What began as an inquiry into a David vs Goliath contract and intellectual-property theft dispute ensnared one journalist in a massive web of intrigue involving political machinations, international espionage, and maybe even murder. American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders, a new documentary series directed by Zachary Treitz and produced by Duplass Brothers Productions with Stardust Frames Productions (who last teamed up for Wild Wild Country), untangles the arms of this conspiracy theory. When a photojournalist named Christian Hansen takes another look at the unfinished investigation, his search for answers sends him and Treitz zigzagging across the country in an attempt to track down the various entities involved in this mystery. It’s a mission that may put them at great personal risk — especially considering that Danny Casolaro, the journalist who originally pursued the story, was found dead under curious circumstances.
“It’s like a horror movie in some respects for me, getting sucked into a story like this,” Treitz tells Tudum of the documentary series. “What happened to Danny, what happened to me and Christian — there’s a cautionary tale there.”
Even so, Hansen is optimistic that American Conspiracy can spur viewers to participate in citizen journalism and learn the truth about the world we live in, for better or worse. “I hope that [the series] will inspire people to do real, heavy research and write [Freedom of Information Act requests] and really dive in if they want to know the answer to something,” he says. “What we did, it was a fascinating and fun process, very rewarding.”
Casolaro was a Virginia-based author and journalist who worked for Computer Age, a trade publication chronicling the ins and outs of the burgeoning software and computing industry. “Danny had been writing about the computer industry for about 10 years,” says Hansen in the series. “This was more or less a day job for him, but when an actually interesting computer story came along, he was in a really good position, because he had such a deep background.” It was one of Casolaro’s Computer Age colleagues that tipped him off about a developing story coming out of the nation’s capital. Casolaro, intrigued, agreed to look into it, but no one could have predicted that a report on an ongoing dispute between the Department of Justice and Bill Hamilton, the founder of a technology company called INSLAW, would lead him to the hidden underbelly of some of the shadiest stories of the 1980s.
“As Danny’s talking to Bill Hamilton, he starts looking into these powerful people connected to the Reagan administration and realizes there’s something much bigger going on than just a contract dispute,” Hansen explains in the doc. From spyware to money laundering to drug running to the Iran hostage crisis, Casolaro’s investigation led him to a series of bombshell discoveries that all seemed to be connected in some way. He began referring to this grand constellation of conspiracies as “the Octopus,” with a former high-ranking government official responsible for the revelations within each proverbial tentacle. He became obsessed with bringing the entirety of this story to light and dedicated all his time to unearthing as much information about it as he could.
American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders chronicles both Casolaro’s investigation as well as new discoveries uncovered by Hansen, who picked up where the late journalist left off. Hansen first learned of Casolaro’s work while working toward a degree in journalism. “I was writing a paper for class about the private prison industry,” Hansen recalls to Tudum, which piqued his curiosity in The Wackenhut Corporation, a former private-security firm with ties to the American intelligence community. “While researching the history of Wackenhut, I found an article in Spy magazine about Danny Casolaro. He was also looking into The Wackenhut Corporation. I read the article and I was fascinated by it.”
“[Christian and I] have known each other since middle school,” Treitz tells Tudum. “When Christian moved to New York City, I had just graduated from college, [and] I moved in with him for a few months.” Along with mutual friends, Treitz watched with trepidation as Hansen became engrossed in the story of the Octopus. “When [Christian] started working on this, he would tell his friends about what he’s looking at, and we would all say, ‘That’s cool. Oh, that’s interesting.’ And then, eventually, it became like, ‘Oh, man, still talking about this, huh?’ ‘Oh, that sounds really weird,’ ” he says. “There were times where I think everybody was a little worried about Christian, and we would try to intervene in small ways.”
Because Treitz was so familiar with the case, he knew that the prison release of a man named Michael Riconosciuto — one of Hansen and Casolaro’s main sources — was a momentous occasion. Hansen went to pick Riconosciuto up from prison, and Treitz came along to film their interaction, which became the beginning of a new documentary project. “We felt like we were picking up the torch from Danny,” Treitz says.
As Casolaro’s software investigation spiraled into something much more sinister, one of his key contacts was Riconosciuto, a brilliant computer programmer with alleged ties to extremist political movements. Riconosciuto had ties to the INSLAW story: He provided an affidavit testifying that he’d been tasked with reprogramming INSLAW’s software so that it could be used to spy on foreign governments. But that was just the beginning of his disclosures. Riconosciuto claimed to have knowledge of countless clandestine government operations, which he shared with Casolaro and, decades later, Hansen. “I like Michael. I think he’s an interesting guy, and I hope that we stay in touch,” Hansen tells Tudum. Though he quickly returns to prison, Riconosciuto is eventually released, and the documentary shows that he continues to provide Hansen with cryptic tips and tantalizing information.
In August 1991, Casolaro traveled to Martinsburg, West Virginia, to meet with an unknown source. On Aug. 10, he was found dead in the bathtub of his room at a Sheraton Hotel. It appeared as though Casolaro had committed suicide, and the authorities reached out to his family to notify them of his death. In the weeks leading up to this trip, however, Casolaro had warned his brother that if something unexpectedly unfortunate were to happen to him, he should know that it wasn’t an accident. Those who were aware of the investigative work he’d been engaged with before his death began to wonder if perhaps he’d been killed by someone to silence him and bring his work to an end.
Watch American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders now.
