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”.
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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]