Review of Cropsey (2010) by Samual G — 19 Jun 2012

Over the decades, Staten Island goes through a multitude of changes from "former dumping ground" to respectable urban enclave, especially after the Verrazano Narrows Bridge opens in 1964 which eases access to the rest of the other boroughs of New York City.

With their thought-provoking and creepy documentary, "Cropsey," Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio turn to their native Staten Island for a disturbing true crime story that of course begins with Geraldo Rivera. Even after his damning expose of the Willowbrook State School in 1972, it still takes the state 10 years to close it. And that is not the end of it because it becomes the locus of any number of urban legends and actual homeless people living in and around the deserted grounds. Then, in 1987, 7-year old Jennifer Schweiger disappears and is found murdered nearby. Andre Rand, a former worker at Willowbrook, is convicted of kidnapping, but not murder. Zeman and Brancaccio have their doubts, especially about the evidence that is primarily circumstantial which may have caused the jury to convict an unstable man who fit the bill more than anything else. Many years later and a few years before he is eligible for parole, Rand is on trial again, this time for the kidnapping of Holly Ann Hughes, one of seven other Staten Island children who went missing over the years. Eyewitnesses again place him at the scene of the crime but did they really see what they thought they saw? That's not to mention the host of theories that come up, some more plausible than others. The filmmakers make it a point to talk to as many people involved as possible and take the extraordinary stance of leaving it up to the viewers to make up their own mind.