The True Story Of Black Bird Explained

The Black Bird true story follows one man’s attempt to uncover evil, yet the show doesn’t cover all the details of the amazing story. The six-episode mini-series follows the story of Jimmy Keene and the serial killer Larry Hall in a faithful adaptation of Keene and journalist Hillel Levin’s memoir In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption. The show’s twists and turns may seem unbelievable, but the real-life events that inspired Black Bird happened more than 20 years ago and involved a serial killer who is still alive today.

Taron Egerton stars in Black Bird as James Keene, a high school football player sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegal gun possession and drug dealing. He’s joined in Black Bird by the mysterious and unsettling alleged serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser). All the Black Bird characters are real, including Jake McLaughlin’s Gary Hall, Larry’s twin brother; Greg Kinnear’s relentless FBI agent Brian Miller, and Ray Liotta’s final on-screen appearance as Keene’s father, James “Big Jim” Keene. However, the true story may be even stranger than the miniseries.

The True Story Of Black Bird

The Real Larry Hall Was A Serial Liar

Black Bird’s true story is stranger than fiction. In 1995, Larry Hall was sent to USMCFP Springfield for kidnapping Jessica Roach, a 15-year-old girl who went missing in 1993. The conviction was based on Hall’s original confession to the murder, despite his later attempts to recant it. This would be somewhat of a trend for Larry Hall, who continued to frustrate the FBI with fake stories and multiple confessions he went back on. The Apple TV+ series captured some of this, including how another member of the Hall family helped bring him to justice.

Larry Hall was born in Wabash, Indiana, and as Black Bird correctly showed, has a twin — Gary Hall, played by Jake McLaughlin. Larry Hall’s brother Gary Hall was the “normal” one, and although he originally defended his brother, Gary Hall eventually helped the FBI draw confessions out of his twin sibling. Black Bird was 100% correct with its portrayal of this, despite how much it seems like a twist of fate created for a movie narrative.

The similarities between Black Bird and the true story don’t end there. Despite being sent to prison for the kidnap of Roach, the FBI believed Larry Hall was a serial killer who had murdered many more young women and was determined to get him to confess and keep him behind bars. To do that, the FBI really did decide to recruit a disgraced ex-football star to befriend Hall in prison.

The deal offered to James Keene in Black Bird is depicted without making many alterations, as far-fetched an idea as it sounds — which is probably why the real events of Black Bird made for such a compelling miniseries.

James Keene Was Offered A Shorter Sentence For Befriending Larry Hall

In real life, Jimmy Keene was a promising young football star and the son of a police officer. He fell from grace after being caught up in a huge drug bust in the ’90s called Operation Snowplow. Keene was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges relating to drug trafficking and conspiracy [via Daily Journal and CNN]. The FBI approached Keene and, in 1998, gave him a choice: serve his full sentence or try to befriend the alleged serial killer — Larry Hall — in a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane.

If he could successfully befriend Hall, he would be offered his freedom. James Keene chose the second option. Black Bird is an adaptation of Jimmy Keene’s many months of gaining Larry Hall’s trust. The real James Keene was somewhat successful on two counts. Firstly, Larry Hall confessed to James Keene about the murder of Jessica Roach, with Hall revealing details only the FBI and the killer would know.

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Secondly, Keene found Larry Hall with a map identifying several locations. Like the Black Bird character, the real-life FBI informant surmised the map led to additional bodies. Unfortunately, it came to nothing, as Keene confronted Hall and was thrown into solitary confinement. The FBI never got his message, and after his release from solitary, the map was gone.

Was Larry Hall Ever Convicted For Murder?

Larry Hall Was Found Guilty And Sentenced To Life Without Parole

Despite recanting his confession for the murder of Jessica Roach in both Black Bird and in real life and appealing his initial sentence, Larry Hall’s story was too accurate. Larry Hall went on to be found guilty and given life without parole. However, he wasn’t convicted of murder — only kidnapping. The fact that the kidnapping led to death is the only reason Larry Hall’s sentence ended up being life without parole.

Larry Hall is now 59 and serving his sentence in Butner, North Carolina. In the years following his interaction with James Keene, Hall confessed to several other murders, including that of Tricia Reitler. However, he has also recanted every single one of his confessions, and it remains a mystery to this day how many people Larry Hall killed. The FBI has estimated that there could be as many as 40 young women, an element of the Black Bird true story that wasn’t delved into much by the show.

How Long Was The Real James Keene In Prison?

James Keane Was Released Overr Eight Years Early

Despite Taron Egerton’s Keene and the real James Keene being technically unsuccessful in drawing any further confessions out of Larry Hall, he was still given his freedom after his time in USMCFP Springfield. The real James Keen passed a polygraph test that confirmed he truly did befriend Larry Hall and tried to elicit information from him. Jimmy Keene served around 17 months of his 120-month sentence, as per Daily Journal.

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The James Keenearc included a tragic turn from his true story too. In the show and in real life, Keene’s father was dying while Keene was in prison, and it was one of the reasons Keene took the risk of heading into a maximum-security prison. After being released as a free man, Keene spent five years with “Big Jim” before he passed away. He went on to write his memoirs with the help of a journalist, and the subsequent story has now been adapted into the critically acclaimed Black Bird.

