Back in June 2010, the body of James “Jamie” Carroll was discovered by Louisville police.
The crime scene was a home at 1435 South Fourth Street owned by Jeffrey Mundt and his boyfriend Joseph “Joey” Banis. Banis and Mundt were dating at the time, and a wild night of sex and drugs led to a bloody murder. But who did it?
Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato bring those elements together in HBO’s two-part true-crime doc Murder in Glitterball City, available now on HBO and HBO Max.
Through a two-part series, they will leverage their community to tell the story of this couple and how a very toxic relationship was at the center of it all. The doc opens with a scene in which Banis appears to be confessing in front of the camera, but as the story unfolds, it appears that is not the case.
Although the murder was gruesome, Bailey said it was important to honor the victim. “This is a true crime story. It’s also a queer story. David, who wrote this book, is gay, and we are queer filmmakers.” He added: “In telling this piece, we wanted to avoid getting too bogged down in details, but at the same time we wanted to present the details. That was the best way to tell Jamie’s story and remember him.”
Both Banis and Mundt were tried for murder, but Banis remained in prison and Mundt was released. Bailey and Barbato discussed the film and shared their thoughts on the film’s ending.
When did you both discover or learn about this murder and what happened next?
Randy Barbato: That was over five years ago. HBO’s Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham said, “We have a book for you to take a look at.” When I read David Domine’s Dark Rooms of Glitter Ball City: Murders, Secrets, and Scandals of Old Louisville, I thought, “What is this?” So we flew to Louisville and spent a few days making phone calls, knocking on doors, and tracking down people in the book. We came back and called HBO and said, “We have to make this, but we don’t know how it’s going to turn out.” We talked about it back and forth for the next four years.
At its heart is a gruesome crime, but there are concentric circles of charm and believable characters that inspire us and make us laugh. We asked, “Wait, how do we wrap this up? And we don’t know if we could have done it, but we’re sure it’s done.”
After I finished reading it, I fell down the rabbit hole and saw a headline that said, “This is the real-life ‘How to Get Away with Murder.'” That’s exactly right, but how did you find the right people to tell this story? There’s Angelique X Stacey, and then there’s John and Missy, and we go into the legal side of people.
Fenton Bailey: There are a lot of characters. In a way, this is a hindsight view, but it’s a bit like the disco ball itself. I have this single event. When it hits the mirror ball, different versions, reflections, and ideas all bounce off the mirror ball.
In the case of John and Missy, that’s how David’s book begins. That’s very good because we said, “We have to find them.” When I actually met him, he was a wonderful character. And just a few blocks away, an enclave of Old Louisville was saved from a ball of destruction by gay people. They don’t appear in the movie. But as other gay people moved in and artists came in, we created this unique little time capsule of bohemian, creative characters all within a few blocks of each other.
Apart from the characters, there is plenty of archival footage to help put this puzzle together. Talk about that experience and how you put together the CSI Crime Committee.
Barbato: We are the queens of archives and you know about us, we have a great team that we work with and they are also queens of archives. It’s interesting because, as you mentioned, there are a lot of archives for this. That archive was a character that we used and needed and was part of putting the story together.
BAILEY: Along the way, I was talking to Joey in prison, and Joey gave his attorney permission to lend him a copy of his laptop. And suddenly we found all this. This was back in 2012 and 2013, and back then there was an abundance of text messages, iPhones, emails, etc., and police departments hadn’t caught up with those departments yet, so there was a lot of stuff they couldn’t monitor before. That material ultimately becomes the linchpin of the entire story, as it begins with a videotape in which Joey appears to be confessing to a crime, and then, of course, as everything unfolds, we realize that it’s not what it seems. But there was so much information at once that I don’t think the authorities couldn’t really process it. Even now, it seems impossible to process all of the Epstein files. The other thing is volume. Some of the things Joey himself has captured by phone, text, or video are pretty extraordinary. For example, when Jeffrey appears to have started a counterfeit operation for reasons best known to them. That’s pretty shocking.
Back to what you said, Randy. You are the queen of archives and the queen of documentaries. What questions did you want to know or hope to have answered after reading the book? And after reading, what questions still remain?
Barbato: The main questions were: Was justice served and what do we not know about the crime and the story? But once we started making the film, a million other questions arose. We started learning about the community, the city, the various characters and their connections to it. There were different questions each day. Many of them are now organic. We tried to understand the crime more deeply, and that also became this psychodrama. So you’re trying to understand and build the characters of these two people, and of course Jamie. Jamie is very important to us to humanize him and not label him as a victim buried in a basement. So it was a never-ending process of discovery.
And how do we connect what we discover about all the supporting characters to the crime at the heart of this story? What’s the connection? It became a huge obsession for us. Because it was, “Why are these people as important as the central characters and the crime, and what do they have to do?”
BAILEY: We have an education witness, LaTanya, and she was brought in to talk about domestic violence and how it works and its dynamics.
Barbato: She helped us understand why community is so important when it comes to crime. Even if you think you have nothing to do with it, there are horrible crimes happening that actually have nothing to do with you. We are all affected and can all learn in some way. So we didn’t even know it was a question that needed an answer, nor did we expect her to answer it for us.
BAILEY: In the immediate context of the trial, she was there to support Jeffrey’s defense argument that Jeffrey was a victim of domestic violence and was terrified, which just didn’t match up with how we felt when we saw the whole thing. But what she was saying was that people should know that toxic relationships are not only dangerous for the people in them, but more worryingly, they’re dangerous for innocent bystanders, too, and that those around them can also be caught up in them. Because in this case, that’s exactly true, and Jamie was really an innocent bystander.
And what did we do and the question we have at the end is, who did it? Although I actually think so after hours, months, and years of talking about it. Randy and I both believe that not just one, but two people should be in prison.
There’s a lot of humanity in this. How did you find that balance in telling the story?
Barbato: That’s what I was really trying to do. It’s because of who we are, no matter what role someone played, including potentially being a murderer, we’re all human beings, and to understand something is to connect with it, communicate with empathy, and connect with everyone you know, including all lawyers. You can watch a lot of true crime stories and shows, and they do a great job. They’re great, but they’re very procedural and often you don’t feel connected to any of the people, so that’s really important to us.
In Joey’s case, I just wonder how he came to be who he is. Because, obviously, when his first boyfriend talks about them and they fall in love, it’s this beautiful story until it gets dark, but it’s sweet enough that you realize that Monster also has some soft spots.
This phrase is interesting because when a person becomes a monster, I wonder at what point they transform into that person.
Bailey: Unless monsters actually exist and they escape justice. There are monsters out there, and those monsters are those who evade justice and responsibility. And I think that may have happened to some extent in this story as well.
Watch the trailer below.
