If you’ve seen HBO’s new true-crime docuseries Mind Over Murder about the 1985 murder of 68-year-old Beatrice, Nebraska grandmother Helen Wilson, you may be wondering what became of the apartment where she was murdered.
Yes, it is still standing. Director Nanfu Wang visited Apartment 4 at 212 N. 6th Street in Beatrice, Nebraska while making the six-part docuseries about the wrongful convictions of Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Debra Shelden, James Dean, and Kathy Gonzalez — a group of former Beatrice residents who have come to be known as the Beatrice Six. The story of how they were convicted of Helen Wilson’s murder and exonerated 20 years later when DNA evidence revealed the true assailant to be Bruce Allen Smith is at the heart of Mind Over Murder.
But for any true-crime fans hoping to get a glimpse of the former crime scene, Wang says Wilson’s No. 4 apartment looks nothing like it did 37 years ago when Helen Wilson lived there.
“I visited now, at present day, and went in a few times to see it. It’s very bare now,” Wang said. “The apartment, when I last visited, had I think three men from probably very low income or no income [living] there. There was no furniture. There was a bare mattress on the ground — there was nothing.”
The outside of the building looks almost exactly the same as it did at the time of the murder — you can see its modest brick facade on Google Maps Street View. But any trace of Helen Wilson’s grandmotherly charm is surely gone.
“It doesn’t resemble anything from the pictures of her apartment anymore, because she decorated it so nicely. But right now it’s just a white wall and nothing,” Wang said. “You can still make it out — okay, this is the kitchen, this is the living room, this is the bedroom. But besides that layout, nothing else resembles when she was living there.”
Mind Over Murder is now streaming on HBO.
Main Image: Helen Wilson’s apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska pictured in Mind Over Murder courtesy of HBO.
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