Another unreal, sick, shocking and tragic true crime documentary story comes to us, from where else but from America. “Girl in the Picture” by Skye Borgman begins with the mysterious death of a girl whose body was found on the side of the road near Oklahoma City in April 1990. The girl, believed to be 20-year-old stripper Tonya Hughes, is survived by a two-year-old son, Michael, and a much older husband, Clarence. But as soon as Tonya’s colleagues from the strip bar where she worked found a person in the phone book who they assumed might be her mother, she told them that Tonya had died when she was 18 months old.
The identity of the dead girl is only the first mystery in this gruesome documentary, whose plot stretches from the sixties of the last century until almost the present, when the true identity of the blonde-haired and blue-eyed girl from the photo and the fate of her son were finally revealed. “Girl in the Picture” is one of those documentaries that works as the most exciting thriller, and Borgman has managed to bring together countless other living witnesses of the time. Among them is the now quite old retired FBI agent from Oklahoma who investigated the kidnapping of Michael committed by his father four years later. But the story that hides behind what seems to be one of the ordinary violent deaths in America, of which there are probably thousands every year, hides incredible surprises and shocks.
Everything here is getting worse and worse, crazier and crazier, absolutely unreal and unimaginable and something like that is probably only possible in America. Even the later judgment of the person who will turn out to be responsible for all these atrocities and diseases will not be the end of the whole story, but will only open the door to new branches of the tragedy that has intrigued many in the meantime. As this is a common case in America, numerous investigative journalists, internet detectives and friends and acquaintances of the dead girl will continue to investigate the case and try to find answers to the questions. This disturbing and terrible story from the beginning will become more and more scary and creepy, but by the end everything will somehow connect and we will get the conclusion of this story.