Israel gets its own 'Making a Murderer' series
Israeli TV producers have turned a 10-year-old murder case into a TV show that has captivated Israelis, and worried them.
On Dec. 6, 2006, the body of Tair Rada, 13, was found in the bathroom of Qatzrin’s Nofey Golan school in northern Israel. Her body bore marks of severe violence. A construction worker who worked at the school at the time, Roman Zadorov, was convicted of the murder after he made a confession. (He later retracted that confession.) For 9½ years — most of which Zadarov spent behind bars — the Israeli public has continued thinking about this horrifying murder. In fact, many Israelis including Rada's mother, Ilana Rada, did not believe that Zadorov killed Rada.
This appears to be one of the reasons for the dizzying, perhaps unprecedented, success of the four-part documentary drama that deals with the murder — "Shadow of Truth" — which aired on Channel 8 in March. The show's episodes were downloaded more than half a million times on video on demand, and nearly 1 million people watched content on the channel’s Facebook page. Even State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan and President of the Supreme Court Miriam Naor responded publicly to the show.
“It’s a huge and rare success, certainly for a documentary drama,” a source at Channel 8 told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
Even before the TV show aired, the Facebook group "All the truth about the Tair Rada murder" numbered 200,000 members. Its members have talked for years about alternative theories, not to speak of conspiracies, regarding the murder. According to them, Zadorov, whose appeal was rejected by the high court, is innocent. “Many people have become obsessed with the topic, devoting many hours to it,” Ari Pines, the show's co-director, told Al-Monitor.
