IR Interview: Sierra Barter & Skye Borgman For “The Truth About Jim” [Max] - Part I - video Dailymotion

The Inside Reel

Subject/Investigator Sierra Barter & Filmmaker Skye Borgman talk to The Inside Reel about path, following the details and interaction with family in regards to their new documentary film for Max: “The Truth About Jim”.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:02 I don't even know what to feel.

00:13 Do you think that your grandfather was involved?

00:17 It sounds nuts, but here's the reality.

00:19 Somebody's grandpa was the serial killer.

00:22 Was it mine?

00:23 I don't know.

00:25 But somebody's grandpa was.

00:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:30 The path, it's not an easy path to go down

00:34 for anybody on either side.

00:37 Can you sort of talk about your initial sort of--

00:41 you wanted to find out about your grandfather,

00:44 but you were also motivated by other things,

00:47 by your experiences, by your assault.

00:49 Can you sort of talk about that?

00:51 Because putting it on camera, approaching people,

00:53 approaching family, it's tricky.

00:57 Yeah, my experience with it and approach with it, I guess,

01:02 is that for me, it is difficult. But I

01:07 think that it gives me a sense of agency over my own story

01:11 as well, and also provides a platform for my family

01:15 to speak their truths, which have been, through time,

01:19 they've not been able to do.

01:20 So it's very tricky.

01:22 And it walks this fine line of being very, very traumatic

01:26 and difficult to go through, but at the same time,

01:29 simultaneously, very healing.

01:31 Because there is this kind of veil

01:35 that gets lifted on everything, the truth about who Jim was,

01:39 but also this ability to speak freely about who he was

01:43 and not hide that anymore.

01:44 So it's kind of like this duality of being--

01:48 it was really, really difficult, but also extremely--

01:51 a very beautiful experience at the same time.

01:53 Jim was something that I've never encountered before.

02:00 He was well-respected in the community.

02:04 He seemed like a really nice teacher.

02:06 There was a lot of people that still, to this day,

02:08 look up to him.

02:10 But it's far darker.

02:13 I'm just trying to figure out when I started thinking that he

02:17 killed people.

02:18 Before I jump over to Sky, Sierra,

02:20 I wanted to ask you, because we're

02:22 talking about that duality.

02:23 It's the logic versus the emotion, the details,

02:26 because it's all about those details.

02:28 But yet, you open yourself up to the camera

02:31 and are so vulnerable.

02:32 And it's about those balancing acts.

02:35 Can you sort of talk about that?

02:36 And then I'll go to Sky about capturing that and making sure

02:39 it was done in the right way.

02:41 Yeah, I think for me, to speak those truths to the camera,

02:46 I think it's something that I just felt like I had to do.

02:51 I think that I was in this space in my life.

02:54 And now I am still in that space where

02:56 I had healed enough to the point where I wanted to be

03:00 able to help other people.

03:01 And as soon as I started to kind of get into this story,

03:04 I would talk to friends or just people out.

03:07 And I would hear that this is an incredibly--

03:09 I mean, not the specific details.

03:11 But what I went through is a pretty common story for women,

03:14 unfortunately.

03:15 And so I felt that if I have the ability to share this

03:21 and I feel comfortable enough, then this

03:23 is something I should do.

03:24 Because you never know who might be a younger version of me

03:28 needing to see this, knowing that everything

03:30 is going to be OK and that there are people out there who've

03:34 been through it and can guide or offer support

03:37 for them in those spaces.

03:38 I'll also say there was never an agenda on Sierra's part.

03:41 There was never-- she never set out to prove

03:46 that Jim was a serial killer.

03:47 She really wanted to get out there and question and find out

03:51 the details of what was going on.

03:53 And so there was never that sort of motivation

03:56 to go out and say, he's the worst man on the planet.

03:58 But there was really this questioning

04:00 and this wanting to learn the full truth about Jim.

04:04 And that was really what was behind all of this

04:06 to try to heal them.

04:09 My step-grandfather was a man named Jim Mordecai.

04:13 My entire life, I have heard horror stories about him.

04:16 He beat us up.

04:17 He put us down.

04:19 He either was the most charming man you were ever going to meet

04:22 or he was your worst nightmare.

04:24 But it's also, I mean, the details as the series goes on.

04:27 I don't want to give away too much.

04:28 But the aspect of the coincidences,

04:31 the different details, the drives, the way he acted,

04:36 all these things down to the hair, the knives, everything.

04:40 Could you talk about that?

04:42 Because it has to be weaved very specifically.

04:44 But it's yet-- you could say, is he the Zodiac killer?

04:48 Is he the Sonoma Hitchhiker killer?

04:51 It's hard to say with everything going on.

04:54 And I love how you let the audience sort of make

04:57 their own determination.

04:58 Obviously, you're focused on it, Sierra.

05:01 But it's an interesting way to do a documentary that I really

05:04 haven't seen in too many ways.

05:06 Well, I think it's important to not--

05:10 look, we don't know the answer, right?

05:12 I mean, at the end of the day, we

05:14 could have constructed an answer because it's an entertainment

05:17 piece, if you want to call it that.

