Dear Zachary (2008): The First Six Minutes

My sister and I watched the most heart wrenching documentary I have ever seen, and we were both sobbing by the end. The film was released in 2008, and I couldn’t help but think; “How have we not seen this before?”

The documentary was entitled Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) directed by Kurt Kuenne, and the film was granted an incredible 8.5/10 on IMDb and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it earned a 10/10 in my heart because the story is unbelievable.

Spoilers ahead. Stop now, go watch it, and return for the synopsis!

I’m a frequent documentary watcher and I find true crime especially interesting. Dear Zachary (2008), I would venture to say, is my favorite true crime film because there is an element to the creation of the home-movie style documentary that stays with you even after it’s over.

The director, Kurt Kuenne, is the best friend of the film's victim, Andrew Bagby. Andrew was tragically shot five times in a park in Pennsylvania. He was only 28 years old. 

Throughout the documentary Kurt narrates every corner of his friend’s tragic story, explaining to the audience that he is making this film for his friend’s six-year-old son so that when he grows up, he can have something to watch to learn about his father.

It’s a love letter not only to Andrew, but to his son, Zachary, and Zachary’s grandparents who did their best to brace against the storm of tragedy that befell their family in November of 2001.

I could write for pages and pages about the creative structure of this documentary, and discuss how Kurt used humor, grief, and magnetic cut scenes and narrations to pay loving homage to his friend, but if you watch the film, I believe it should go without saying in order for you to experience the creativity for yourself.

My sister and I were thinking about our own friends and our deep love for our chosen family that we are incredibly lucky to know. Kurt explains through personal videos that Andrew was someone just like that. A light in everyone’s life that was an only child and was lucky enough to choose his own brothers. Of which, Andrew had many. Sweet cut scenes run through half a dozen friends who asked him to be their best man at their wedding.

The film also follows Kurt as he interviews most major family members ranging from locations like St. Louis all the way to the United Kingdom, narrating to Zachary about how special his father was, and showcasing how many lives he touched.

So, what happened to Andrew? Who shot him?

Angry tears are a different kind of cry.

Andrew was a medical student in Newfoundland and began dating a 40-year-old woman named Dr. Shirley Turner, who suspiciously finished residency but was unable to earn her proper credentials to practice. All of Andrew’s friends and family didn’t care for the situation, and thought it was odd when they got together.

When Andrew began working as a doctor in Pennsylvania, he found his purpose and broke up with Turner; a woman twice divorced with three other children, and later discovered to have threatened to kill one of her exes, did not take the news well.

She began to stalk Andrew.

One of Andrew’s colleagues, Dr. Clark Simpson told Andrew to stay away from her, and Andrew was growing increasingly more frustrated with her frequent calls and texts.

One evening, Andrew called Clark and told him he was going to meet Turner at a nearby park to convince her to return home to Iowa around 6:00pm and then he would head over to Clark’s afterwards around 7:30pm. Clark said in his interview that "you could always count on Andrew to be on time, he was never late."

Around 9:00pm, Andrew’s friends and family were already in a panic.

Turner had viciously sunk five bullets into Andrew’s chest, buttocks, and face during their private park meet-up.

Andrew’s parents, David and Kathleen, recounted the heartbreaking experience of identifying Andrew’s body at the scene.

Andrew, luckily, had told Clark where he was going and who he was meeting and the police jumped on the chase for Turner immediately. However, the justice system would fail Andrew’s family in a never-ending puzzle of hearings and legal hoops.

Turner fled to her home country of Canada and later revealed in a public press conference that she was pregnant with Andrew’s child.

David and Kathleen Bagby did everything in their power to arrange visitation once Andrew’s son, Zachary was born, since Turner was not sentenced at this point, but was charged with premeditated murder of Andrew Bagby and awaiting trial.

The judge, let me put her name in all caps to aid your memory…JUDGE GALE WELSH, allowed Turner to walk free, rationalizing to the court that the violent crime was not a concern to the community since her act was “specific in nature”. That decision would haunt Welsh for the rest of her life.

Visitations became more frequent between Turner and the Bagby’s. Turner would allow Zachary to stay over at his grandparent's, and soon, Turner became paranoid that Zachary enjoyed his time with his grandparents more than with his mother.

Perhaps children can sense these things. Even at only one year old.

My sister likes to bring up the interesting theory that children know the secrets of the universe, but then as they age, the memories of those secrets are lost.

If little Zachary could speak, would he tell the courts to take him away from Turner?

Kathleen and David continued to attempt to separate Zachary from his dangerous mother, but the courts would not listen.

Then, Kurt asks every friend and family member to recall where they were when they received the next crash of terrifying news.

Turner and Zachary were missing.

David and Kathleen had already been frantically calling Turner without response. Kurt includes the voice recording of David’s voicemail to Turner, and it makes the stomach attempt summersaults.

Kurt was still in the process of making the documentary for Zachary when tragedy reared its ugly head yet again when Zachary and Turner’s lifeless bodies were discovered at Manuels Beach in Canada.

