#115: The Death of Dr Frank Olson

Real Crime Profile

Real Crime Profile / Wondery

True Crime, Society & Culture, Exhibit C, Documentary

4.2 • 10.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the early morning of November 28, 1953, 42-year-old Army scientist Frank Olson "went out the window" of a room in New York City’s Statler Hotel. Did he jump or fall? Was it an accident or was it murder?

The #RCP team discuss and analyse this case using the arc of Wormwood, the Netflix true-crime documentary re-enactment series from Academy Award-winning documentarian director Errol Morris.

Two-plus years in the making, this innovative narrative from the director who pioneered many true-crime techniques is narrated by Dr Frank Olson's now Harvard graduate clinical psychologist son, Eric. Eric was nine years old when his father's boss came to the house to tell to them that his father was dead - and he has been consumed with questions and the search for truth about what really happened to his father ever since.

#HisNameWasFrank

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to Real Crime Profile ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.
0:08.0	What were you told at the time of your father's death?
0:12.0	I was told that your father has had an accident.
0:21.0	But that was the cover story.
0:31.0	The story of my father, Frank Olsen, was an Army Scientist.
0:41.0	His research group had a relationship with the FIA.
0:46.0	They take him to New York Tuesday morning, early Saturday morning he's dead.
0:50.0	What was my father doing? What was the CIA doing?
0:54.0	What happened there?
0:57.0	Hello and welcome to Real Crime Profile.
0:59.0	This is your host Jim Clemente, former New York City prosecutor, retired FBI profiler,
1:04.0	and writer-producer on CBS's Criminal Minds.
1:07.0	And with me today in the studio...
1:09.0	Laura Richards, former New Scotland Yard Criminal Behavior analyst, founder of Paladin National Stalking Advocacy Service
1:15.0	and also co-exec to producer and co-creator of the case of with Jim Clemente.
1:21.0	And I am Lisa Zambetti, the casting director for CBS's Criminal Minds, where Jim Clemente is my colleague.
1:27.0	Well we're all really happy to be here today with a brand new topic, which is an amazing series on Netflix called Warmwood.
1:37.0	If you haven't seen it, please go see it.
1:40.0	There are six episodes we're going to cover three of them today, and this is a benchmark in how docu-series should be made.
1:50.0	When you look at this, I mean visually, the feel and the mood of this series is just amazing.
1:56.0	This really brings you back to 1953 when the events that it describes happened.
2:02.0	And it's done in such an amazingly stylistic way.
	...

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