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00:00Al Adamson was a film director. He wasn't famous, and he wasn't award-winning.
00:07He directed a string of schlocky, drive-in horror movies.
00:10Blood of ghastly horror.
00:12Movies that ranged from the ridiculous...
00:14Five bloody graves.
00:16...to the really ridiculous.
00:18Aurora of the blood monster.
00:21Hey, that's a great film.
00:24Adamson and his films would have faded into movie obscurity
00:28if it weren't for a shocking, macabre murder.
00:31On August 3rd, 1995, police officers discovered Adamson's body
00:36at his California desert home.
00:38It was a scene more ghoulish than any of the filmmaker's most grisly movies.
00:43He was wrapped like a mummy and buried under the floor of the house.
00:47In the coming hour, we will examine the bizarre and mysterious murder of Al Adamson,
00:54the Hollywood director known as the King of Schlock.
00:57A filmmaker who shocked and amused drive-in audiences with outrageous monsters.
01:02Rebellious bikers.
01:04Busty babes.
01:06And even the King of Chicken, Colonel Sanders.
01:09Isn't that the most wonderful chicken you ever ate?
01:12We will chronicle the director's rise to fame in the wacky world of B-movies.
01:17The M.O. with Al Adamson was get the girl naked, get the action, violence on the screen,
01:22worry about the story later.
01:24We will learn about the quiet man behind the camera
01:27and the only woman he ever loved, his leading lady, the freak-out girl.
01:33She was one of the first actresses I personally fell in love with, definitely.
01:37We will trace Al Adamson's final days
01:40and uncover the strange set of events that led to his tragic death.
01:45His mind was like somewhere else.
01:49Like he'd left the planet or something.
01:52We will take you inside a riveting murder investigation,
01:55reveal the man police suspect committed the brutal crime,
01:59and bring you the final act in this real-life chiller.
02:03This is a story about a man who found fame and fortune
02:07in a make-believe world of blood and gore
02:10and death waiting in a shallow grave.
02:13Al Adamson, Murder of a B-Movie King.
02:17The E! True Hollywood Story.
02:19All right, cut it. That's a wrap.
02:22Cut it.
02:37On August 2, 1995, on a blistering afternoon,
02:41police officers, acting on a tip,
02:44arrived at the home of director Al Adamson in Indio, California,
02:48a small desert town outside of Palm Springs.
02:51What they discovered was shocking.
02:54The 65-year-old filmmaker had been savagely murdered
02:58and entombed in concrete where his favorite jacuzzi once sat.
03:02The director's untimely death was an ironic ending
03:06for a man who devoted his life
03:08to entertaining movie fans with blood and violence.
03:12Al Adamson.
03:13I love films.
03:14As long as I can remember back,
03:16that's the only thing I wanted to do was be around films.
03:20Born on July 25, 1929,
03:23movie-making was in Al Adamson's blood.
03:26His father was Victor Adamson,
03:28an actor and director who went by the stage name Denver Dixon.
03:32Al's mother was Dolores Faith, a silent-screen actress.
03:36Growing up in Hollywood in the 1930s,
03:39Al spent much of his childhood in dark theaters watching movies.
03:43I really wanted to be a dancer.
03:45I really wanted to be in the musicals.
03:47I wanted to sing and dance, all those things.
03:50Unfortunately, I didn't have any rhythm.
03:55Still, Al was determined to find his place in Hollywood.
03:59Friend Lucky Brown.
04:00I think having been around when his father was producing films
04:04and directing, and he saw the creative side of it,
04:07I think that's what he wanted to do,
04:09and I think that was the big influence on him.
04:12In 1955, after a stint in the Navy,
04:15the 26-year-old was eager to give the movies a try.
04:19I was better telling people what to do than being told what to do,
04:23so I ended up being a director.
04:25Under his father's guidance,
04:27Al starred in and directed his first film, Halfway to Hell.
04:31The movie was a commercial flop,
04:33but Al learned an important lesson.