05:19 But we don't actually know the answers.

05:21 We know absolutely some facts about Jim Mordecai.

05:25 We know that he committed rape.

05:26 And we know that he committed rape on multiple people.

05:32 Do we have proof that he was the Zodiac or the Santa Rosa

05:34 Hitchhiker murderer?

05:35 No.

05:36 But there are a lot of details that connects him.

05:38 And so I think it's important to put the truth out there

05:41 in the storytelling as much as it

05:43 is what these families' perspectives are

05:46 and look at the possible connections that may be there.

05:50 Being sexually assaulted by your step-parent, who

05:52 happens to be a teacher, it just made me shut down.

05:57 He would say awful things.

05:58 I was terrified of him.

06:01 Now, that's why-- and I'll get into some of the family

06:03 members here.

06:04 But I mean, obviously, your mother, your grandmother,

06:07 seeing that dynamic and the masks your grandmother

06:11 had to wear to maybe survive, but then how your mother

06:14 protected you, but then how you were trying to talk to them.

06:18 Because I wasn't sure, were you doing some of the interviews

06:21 with your mom or with Sky?

06:23 How did that sort of work out?

06:25 Because you know certain things you can probably ask them.

06:28 But you also want to make sure that you're

06:30 getting the information that you need.

06:33 Yeah, I think we did kind of both of it.

06:36 There were interviews that Sky had,

06:38 and I also did interviews with them as well.

06:40 And I think it's a really--

06:43 those were difficult, those two, because I

06:46 get the privilege of seeing kind of both sides of the story,

06:50 because I come in in this very middle spot

06:52 in both of their lives.

06:53 And for both of them, they have this very dense history

06:59 that I was never privy to, because it all

07:01 happened before I was born.

07:03 So coming into it and being able to kind of like weed

07:07 through all of their different things,

07:09 but also coming, I think, always from a place of this

07:12 is out of love and all the love that they provided me,

07:15 both of them, and made sure that I could live

07:18 a very comfortable, safe life.

07:20 I mean, things happened to me, but in retrospect

07:23 in comparison to them, they really protected me from him.

07:27 And so it was really for me about coming in with that love

07:30 to heal what had happened and just get us all

07:34 to be back together again.

07:37 I remember my mom first mentioning

07:39 that she thought Jim could have been a murderer.

07:41 Maybe she wasn't just being my crazy mom.

07:43 Maybe this was based in some reality.

07:47 It would not shock me if Jim had murdered some women.

07:50 I actually probably would be shocked if he didn't do it.

07:53 But it also takes time.

07:55 And Sky, could you talk to that?

07:56 And I'll talk to you about that after, Sierra,

07:58 is the aspect of capturing this.

08:00 This is a multi-year approach.

08:04 There's probably so much footage that wasn't used.

08:06 But it's also about--

08:08 with documentaries, sometimes you

08:09 don't know where they're going to go.

08:11 Life has to happen.

08:13 And that's why something like what we see in Palm Springs

08:15 towards the end has that coda, that sort of epilogue,

08:20 so we can see that this was the point.

08:23 This was the point of doing this.

08:25 Could you talk about that, Sky, in terms of structure,

08:28 but then with you, Sierra, about the stamina needed?

08:31 Because it takes time and a lot of energy.

08:34 And obviously, you're under an immense amount of stress.

08:36 We see it.

08:38 And you keep going.

08:39 But you have to be focused to do that.

08:42 I know you were.

08:43 But if you could talk to that, Sky first and then Sierra.

08:47 Yeah, I mean, it was a--

08:49 I can't even remember exactly how long we were filming.

08:52 But I feel like it was over the course of about a year

08:55 from the first time that I met Sierra and her mom

09:00 until we finally wrapped.

09:02 And it was just-- we'd film kind of throughout.

09:04 And the whole time, we're going through essentially

09:09 a little bit of an investigation,

09:10 trying to find out details about how

09:12 Jim is related to both his Zodiac and the Santa Rosa

09:16 Hitchhiker murders.

09:17 But there's also just a lot of talking and healing

09:20 and breaking down on my part, not on anyone else's part.

09:24 But a lot of emotion and a lot of energy that goes into it.

09:28 And there's also a lot of family dynamics

09:30 that we were also sort of dealing

09:33 with throughout everything.

09:34 And people have good days.

09:35 People have bad days.

09:37 You get done with a long week of filming.

09:39 And you just don't want to do any more.

09:40 And there's a lot of that.

09:42 So having the time to go back and to let things sort of rest

09:47 is important with show cycles.

09:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]

09:51 Authorities say they have six of these homicides,

09:53 apparently all by the same mad killer.

09:55 The similarities are just too weird.

09:58 Does he resemble the person you might have seen?

10:01 Holy shit.

10:03 I need to know lots more.

10:04 [SCREAMS]

10:06 Oh my gosh.

10:08 That knife.

10:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]

10:12 [SCREAMS]

10:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]

10:20 (dramatic music)

10:22 [BLANK_AUDIO]

IR Interview: Sierra Barter & Skye Borgman For “The Truth About Jim” [Max] - Part I

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