At the end of Witt: the search for a murdererDirected by Devon Parks and produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions, the four-part docuseries follows a team of cold case investigators as they attempt to follow leads in the December 1994 disappearance and murder of 19-year-old Melissa “Missy” Witt. She is believed to have vanished from the parking lot of a bowling alley in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and her body was found in the Ozark National Forest, 50 miles away.
AT THE END OF WITT: THE HUNT FOR A KILLER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening shot: As we listen to news audio of Melissa “Missy” Witt’s disappearance in 1994, we zoom in on a wooded scene and a white car driving on an empty road.
The essence: The first episode of At the end of Witt It focuses primarily on Witt’s disappearance and the sequence of events that led up to it. The day after her parents reported that she had never returned home, which was unusual for her, Missy’s friends began handing out flyers with her picture on them. The flyer caught the attention of the local television station and a young journalist named Charlene Shirk. Shirk is one of the most prominently interviewed people in the first episode, as it seems that her reporting on the case had prompted the police to investigate, as they initially felt that Missy had simply decided to leave town on her own.
As police gather more physical evidence, especially after her car was found in the bowling alley parking lot nearly three days after she was reported missing, with blood spattered around it and blood-covered keys in the bowling alley’s lost and found box, we hear from the cold case team investigating the murder from 2022 to the present. It’s a multi-agency task force, including the FBI and Fort Smith police, and they begin to investigate the connection between Witt’s case and the Morgan Nick case, which was the subject of the 2023 docuseries. Morgan is still missing.
What shows will it remind you of? As we mentioned, this is the same director and production team from the docuseries. Morgan is still missingand follow the same investigative team as they connect the cases of Morgan Nick and Missy Witt.
Our opinion: The first episode of At the end of Witt: the search for a murderer It’s more compelling than we thought, probably because it pes right into the case. We start with Witt’s disappearance, with news footage backed up by the requisite interviews and some relatively mild reenactments, such as when someone hands over Witt’s car keys at the bowling alley. Parks gives some biographical information about Witt and even learns a bit about Shirk’s background, but doesn’t dwell on those aspects of the story.
Her goal in the first episode is to show the authenticity of a small town like Fort Smith, which is actually the third-largest city in Arkansas, with about 89,000 residents, but still has “one street in the middle,” according to Shirk. She also wants to show how strange it was for Witt to simply disappear, even though she was technically an adult and could have left town without warning if she wanted to. Parks effectively shows how Shirk’s news coverage put pressure on law enforcement during the first few days that Witt was missing, and how little information they gave the media once they got really involved in the case.
Things get a little confusing with the cold case team, some of whom were involved in the original investigation and some of whom were not. In one case, a Ford Smith police detective talks about what the department did during that initial investigation using the collective “we,” when he clearly states that he’s only been on the force for 17 years. And then when we start seeing footage of Morgan is still missing As it unfolded, illustrating the connection that is beginning to form between the Witt case and the Morgan Nick case, it was difficult to determine where the link was made and where the investigation was headed.
We think that since the awkwardness of that connection is smoothed out by the end of the episode, the other three will follow the cold case team as they attempt to navigate investigative paths that weren’t traveled the first time around, especially given the technology and investigative methods that didn’t exist in 1994.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting shot: We see reports of a body found in the Ozark National Forest.
Sleeping Star: Charlene Shirk did a great job of talking about the small-town atmosphere of Fort Smith and what drove her to pursue the Witt case, despite law enforcement’s initial reluctance to investigate.
Pilot’s most typical phrase: There needed to be a little more explanation about the Morgan Nick case, and Morgan is still missingfor people who are not familiar with either.
Our calling: STREAM IT. There is a cinematic feel to it. At the end of Witt: the search for a murderer That, along with a good narrative structure, makes the docuseries more engaging than other similar true crime docuseries. There is a bit of confusion when the Morgan Nick case is included, but that’s more of a setback than anything else.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting, and technology, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV addict. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and elsewhere.
