“There are strong public policy reasons for denying the general public unfettered access to investigation files, while the police are actively investigating a crime and continuing to collect new evidence and pursue new leads,” Klau wrote in his decision. ![]() Klau reviewed the case and found in August that the police department cannot use the mere “theoretical possibility” of a future law enforcement action to keep the investigative files secret but conceded there is little precedent for how investigators or the FOIC should determine what constitutes such a future action. ![]() In late December, Niemeyer filed another complaint with the FOIC over the missing records, and the department responded by appealing the commission’s original order to release any of the documents in the first place. Weeks of back-and-forth ensued as the show premiered on HBO. A list of additional records submitted to the court includes surveillance video, recordings of specific voicemails, non-police tape-recorded conversations and copies of items seized from Barbara Hamburg’s bedroom safe. The department did turn over two full boxes of documents to Hamburg and Niemeyer in October 2020, but the filmmakers alerted investigators in early November that dozens of files were apparently missing from those records. The commission ruled in August 2020 that because the department could not identify any specific “prospective law enforcement action,” they had to turn the documents over to the filmmakers, court records show. A hearing was held in February 2020, where Detective Christopher Sudock testified on behalf of the department that the release could jeopardize a “prospective law enforcement action,” such as a search or arrest warrant, but could not identify any specific actions investigators had planned. The filmmakers appealed to the state’s Freedom of Information Commission, which reviews public records disputes. ![]() In 2019, Madison Hamburg and Niemeyer requested the department’s investigative files under the state’s public records law, but the department refused, claiming the case remains an open and ongoing investigation. The episodes also addressed skepticism about the police department’s initial investigations and even included surreptitious recordings of Madison Hamburg’s discussions with detectives at the department. The series examined the Hamburg family’s relationships in the wake of Barbara’s death and focused on suspicions both the police and family had about her husband and Madison’s father, Jeffrey Hamburg. The resulting documentary series was picked up by HBO, and the four-part “Murder on Middle Beach” premiered late last year. In 2016, he began to film a project reviewing the circumstances around his mother’s death, interviewing family members and pursuing information from the Madison Police Department about its investigation. Madison Hamburg, who was a teenager when his mother died, went on to study documentary filmmaking. This issue warrants appellate scrutiny.”īarbara Hamburg was found murdered outside her family’s Middle Beach Road home on March 3, 2010, but the case went cold and no one has ever been charged in connection with her death. “It is more than a reasonable possibility, pun intended, that the Connecticut Appellate or Supreme Court will review this decision. But the court has no doubt that this decision is not the last word on this issue, nor should it be,” Klau wrote in his conclusion. “The court has attempted to resolve a long unsettled question about the degree of certainty concerning a prospective law enforcement action that is required to withhold records. The case raises questions about exactly when a cold case is considered cold enough to release the investigative files publicly and likely is destined for much further debate by both the judiciary and general assembly, Klau reasoned. The fight over the records now heads to the Connecticut Appellate Court, while the long-cold investigation into the murder itself remains at a standstill even in the wake of the popular TV series. Judge Daniel Klau upheld the commission’s decision that the files must be turned over in a ruling of his own last month, but last week the police department appealed that decision, too. The police department initially provided two boxes of materials to the filmmakers late last year - which the pair said were incomplete - before the department reversed course and appealed the commission’s decision in Superior Court.
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