04:35You don't make pictures you can't sell.
04:37If you want to do a Western and they're not selling, don't do it.
04:40Al found out being a director is easier said than done.
04:44By the early 1960s, his film career wasn't going anywhere,
04:48and the struggling director was running a bar.
04:51Now listen here, girl.
04:53But in 1964, 35-year-old Adamson
04:56scraped together enough money to make his next film.
04:59Al produced and directed a bizarre crime thriller called Psycho A Go-Go.
05:05The director even had a small role.
05:08But the money was tight,
05:10and Al had to take extraordinary measures to make his payroll.
05:13Author David Cano.
05:15He says, oh, I have a paper route,
05:17and I went around the neighborhood and collected what everyone owed me,
05:20and that's how Psycho A Go-Go was financed, through a paper route.
05:23Despite Al's drive,
05:25the film remained in the editing room for years due to lack of funds.
05:28A lot of Al Adamson's films were made over bits and pieces over the years.
05:32He'd run out of money,
05:34try and find some way to get some more money and finish it.
05:37But in 1964, Al caught a break,
05:40and gained a partner, courtesy of his father.
05:43Victor Adamson introduced Al to Sam Sherman,
05:46a writer for Famous Monsters magazine,
05:48who was distributing Victor's latest film, The Scarlet Letter.
05:52Al and Sam hit it off and decided to join forces.
05:55As Al's producer,
05:57Sherman wasn't too impressed with the director's first idea for a film.
06:01It was originally called Feast of the Vampires,
06:04and these people were roasting these girls
06:06and supposedly bringing them out and serving dishes.
06:09I said, Al, you're out of your mind.
06:11He said, well, what do you suggest?
06:13I said, throw out the script and rewrite it,
06:15and we'll make it into something with Dracula.
06:17He came up with this script called Blood of Dracula's Castle,
06:21and I read the thing, I said, this is a moneymaker.
06:24In 1965, filming began on The Blood of Dracula's Castle.
06:28The movie's plot and budget were thin,
06:31but the picture had plenty of what audiences craved,
06:34vampires and blood.
06:36The film also had veteran screen actor John Carradine.
06:40In the late 70s and early 80s,
06:42I mean, you went to the love boat if your career was over.
06:45In the late 60s and early 70s, you made Al Adamson movies.
06:48Adamson worked hard, but the film was cursed.
06:51To help finance the picture,
06:53Al and Sam relied on a couple of silent partners
06:56who later lost the movie to the bank.
06:58The men never saw a dime.
07:00But Al and Sam did receive an important pointer from Al's father.
07:04My father's biggest advice was to keep control of your films,
07:09and he said the one thing, he said,
07:12if you don't have a way to distribute your films, you're in trouble.
07:15Adamson's father was right.
07:17Over the next few years, Al made a number of horror films.
07:21Without distribution, the movies languished on a shelf.
07:24We couldn't give them away or make an acceptable deal
07:27to both the backers and ourselves,
07:30and so we held them, planning to start a distribution company.
07:34In 1968, Al Adamson got lucky.
07:37ABC Network optioned a script he owned,
07:40a western called The Unavenged.
07:42Adamson was hired to direct,
07:44but once again, misfortune struck.
07:47Al was set to begin shooting in Spain,
07:49but at the last minute, the deal fell through.
07:52Spaniards couldn't come up with their end.
07:54ABC put up their half of the money here,
07:56but then the Spaniards couldn't come up.
07:58So I came back to New York, and I was broke.
08:00I was really broke. Didn't have a dime.
08:02In 1968, 39-year-old Al Adamson was penniless
08:05and living in New York City.
08:07Then, partner Sam Sherman came to the rescue.
08:10Sherman had some investors,
08:12men who were interested in making a low-budget graphic film
08:15that could turn a quick buck.
08:17All the investors needed was a script.
08:20Now, I was under pressure,
08:22so I went back home to a sleazy $10-a-night hotel room
08:25that I had in New York City,
08:27and I wrote Satan's Sadists in one night,
08:31and from that point on, I haven't looked back.
