Brother's Keeper

Released 1992
Directed by Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
Reviewed September 7, 2003

This is a very interesting documentary that wants to be salacious but delivers much more in spite of itself. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky spent nearly a year filming Delbert Ward and his brothers, Roscoe and Lyman, while Delbert was charged and tried for the murder of his older brother, Bill. At the time the Ward brothers were in their sixties, and they all lived in a tiny farmhouse that made the Unabomber's shack look good. It's debatable whether the brothers were officially mentally handicapped, but they were definitely challenged. They lived their entire lives on their New York farm mostly secluded from society but able to function well enough to manage the farm. The four of them clung to each other and lived hard quiet lives raising crops and livestock, and we never would have heard of them if someone in law enforcement hadn't decided to investigate Bill's death.

The way the Ward boys lived was shocking, and you can feel the two filmmakers grinning behind the camera as they filmed the tiny hovel which had electricity but lacked heating and running water. There's an early camera shot of a wall clock that had stopped around 5:30 in some far off year, and it lets us know time stopped in this household a very long time ago. The way the brothers lived was the reason this case gained national attention. Neighbors guessed the boys, as they were known, probably bathed once every six months, and I don't think they ever washed their clothes. This would be a problem under normal circumstances, but they raised cattle. I can't even imagine the smells in that house. The attention grabber, however, was the fact that they shared beds. The house was tiny, and they only had two beds so the boys doubled up. The neighbor who was their closest friend guessed they probably did that as kids and never realized they shouldn't do so as adults. It was the fact that these boys slept together in the same beds for sixty years that brought a swarm of media attention.

The film does a lot more than give us a snickering look at this strange set of brothers, though. It shows what was probably an abuse of power by the district attorney and how the justice system can railroad someone of low intelligence. It actually made me question whether people like Delbert Ward get a fair shake. We hear about men with IQ's of 80 on death row, and I have to wonder now if they were fairly prosecuted. I have no sympathy for them if they committed the crime, but now I can see how easy they are to manipulate into confessing. Delbert didn't understand a thing that was going on, but he trusted the police when they coaxed him into signing a document he couldn't read or understand. Then there was the pompous medical examiner who tried to make something out of nothing, and that became obvious on the witness stand. Worse yet was the ambitious prosecutor who was shameless in his attempts to win the case. He had Bill's pants tested and found some sperm on them, but he never said whose sperm it was. It could have very easily been from the cattle or from himself but he made the insinuation that it was an incestuous homosexual fight that led to Bill's death. At this point he was desperately reaching for some sort of evidence to convict Delbert, and he crossed the line. I won't spoil the outcome of the trial, but it's genuinely suspenseful because it could go either way.

The other thing this film does is show how a small community will pull together to protect its own. No one in this small town cared much for the bad smelling hermits, but once someone from the big city tried to push them around, they all came to their aid. They held benefits for them to raise money for Delbert's defense, helped them clean up, gave them rides to court and filled the courtroom with supporters. Having grown up in a small town, I can tell you small town folk mistrust big city folk, and they don't like to be pushed around.

Although the filmmakers obviously support the Ward brothers, they don't take a position on Delbert's guilt. They know it's possible Delbert euthanized Bill, and they leave that decision to us. Personally I don't think he did, but the film takes the right approach by letting us decide whether we agree with the jury's decision. I think this film is an important documentary, because it shows how people in the justice system can abuse their power and how ordinary citizens can stand up to them. Not only can we stand up for each other, but we have to.

Reviewed by Bill Alward
September 7, 2003
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