The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story, directed by Philip Cairney, is a three-part HBO docuseries that goes into the brutal murder of Dorothy Lou Thompson in 1985, and what was uncovered when the cold case was reopened in 2004.
Opening Shot: A shot of a body wrapped in chains being thrown into the water.
The Gist: Dorothy Lou Thompson owned a pet cemetery in the tiny town of Toca in Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish. She inherited it from her mother, whom she lived with after an adult life full of abuse and drug and alcohol abuse. Thompson’s body was found in the Mississippi River, strangled and bound up with chains, two weeks after she disappeared from the Victorian mansion on the cemetery’s property.
Through interviews with Thompson’s neighbors, friends and law enforcement, including John Doran, the sheriff department detective who reopened the case, we hear about Thompson’s rough life, and how her mother started the cemetery. We also find out about how the land that the cemetery was built on was the site of the 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre, where dozens of formerly-enslaved Black people were murdered by mobs of white men. So the land was certainly cursed. But it seems like people have heard and maybe even seen a ghostly representative of Thompson haunting the area and seeking justice.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story has a similar vibe to other true-crime docuseries like Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel.
Our Take: Cairney does a good job of exploring the strangeness surrounding Thompson’s murder 41 years ago, but not just because it seemed that it was the brutal end to a very difficult life. But the strangeness also incorporates the cemetery itself, filled with memorial statues of beloved pets, which fell into disrepair after Thompson inherited it from her mother, then got destroyed in 2006 when Hurricane Katrina left St. Bernard Parish under 20 feet of flood water.
This story goes deeper than just a cold case that was hampered by Katrina destroying all of the evidence that had been kept from the initial investigation. The spiritual element is taken seriously, in that a witness that claims that they’ve communicated with Thompson’s restless spirit is questioned by the sheriff’s department. But what eventually comes out of the investigation, in which another witness came forward to say that they witnessed the murder, is even more evidence that the cemetery, as well as the town of Toca, has an extremely dark history. It’s those layers that make the investigation of this 41-year-old murder so intriguing to watch.
Parting Shot: Doran talks about the man who came forward claiming to have seen Thompson’s ghost.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story is effectively spooky and creepy, exploring a four-decade-old murder that revealed a whole lot more than just the story of a woman and her strange pet cemetery.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
