Mind Over Murder

The HBO true crime docuseries Mind Over Murder chronicles the bizarre and psychologically complex story of six individuals who were convicted for the 1985 murder of a beloved 68-year-old grandmother, Helen Wilson. Despite five of the individuals originally confessing to the crime, the “Beatrice Six” as they became known, were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2009, a turn of events which divided the rural town and incensed Helen’s family.

As the filmmakers track the case from the murder, through investigation, trial, exoneration and two civil suits, shifting perspectives cloud the truth, and a stranger-than-fiction tale emerges that raises salient questions about the reliability of confessions and memory in criminal cases.

Mind Over Murder is directed by Nanfu Wang, who won the SXSW Audience Award for In The Same Breath, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Born In China, and was nominated for an Emmy for One Child Nation. The six-part series has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Mashable hailing it as “the must-see true crime series of 2022… Mind-blowing, heartbreaking and ultimately soul-soothing.”