Town note
In the 1920s the town hoped to become the winter home for big Hollywood stars and courted them to buy vacation houses so it would become a tourist destination.
about 0:05:19Spoilers are covered until your reading preferences load.
FILE 372 / 18 March 2023 / 68 MIN / express
We're going to Newport Richie, Florida about 0:04:14
In the 1920s the town hoped to become the winter home for big Hollywood stars and courted them to buy vacation houses so it would become a tourist destination.
about 0:05:19Silent-film actor Thomas Meagan built a huge home on the river in 1928, spent the winters there and wanted to make films in the town as an East Coast Hollywood.
about 0:05:52A big golfer of the time also built a home there.
about 0:06:03Songwriter Irving Berlin was got to put down payments on properties, but nobody ended up building homes.
about 0:06:10In the 1920s the town hoped to become the winter home for big Hollywood stars and courted them to buy vacation houses so it would become a tourist destination.
about 0:05:19Silent-film actor Thomas Meagan built a huge home on the river in 1928, spent the winters there and wanted to make films in the town as an East Coast Hollywood.
about 0:05:52A big golfer of the time also built a home there.
about 0:06:03Songwriter Irving Berlin was got to put down payments on properties, but nobody ended up building homes.
about 0:06:10Then the Depression hit and people were left owning swamp land.
about 0:06:20Florida in the 1920s was a real estate scheme where swamp land was sold to people who could not build on it; prices dived and then the Depression came.
about 0:06:25"16,348"
No direction stated.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:29
"30,660"
Comparison: "well under the national average". Direction: below.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:35
"$318,800"
Comparison: "a little bit high". Direction: above.
As told in 2023 about 0:04:46
3.0 / 5 · average of 5
“Wonderful people in my store caring about who comes and goes, always ready to help you in and out of the store; signed thanks, Lynn Shanley.”about 0:06:47
“A hip and modern up and coming area: a new park and playground with a splash pad, a hipster coffee shop with the best chai latte, an artisan grilled cheese shop, a family ice cream parlour and about fifteen bars including a wine bar and a rooftop bar.”about 0:07:15
“Melissa has lived there 30 years; she loves the water and the restaurants on it, but the water is not the cleanest, youths are ruining the area with drugs, drinking and bullying, and she no longer walks there at night with her family.”about 0:08:57
“A resident since 1981 recalls it being called New Port Rickety, a pristine community of senior citizens and wealthy retired people, and says it has deteriorated into a high-crime town with lots of drugs, falling home values, transients and northerners.”about 0:09:56
“A terrible place to live with a very corrupt local government, getting worse every day; avoid it like the plague.”about 0:11:07
He took an interest in her, encouraged her to get out of the marriage, and after she left her first husband they dated for about six months and married. She had a young daughter, apparently from the first marriage. She wanted to be a model. Layman arranged a photo shoot, the photographs were used commercially and she was paid, and more advertising work followed. The money was small, so she moved into fetish modelling and then into pornography under the name Sunny Day, starting in 2003 with a film called Southern Bukaki and working through dozens of titles over the following years. Between shoots she worked as a masseuse specialising in 'erotic massage'.
He was a corporal in the Marine Corps, a DJ in Chicago known as DJ Veritas, living and performing around Boystown and Lakeview, and he appeared in gay porn films under the name Addison, mostly for the money rather than any liking for it. Towards the end of 2009 the two met on the set of a film called Natural Porn Killers in New York City and began an affair. Through April and May 2010 they posted about each other constantly on Twitter, spent weeks in Florida shooting and selling their own clips, and advertised themselves for hire.
The next day a man got in touch. Dennis 'Scooter' Abrahamson, 41, was a biker who owned a tattoo and piercing parlour and a repo and towing business in New Port Richey, Florida. Abrahamson spent the evening at a strip club with his friends Maynard and Lisa Bineshadle before the party at his home, where the sex was filmed in his hot tub.
The texts were read out later. Abrahamson had a massage table in the house.
Abrahamson's cousin found the body the next day, after he stopped answering his phone. A detective who had worked more than 10,000 death investigations in a 30-year career called it the most horrific crime scene he had seen in the area. A bloody sledgehammer and bloody knives were recovered, and $6,000, a laptop, a video camera, a digital camera and a Home Depot credit card were missing.
Detectives traced Abrahamson's phone records to the Bineshadles, who said a woman called Sunny Day had been there and had been texting all night.
On 16 July 2010 US Marshals found him in Chattanooga, working the night shift at the Chattanooga Billiards Club, where he had been hired three days earlier on the recommendation of his brother Chris.
Abrahamson's cousin, who had found him, read the family statement in court: 'I hope any time you close your eyes he comes and haunts you for the rest of your pathetic life. You're not a person, you're an evil being.'
May 2010 / his home, New Port Richey, Florida
As told in the episode, on 18 March 2023.
Accused
Accused
Public places are marked on the map.
crime scene
about 0:46:37business
about 0:44:30business
about 0:45:20business
about 0:53:41business
about 0:53:56business
about 0:58:30police
about 0:56:13other
about 0:36:52business
about 0:37:23other
about 0:55:13