Someone They Knew…With Tamron Hall has come back with a bang for a second season on Court TV. This true crime reality series dissects how so many murders are committed by people with a prior connection to their victims.
“So often people think of crime as a stranger jumping out of an alley and doing harm. But these cases show that someone can tell you they love you and then be thinking something far more sinister,” says the Emmy-winning journalist and author. “And that is what we look at through the lens of detectives, investigators, survivors and victims. All these people bring together the story of what happened when someone, in many cases an intimate connection, does the evil.”
The episodes take viewers on a journey from the initial investigation to the court room to the final outcome. Between the interrogations, courtroom drama and the stealth research and expertise of the Court TV team, Someone They Knew offers an in-depth deep dive into the cases using archival footage and interviews.
“In the second season we continue this unique view of what happens in our judicial system, our relationships and our policing. All of these factors come together to solve these cases,” says Hall who also hosts and executive produces her own self-titled nationally syndicated daytime talk show that returns for its fifth season in September. “I’d like to say we could run out of cases but the reality is this show could live forever.”
Hall herself has a personal connection to the show. Her sister, Renate, was killed in 2014 and the murder remains unsolved. “I’ll never forget hearing the police say, ‘we have a person of interest, and this was someone that she knew,’” says Hall. “There’s the betrayal and the why.”
In Someone They Knew paramount for Hall is that the show covers these cases with great humanity. “We are talking about a mother, a sister, a friend, a cousin or a brother who will never go home again. A family who will never be able to celebrate a birthday with that person or say, “I love you,’” says Hall of the show that airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Court TV. “It’s so important that this is the thread in how we cover stories. It’s made me more vocal in the way we should approach crime reporting.”
Jeryl Brunner: What can you share about this season of Someone They Knew?
Tamron Hall: So many of the cases we cover involve people who commit crimes for money. Sometimes these suspects take out an insurance policy right around the time [of the crime]. And how many times have we see a marriage or a relationship, and you think, why didn’t that person just leave? And don’t get me started on the great police work and the investigators who solved these. I get as passionate and outraged as the people who are watching every week. I also have the same disbelief.
Brunner: Can you talk about keeping your sister’s legacy alive.
Hall: It’s more about Renate’s children. Her youngest son, in particular, is now a dad. He was a guest on my daytime show when we were talking about domestic violence and advocacy work. What inspired him to come on the show that day was a question that was asked by his own son, which was, “Where’s my grandma?” He struggled with how you answer that when you have no answers. We know Renate is no longer alive. But we don’t know the circumstances or what happened.
And to be quite honest with you, I believe her children have decided the answers don’t change the outcome. They have made their peace with that part. For the last few years I have been using my voice to talk to family members who don’t know what to say when their loved one is in a violent relationship.
Brunner: Can you share more about that?
Hall: Thankfully, we are more supportive than ever of survivors of domestic violence. Of course we have a lot of work to do. We now know that men are also victims and survivors of domestic violence. So we are expanding our conversation. Where I felt I could contribute in that dialogue was from the perspective of a family member who didn’t know what to say. I did not know what to say to my sister when I walked downstairs in my home and there was a room torn apart.
She was standing there with her partner who was saying, “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t.” But yet she had a huge knot on her head. I said to her partner, “Get out of my house.” I kicked him out and called my parents immediately. But I also should have called the police. I should have encouraged my sister to file charges. At the time was a local anchor. I was thinking, we don’t want the police at our house. This will all go away. When I woke up the next morning she had snuck him back into my home. I wasn’t angry. It was, what are you doing? Why? And in that selfish moment of disappointment, I said, “you both leave.”
Brunner: There is so much learning in that.
Hall: I tell that story, as hard as it is, so that people understand the mistake I made. And how I learned from people who are on the front line of this conversation. How this is not the right thing to do. And thankfully, my sister and I mended our relationship before she passed away. But sometimes you don’t get that time and it’s not afforded to you.
I believe most people have been trained to think tough love works. We used to think that about children. Now we understand we have to equip children with coping and teach them to self-regulate. Everyone is different. But on the domestic violence front, we didn’t talk a lot about how you tell someone you’re there for them without judging? I covered the Ray Rice case when I was at the Today show. And I remember people kept saying, “What is she thinking? Why didn’t she leave?” We now know you don’t say that to people.
Brunner: What do you think your sister would say about the show?
Hall: Oh, wow. That’s an interesting question. My sister was a hoot. She was an entertaining and effervescent person who had a very strong personality. She would be be a fan of anything I did. One of my most fond memories was getting ready to go to an event where I was presented with something at a high school. I had much bigger hair than I have now. And she was curling my hair and dolling me up like I was her doll. I think she would be happy about it. Especially since I am very mindful [of presenting the] humanity on the show.
My sister had her struggles. She had her own difficult journey. But she also had a beautiful journey. I think of the way I was raised in a small country town. My mother was a single mom when she was 19. And I come from a blended family. That background allows me to stiffen my spine when I see that people are not seeing folks as humans. On my daytime show or this show or anything that I do, that still fires me all these years after graduating from Temple University in the nineties. That is what still keeps me going. No matter what content that I am associated with, the team and myself put humans first and their stories.
Brunner: How do you put humanity into the show?
Hall: I’d like to believe that as a journalist, I have that same sensitivity without this loss, but it is obviously heightened. And I don’t run from that. For a very long time, I became comfortable being a journalist who cries. And maybe it’s even heightened with the talk show.
I write about that in my novel, As The Wicked Watch. In this series Jordan Manning is a Nancy Drew/Tamron Hall, kind of reporter who solves crimes. This was something that I wanted to reveal to people that I didn’t talk about a lot. I use this character to discuss what I now recognize in covering crime. It can be a form of PTSD. I just finished the second book in that series. It was inspired by two cases that I covered that involved women who were murdered by their husbands. Those cases stick with me.
Brunner: How has your background as a journalist helped you do the show?
Hall: We have a team of people who are so entrenched and committed to the storytelling. By the time the story gets to me, I am like the rest of you. I think, whoa, wait, they found this. How did they get that interrogation video? I watch with the viewers and am sometimes in shock by how well this team pieced it together.
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