SXSW film tracks cold case to confession

Not long after documentary filmmaker Rachel Mason began looking into the gruesome 1990 cold-case murder of gay porn actor Bill Newton in Hollywood, Newton’s former boyfriend, Marc Rabins, showed her a gay newspaper from the time, full of obituaries.

- By KEVIN RECTOR

There was Newton's young, handsome face, but also the faces of other young men, all of whom had died of AIDS.

“AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, murder,” Mason said in a recent interview with The Times. “I was so disgusted. Like, no, you can’t have a murder in this sea of people already dying — that’s not right, not fair. We can’t let this go.”

And she didn't.

Instead, Mason helped convene a team of amateur sleuths to doggedly investigate the case, and in a stunning twist perfect for the true-crime documentary she was filming all along the way, helped lead Los Angeles police detectives to a new suspect — who confessed to killing Newton, who went by “Billy London” in films, before his head and feet were found in a dumpster.

“It’s pretty astounding,” Mason said. Others clearly agree.

On Wednesday, organizers of the SXSW Film and TV Festival announced that Mason's documentary — “My Brother's Killer” and featuring a chilling on-camera interview with the confessed killer — will have its world premiere at SXSW in March.

“The unsolved murder of Billy London, a gay adult film performer brutally killed in West Hollywood, was an urban legend for 33 years. A documentary intended to honor his life took an unexpected turn when members of the community joined forces to uncover overlooked clues, and seek a resolution to the mystery of who killed him,” the festival announcement teased.

“Drawing on a rare trove of VHS and personal footage,” the announcement added, “the film reveals a chilling overlap between the victim and some of the suspects who were captured on camera in films made in the narrow window of Billy's death.”

Mason said she is thrilled with the festival's selection of her film, just as she was by The Times chronicling the sleuths cracking the case in a front-page story in 2023, which the film highlights.

Hits mainstream