Sam Koslowski

It's got multiple suspicious deaths.

And now it's got a murder retrial.

And I've got a quick tidbit for you.

When I was researching this story, it got me thinking, what was the first ever true crime documentary?

Like how new is this genre that we just watched?

I've got the answer.

Okay.

So the answer is a film called The Thin Blue Line in 1988.

which is actually a lot more recent than I thought it would be.

That's not that long ago.

This was a doco about a guy called Randall Dale Adams who was convicted of murdering a Dallas police officer in 1976.

He was on death row.

But the filmmaker wasn't convinced that this guy actually did it and so he made a film basically arguing that the killer was somebody else entirely.

And that film was actually entered into evidence and Adams was exonerated and walked free in 1989, a year after the film came out.

But it essentially invented the genre.

I mean, every true crime film that you've watched, including the ones about the Murdoch family, they all trace back to that original 1988 film.

It's definitely not for everyone.

It's incredible.

I think we just have this curiosity with the worst of humanity that keeps us glued to our screens.

The federal budget will be handed down tonight with Treasurer Jim Chalmers to deliver his address to the nation at 7.30pm.