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A commercial from the 1970s shows how the airline advertised the attractiveness of its flight attendants. For young women from conservative Texas like Wadle, the job was nevertheless a liberation. It promised independence and freedom from social constraints.
Image: ZDF/Flicker Productions 2023
A serial killer was up to mischief in the USA in the 1970s - but was it really just one? A new ZDF documentary reconstructs the cases and casts doubt on the conviction of Jonathan Reed.
The 70s and 80s were a time of free love - and serial murders. One of the most shocking began in 1978 with the death of stewardess Jeannie Wadle.
In the four-part series "The Stewardess Murders", ZDF tells the story of the deceased and her murderer.
According to John Nance, a former pilot, the residential complexes where mainly young flight attendants lived were known as the "Stew Zoo". They are the scene of one of the most shocking murder series in the USA. But it remains unclear whether this is really the series of a murderer. Under the title "The Stewardess Murders", filmmaker Karen Hoy sets out in search of answers.
ZDF will show the four-part series for the first time in German on February 21, from 01:15 a.m., linear and from Saturday, February 15, in the ZDF media library.
The first victim in this series is 26-year-old Jeannie Wadle, a flight attendant, then still a "stewardess", with the airline Braniff.
On November 1, 1978, she was sought out, raped and strangled by a stranger in her apartment in a "stew zoo" in Dallas. The fugitive murderer, Jonathan Reed, was caught a few weeks later during another rape, brought to court and sentenced to death. But another murder casts doubt on Reed's guilt.
These doubts led documentary filmmaker Karen Hoy to Reed in prison to interview the alleged murderer. To this day, he pleads his innocence in the Wadle case. The series is not only a true crime horror, but also a crime thriller and social criticism.
Nance's "Stew Zoo" already hints at this, and investigator Tara Owens puts it in a nutshell: "These brutal murders of women who were independent, earning money and leading their own lives say a lot about the extent of misogyny in society."
Because what "The Stewardess Murders" also shows is the social situation that made these murders possible. In the conservative Texas of the 1970s, working as a flight attendant for the modern airline Braniff was a liberation from the conservative everyday life. Braniff set new standards in terms of glamor and service and advertised aggressively with attractive young women in well-designed uniforms. "We believe that stewardesses should also look like women," says one of the commercials. A form of sexualization that is hardly conceivable today.
Investigator Cliff Carpenter said of the airline apartment complexes that the flight attendants were at the mercy of stalkers and violent criminals like "a goat on a stake". And so it was. In addition to Jeannie Wadle, three other flight attendants were raped and strangled.
The 70s and 80s were not only a time of social change and free love, but also a time of crime, especially in Dallas, Texas.
Radio reporter Richard Rays remembers the true crime wave of the time and the demands from the program management: "The more blood, the higher the ratings."
For him, the murders of the flight attendants, "a story full of abysses and monsters", were the sad climax of this period. Even "The Stewardess Murders" does not spare the harsh details of the murders in true crime style, but fortunately takes itself seriously as a documentary by not omitting the complexities of the cases and their social background.
All four parts of "The Stewardess Murders", each 45 minutes long, can be seen on ZDF on February 21 from 01.15 a.m. and will be available in the ZDF media library from February 15.
