Overview

• Margaret Brown’s four-part docuseries premiered on HBO and HBO Max on August 3, 2025.
• The series integrates previously unseen footage from Claire Huie’s unfinished 2009 documentary with new interviews from the victims’ families and retired Austin police investigators.
• It scrutinizes alleged coercion by former detective Hector Polanco, whose conduct prompted false confessions and his removal from the Austin Police Department.
• The narrative revisits the overturned convictions of Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott, which were dismissed in 2009 after DNA testing pointed to an unknown suspect.
• The Austin Police Department has renewed DNA testing in hopes of identifying the case’s unidentified perpetrator, though no new suspects have been publicly named.