions about the cases and 'killer women' he interviewed down our throats for instance. The cases were presented us and we were left to make up our own minds about them. What differed though here with these two cases from the Erin Caffey case that we saw in episode one, was that both of the women spoke about their innocence of being convicted of murder. Therefore, I know I am about to somewhat contradict myself but I thus wanted to hear how Piers felt about them at the end. I think maybe the programme was a bit too much too impartial if you get my point? I would have just liked a subtle summing-up by Piers or a brief conclusion upon how he felt towards them, i.e what was his hunch about them being guilty or not? With a slightly less neutral Piers then the documentary would have had more purpose in my view.
Another small criticism I have is to ask why both episodes were done in America about American 'killer women', does Britain not have such women(I'm sure we do)? I am pretty certain this decision was to do with there being no archive court footage in the UK, tighter British gun laws and Britain being a much smaller place thus meaning that there were less cases to choose from. Were cases solely in America examined because some deem crimes over there to be more sensationalistic compared to ones here in Britain?
In the main though I believe this second episode was a good follow up to an utterly compelling first part the week before. I think this is the best thing Piers Morgan has done on television in a very long time. If there are more episodes of this to come in the future then I will no doubt watch them. INTERESTING, INTRIGUING AND IMPARTIAL.....yes you read that correctly, am I talking about Mr Piers Morgan! 3/5.
Piers Morgan
He is like Marmite, thankfully I love Marmite. I thought this well executed.
GA x