In the early 1990s, the remains of Billy London, a gay man who had worked in the adult film industry, were found in a dumpster in West Hollywood. This grim end to a brilliant and vibrant life had long haunted his friends and family, as well as the larger gay community in West Hollywood. Documentary filmmaker Rachel Mason (Circus of Books) was a child at the time, but the murder and its effects still rattled her to her core. In My Brother’s Killer, Mason dives into London’s case, intending to solve it through her work on the project. While the project ultimately succeeds in this goal, thanks to the dedication of Mason and her research team, there is a tension between inherently unjust systems and the desire for progress in law enforcement that permeates the film.
Using a bounty of wonderful archival footage from the time period, as well as interviews with Billy’s family and colleagues, My Brother’s Killer does a poignant job of creating a true crime narrative that centers on Billy’s life. He was a poet and a beloved friend in his circles, touching everyone with his presence. We also learn about the gay porn industry and what life was like for gay men in West Hollywood in a post-AIDS era. Interviews with iconic gay adult filmmakers like Chi Chi LaRue and Phil St. John help paint a picture of just how fraught it was to be a queer person at the time. It was also, as St. John put it in a Q&A after the film, “a time of great growth and change.” The film additionally offers insights from those closest to the victim, like Billy’s former partner, Marc Rabins, and his sister, Micki Newton. It’s as much a testament to Billy’s life as it is a time capsule of a specific time and place.
These interviews and archival gathering lead to some pretty astounding revelations throughout the film, as we follow the leads uncovered by the filmmaking team, going through every theory and byway, twist by twist. One of the researchers, a retired social worker named Clark Williams, walks us through it all with a steadfast approach. This is perhaps where the documentary leans a bit into more conventional true crime fare, and solving the mystery begins to feel more like a puzzle than a real-life crime that devastated a community. The intentions here are good, and ultimately, what My Brother’s Killer is trying to do is noble in its own way, to make sure “justice for all” applies to even the most marginalized groups.
This is where the film enters some thorny territory, with the presence of LAPD Detective John Lamberti. Lamberti is the investigator who has been trying to solve Billy’s murder in an official capacity in recent years, and begins to work with Mason and company. To his credit, he is genuinely invested in pursuing justice for Billy and as determined as Mason and her team to get answers. Although the doc acknowledges the tension between the policy and queer community at the time, and juxtaposes it with Lamberti’s approach, it doesn’t really probe this tension in a meaningful way. Instead, it neatly suggests that policing has become more progressive since Billy’s murder and leaves it at that. It would have been nice for the documentary to sit in that tension a bit more and reckon with the complications of an inherently unjust carceral system trying to give Billy’s loved ones justice.
In the end, My Brother’s Killer tries to upend conventional true crime documentary storytelling, but only partially succeeds. While Billy’s loved ones got the answers they needed from Mason’s work, the neat resolution of the tension between systemic cruelty and marginalized people leaves more questions than answers.
