Joe Berlinger Developing Scripted Series Adaptation Of Grateful Dead True-Crime Podcast ‘Dead & Gone’ With Wheelhouse, Tenderfoot & Double Elvis

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: A podcast about the disappearance and murder of a number of Grateful Dead fans is the latest audio series to be adapted for television.Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker behind iconic rock doc Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and a slew of true-crime docuseries, has teamed up with Wheelhouse Entertainment to develop Dead and Gone as a scripted series.The podcast, a true crime music mystery set in the world of Jerry Garcia’s psychedelic rock band, comes from To Live and Die in LA producer Tenderfoot TV and Disgraceland producer Double Elvis.It tells the story of how the bodies of Mary Regina Gioia, 22, and Gregory Allen Kniffin, 18, two fans of the Grateful Dead, were found in the San Francisco Bay, beaten and shot to death in August 1986.Thirty-one-year-old Ralph International Thomas, a Black man, was arrested and sentenced to death for the murders.

He died in prison in 2014, after multiple unsuccessful appeals. Dead and Gone looks deeper into Thomas’ 1986 conviction, tracking down key witnesses in the present day and coming face to face with potential new suspects, shedding new light on the question of whether Thomas was, in fact, guilty of murder.The series will adapt season one of the show.

Season two of the audio series, which follows the same format and explores various cases from the 1980s through 2004, came out last month.Tenderfoot TV co-founder Payne Lindsay led the investigation featured in season one with Disgraceland host Jake Brennan served as co-host/narrator.

The podcast was originally set to investigate multiple cases, but took an unexpected turn to focus solely on one investigation when Lindsey discovered the case likely involved a man who was wrongfully convicted.Lindsay and Brennan will exec