08:33I have never been broke again since that day.
08:37The result of Adamson's all-night writing binge
08:40was Satan's Sadists,
08:42an outrageous biker film that chronicled
08:44a gang of nasty hoodlums on a cold-blooded killing spree.
08:48Investors gave Al money to make the film.
08:51Adamson returned to California ready to go to work.
08:55The director cast Russ Tamblyn from West Side Story
08:58as his leading man.
09:00Al desperately needed to find a leading lady,
09:02a woman who could be vulnerable as well as tough.
09:05He found her by accident at a local Hollywood coffee shop.
09:09Producer Sam Sherman.
09:11Al came in, ordered lunch. She spilled coffee on him.
09:14The name of the accident-prone waitress was Regina Carroll,
09:18a former Las Vegas showgirl.
09:20Adamson fell head over heels for the 25-year-old blonde,
09:24cinematographer Gary Graver.
09:26Al nudged me, and he said,
09:28she's going to be the next Marilyn Monroe.
09:31Al cast Regina in Satan's Sadists
09:33as a mean motorcycle mama called The Freakout Girl.
09:37I do anything he wants me to.
09:40I even sleep with who he wants me to.
09:44Doesn't he know I dig him?
09:46I thought she would be right for a certain role in Satan's Sadists,
09:50and I read her for the part, then she got it,
09:55and the rest, as they say, is history.
09:59With his leading lady by his side, on screen and off,
10:02Al Adamson began filming his masterpiece in the fall of 1968.
10:07The schedule was grueling.
10:09Satan's Sadists, we shot right from the beginning to the end.
10:12We made it in two weeks.
10:14The film's budget was tight.
10:16There was no room for error or luxuries.
10:19Actor John Budd Cardos.
10:22This new era, you had to have the balls to go out and do this.
10:26You'd grab a dollar off of a tree and run.
10:28That's what it was.
10:30In May of 1969, after filming wrapped,
10:33Sam Sherman took Satan's Sadists on the road.
10:37The producer was determined to sell the picture to all the major drive-ins.
10:41I screened the film and blew these exhibitors out of their seats.
10:45They took out all the dates that were penciled in for everything else,
10:49and I came back with 500 play dates.
10:51Yes, that put us on the map immediately.
10:54Fans loved the film's leading lady, Regina Caron.
10:57Video critics Robert and Bruce Schaffner.
11:00She was one of the first actresses I personally fell in love with, definitely.
11:06You definitely want her to eat you up or something.
11:09Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:11With the success of Satan's Sadists,
11:14Al Adamson and Sam Sherman finally formed their own distribution company.
11:18Independent International was a product of my father,
11:21because he told us that if you're going to make films,
11:23you better have a way to go with them.
11:25Sam Sherman knew the way to go was on the drive-in movie circuit.
11:29The drive-ins dictated what they wanted.
11:32They wanted horror, motorcycle, a little bit of soft, sexy movie, this kind of thing.
11:37Actor and filmmaker Ross Hagan.
11:40These guys were very smart.
11:42Before you make a movie, they would make a poster.
11:45If the poster didn't work, don't make the movie.
11:47I came up with all these lurid campaigns,
11:50blood of this and horror of that and girls of that and all this sort of thing,
11:54and I had Al work with me to make these cookie-cutter films to suit that marketplace.
12:00By 1970, Sam Sherman knew the time was right to distribute some of Al's earlier films.
12:06Movies no one was interested in during the mid-1960s.
12:09Pictures such as Five Bloody Graves.
12:12See the horrible atrocity of women scalped to death.
12:16And Horror of the Blood Monsters.
12:18A ghastly journey into the weird world of the undead.
12:25We went from nothing to being a real organization overnight.
12:31It was a real organization, but it was run on a shoestring.
12:35To make ends meet, Al came up with some unusual gimmicks,
12:39including a unique bit of casting in the 1970 movie Hell's Bloody Devils.