Zachary’s mother had drugged him and thrown both of their bodies from the bay rocks.

I’m going to type that again.

His own mother drugged and drowned him.

Zachary was 13 months old.

The second half of the documentary feels void of any hope or silver linings as the narrator/director, Kurt, chokes up as he recalls the events. David Bagby, Zachary’s grandfather, makes a gut-wrenching testimony about the pain that Shirley Turner caused their family.

Now the secret was out. The entire first half of the film, as the audience member, you believe that Zachary is alive and will get to see this documentary about his father’s story when he is all grown up. I even told my sister not to google Zachary until the show was over to see if he was in medical school like his father Andrew.

Little did we know that monsters like Shirley Turner would not see the inside of a jail cell. The justice system failed the Bagby family and failed that little boy. The manner in which Kurt ties up the film is felt in every bone of your body. He dedicates the entire creation of his work to Andrew’s parents, Kathleen and David. The couple was strong through their son’s death but became suicidal when Zachary was taken from the world, and so Kurt had interviewed friend and family members acknowledging their love and admiration for the incredible humans who didn’t give up and continued to spread love though adversity.

Kathleen and David became activists, creating awards and charity events to rally change within the criminal justice system in hopes that one day those convicted of violent crimes would not be able to post bail until trial. This would have kept Zachary safe, and the judge responsible for setting Turner free conveniently was not available for comment in the film.

This documentary shocks the mind and breaks the heart.

I felt satisfied that Kurt, David, Kathleen and the rest of Zachary and David’s families were leading full lives and fostering the memory of their loved ones, but even with that knowledge, this film is something that will come up in conversation with my friends often due to its appalling nature.

Not only is it jaw dropping to know that the criminal justice system would make such a monumental mistake based on lazy rationalization, but that David Bagby seriously considered (he gave a detailed outline) murdering Turner himself just so he could get Zachary away from her. Would you do it?

A popular film by Joel Schumacher, A Time to Kill, approaches this question head on. The question being, is there an objectively right time to kill? The conclusion from that movie seems to say, yes. David Bagby would likely agree since he resolved to do the same as Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the 1996 thriller.

I also can’t help but wonder about Shirley Turner’s background. Was she diagnosed with a mental health disorder? How did her other kids feel about her parentage? Did they see her growing up?

The documentary mentions few details about her, since the film is meant to be a love letter to Andrew and Zachary, but the inquisitor in me is curious about the criminal mind.

Was Turner abused and therefore she became abusive? The audience learns she had two previous marriages and three children. They all lived with the fathers and Turner allegedly threatened to commit suicide on her ex-husband's front porch and threatened to kill him as well. Are these flags not red enough for the court of law?

Dr. Michelle Ward (Neuro-criminologist) on YouTube has a short video exploring the suggestion that Turner could have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Key symptoms of this illness include, but are not limited to, manipulative behavior, paranoia, and mood swings. Turner’s resolve to commit suicide and murder her own child and his father could be evidence to depressive conditions such as bipolar disorder as well. We will never know.

Fact or fiction, audiences want evil extinguished by the end of the story. Turner took the cowards way out and justice was never dealt. Yet, somehow, Kurt Kuenne delivers a message of hope at the end of the film. Kurt highlights the Dr. Andrew Bagby Award at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the website Dearzachary.com that accepts donations to “support student physicians pursuing his [Andrew’s] specialty of family practice” (Dearzachary.com) through the Dr. Andrew D. Bagby Family Medicine Scholarship. Not to mention that the incredible work of David and Kathleen Bagby paid off in December 2010 when Bill C-464 was passed into law that allowed judges in Canada to refuse bail “to people accused of serious crimes in the name of protecting their children ages 18 and younger” (KKulture, 2010).

There was so much to celebrate about both Zachary and Andrew’s lives, and I couldn’t help but notice the severe juxtaposition of Turner against the Bagby friends and family.

Humanity swings on a pendulum that changes height for each person as they are affected by their genetics and their environment over time. Are we all a tossup? Since we don’t choose our parents, is it so random what kind of person we will be?

I saw the hollow façade exhibited through the actions and words of Shirley Turner, a cold-blooded murderer and a deeply disturbed woman. On the other side I saw friends and family grieve an earth-shattering loss but stand strong together to bring light into the darkness created by the evils of man…or womankind.

It is so innately human that both inspiration and evil can exist in the same story, and it is heartbreaking but deeply revealing about the complexities of the human experience.

I will be showing this documentary to everyone I possibly can for two reasons. One, to add to the number of people who will remember Zachary and Andrew. And two, to share in the human experience of feeling love so strong that it finds the hope in tragedy.

Dear Zachary (2008) is available for free with Amazon Prime. If you haven’t seen it yet, regardless of the spoilers in this article, I highly recommend watching it with a movie partner you can hold onto through the whole thing.

References

Kate and David Bagby – Kulture. (April 19, 2010). KKulture. https://kkulture.wordpress.com/tag/kate-and-david-bagby/ 

https://dearzachary.com/