What Black Bird Leaves Out About The True Story

Mostly Subplots & Side Characters Had Their Stories Changed

Black Bird was incredibly accurate and retold the story of Larry Hall and James Keene without many changes. However, the miniseries omitted a few details from the real events. While Black Bird explores some of Larry Hall’s upbringing, such as that he and his brother regularly helped their father at his job as a grave digger, some key details about the serial killer’s early years weren’t included. There’s good reason, though, as these details are much less certain, and covering them would require a creative license that could have detracted from the authentic feel of Black Bird.

Firstly, it’s reported that Larry was suspected of multiple crimes in his youth, including vandalism and arson, as well as smaller offenses. It’s also believed that an 18-year-old Larry could be responsible for the disappearance of two girls in Michigan when he was 18. However, while he was a suspect, his involvement was never proven. Larry Hall was only ever convicted for the murder of Jessica Roach, though authorities believe he could have been involved in many more homicides – and it’s these possible crimes that Black Bird doesn’t touch on much.

Playing Larry Hall Was Intense For Paul Walter Hauser

The Actor Chose To Take A Break From Darker Roles After This

While Paul Walter Hauser does enjoy the true crime genre, after the experience of playing the serial killer the actor has considered taking a break from taking on darker roles. In an interview (via The A.V. Club), Hauser discussed exactly what went into portraying a serial killer in the Black Bird show true story, and it didn’t sound like an easy time.

According to Hauser, he tried to create his own character in Hall, drawing from people he’s met that fit some of Hall’s characteristics such as being socially awkward. In addition, the actor makes an effort to get to know his co-stars off the set, such as Taron Egerton, as he feels it leads to a better performance in the end. When asked what it was like to switch back and forth between filming as the serial killer in Black Bird and going home to regular life, Paul Walter Hauser had this to say:

I thought, “I’m going to shed Larry the second I get off the set.” But if you ask the people who were around me, they might tell you a different story and that it had a negative effect on me. I was walking around with a bit of a dark cloud on my head. While doing the show, I was in a dark personal state too. I actually got sober while filming it
.
I’m very proud of
Black Bird
, but I don’t think I’d play such a dark character again anytime soon unless it were in a superhero movie, where the villains can be cartoonish.

Why Producer Dennis Lehane Adapted The Black Bird True Story Into A Miniseries

The Black Bird true story and what happened to the real James Keene and Larry Hall makes for compelling viewing in the miniseries, but it’s fair to point out that most true crime cases do. However, the creative mind behind Black Bird, producer, and crime writer Dennis Lehane, has offered some fascinating insight into why the FBI’s attempts to get a confession for the murder of Jessica Roach stood out to him as fit for dramatization.

Speaking to NPR in 2022, Lehane was open about what drew him to the Black Bird true story in the first place — and why he was initially hesitant to make it into a show.

“I started to realize, oh, my God, this is a really interesting story about where all men fall on the misogyny line. If I can make this show about sort of weaponization of the male gaze, then I’ll do it”

Lehane explained when asked about why he agreed to turn the true story of James Keene and Larry Hall into Black Bird. For the producer, it was a chance to create a vehicle to expose the tragedy of femicide which was, clearly, the pull.

His comment came after explaining why he almost turned down Black Bird too, as he felt the true story was far darker than what he envisioned his next project at the time being. “I didn’t want to do it. I was so sick of darkness. I’d just done three Stephen King projects. And then I was like, prison? I like prison. And it’s all dudes. I don’t like things with all dudes.

Did The Changes Made Help Or Hurt The Story?

The Small Changes Helped Keep The Focus Narrowed

Since Black Bird kept the main story of James Keene and Larry Hall intact with very few inaccuracies, it allowed the miniseries to play out as both an entertaining and factual biopic. However, the changes that it did make mostly helped the story in the long run. It was important to keep this story focused on Keene and Hall’s relationship because that drove the plot and storylines forward. Going too much into either character’s past would detract from the drama.

Leaving out much of Hall’s upbringing was important, as it wasn’t necessary to pile onto what brought him to this point. The small points from his past would have required too much of a fictional retelling since all those past moments are mostly hearsay and not based on what really happened in this particular story. While Larry was suspected of many smaller crimes as a young man, it was better not to go into too much detail since this was about the suspected murders and not about vandalism or arson.

What made Black Bird so successful (98% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a high 95% audience Popcornmeter score) is the focus on Keene and Hall, and the dangers the former football star faced when dealing with this very dangerous inmate. By keeping the focus narrowed, the Apple TV+ series was able to tell an intense story without bogging itself down in the past too much.

Sources: Daily Journal, CNN

Inspired by the true story of convicted serial killer Larry Hall, Black Bird is an Apple TV+ drama series that follows a wealthy young named James Keene Jr., who finds himself imprisoned after being convicted on drugs and weapons charges. Fortunately for James, the FBI offers him an early out – if he can get Larry to sign a confession by befriending him in prison, his sentence will be commuted. 

Release Date

July 8, 2022

Seasons

1

Showrunner

Dennis Lehane