You know you're heading into dark waters when a documentary trailer on YouTube is preceded by a content warning. That's what you'll see before you can watch the trailer for the new Netflix documentary series. American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, as it contains references to suicide and self-harm. Just like this story.
The documentary focuses on the death of journalist Danny Casolaro, a writer whose death appeared to be a suicide, but his family and colleagues believed, and continue to believe, otherwise. Casolaro had been investigating a conspiracy he called “the Octopus,” and that conspiracy connected a series of unsolved murders, a secret organization with stolen government spy software, and some of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century.
The documentary asks a simple question: what really happened to Danny Casolaro?
Wandering into a tangled web
As the show reveals, Casolaro didn't set out to find a conspiracy. He thought he was investigating a rather obscure intellectual property dispute. But as his investigation progressed, he discovered links to the hidden underbelly of 1980s America: money laundering, spyware and even arms trafficking. The more he discovered, the more convinced Casolaro became of a gigantic conspiracy and the more determined he was to bring to light the secrets he had discovered. But he never had the chance.
Casolaro was murdered because of what he knew? According to his family, he had told his brother that he had received threatening phone calls in the weeks before his death. Casolaro said that if something happened to him, it wouldn't be an accident. His family also pointed out his extreme apprehension, which made him afraid even of blood tests: would a man who couldn't stand the sight of blood really take his own life in such a violent way? Some law enforcement officials were also suspicious, but although ABC News and TIME magazine picked up the case, they could not find any evidence of murder.
That's where this documentary comes in. American conspiracy: The Octopus Murders It's not just a historical story. It follows Christian Hansen, a photojournalist, as he picks up the pieces decades later and tries to discover the answers Casolaro was looking for. Along with filmmaker Zachary Treitz, he travels across the United States to find the key figures in this story, a journey that puts both men at great personal risk. What really happened to Danny? This documentary, made by Duplass Brothers Productions with Stardust Frames, who last worked together on Wild, Wild, Countryone of the best Netflix documentaries we've ever seen – try to find out.
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders will stream on Netflix in the US starting February 28.