12:44Colonel Sanders, I think at that time, wanted to act in some movies,
12:49and they got all the free chicken they could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three weeks straight.
12:58Isn't that the most wonderful chicken you ever ate?
13:02Several times, seriously, when we were working downtown at lunchtime,
13:06the guys would run to the corner to grab a hamburger or something
13:09just to get a break from the Kentucky Fried Chicken.
13:13Despite the low budgets and silly tricks,
13:16Adamson's movies grossed millions of dollars.
13:19Al's reputation as a director who could deliver was getting him offers from major networks.
13:24The 43-year-old filmmaker was set to leap into the mainstream.
13:32Coming up next, Al Adamson takes off with sex in the skies.
13:37Oh, I know what you want. There you are.
13:40And later, the director meets a real-life monster.
13:4741-year-old Al Adamson was committed to his work and his leading lady, Regina Carroll.
13:53The couple enjoyed each other's company.
13:56Producer Sam Sherman.
13:58If she were not cast in a film, she'd do wardrobe, she'd help something else, she'd be behind the scenes.
14:04Off the set, the couple led a quiet life.
14:07Nothing like Al's offbeat films.
14:10Friend Linda Sherman.
14:12She was a sweet, wonderful, warm person.
14:15You'd never think that this was the girl who got up there with all those scanty outfits and did her thing.
14:23While Al was content at home, he became restless at work.
14:27The director looked for his next project.
14:29In the low-budget film world, Al knew he had to stay one step ahead of the competition.
14:35How are we going to compete?
14:36Well, we've got to be crazier than they are, loonier than they are, put in everything.
14:41Make a horror picture, put motorcycle gangs in it too, put other things in it, do all kinds of crazy things.
14:48Who are you?
14:49I'm known as the Count of Darkness.
14:53The lord of the manor of Corfathia.
14:56Turn here.
14:58In 1970, Al began filming his next movie, Dracula vs. Frankenstein.
15:03The picture was a mix of monsters, bikers, showgirls and hippies.
15:07Coming up with a coherent story wasn't easy.
15:10Some of the stuff we shot just didn't work.
15:12It was one of those pictures that didn't work.
15:14And we just kept trying things and working things until we found a way that it meshed together and finally fell in place.
15:21With a tight budget and money running out, Al cast two unknowns as his leads.
15:26A stockbroker to play Dracula and a seven-foot-four accountant to play Frankenstein.
15:31He was bellyaching all the time.
15:33When's this going to be over?
15:34When are you going to get the makeup done?
15:35I said, what's your problem, John?
15:36He said, this is tax time and I'm an accountant.
15:39Dracula vs. Frankenstein became a cult classic.
15:42Al followed the success with another hit, the 1972 picture Angels, Wild Women.
15:48A movie where women rule and men pay.
15:52Video critics Robert and Bruce Schaffner.
15:54He was showing a different type of powerful woman that could be sensual and powerful at the same time.
16:00But a big part of the movie's success was Al's abundant use of partial nudity.
16:05You want to see some boobies?
16:08Go driving by a drive-in and up on the screen you see a huge pair of breasts up there staring at you.
16:14Quite a wonderful experience, especially when you're learning how to drive.
16:17While Al's pictures were not critical successes, TV executives took notice of the director's talent to manage a budget.
16:24In 1972, Al got the break he had been waiting for.
16:28A chance to work on a network television movie called Cry Rape.
16:32Lenny Freeman, who was the producer of Hawaii Five-0, was a friend of Al's, needed some help on Cry Rape, hired Al to produce it.
16:40And Al showed him all the tricks he had learned in making low-budget drive-in movies.
16:46Al impressed TV executives with his dollar-pinching skills.
16:50But the director realized he wasn't cut out for the big studios.
16:53He preferred being his own boss.
16:56We could have gotten him work at the majors and doing TV movies and TV series, and he flat refused.
17:04He said, I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for us.
17:08In 1972, everything seemed to be going Al's way.
17:12But that year, Al and Regina found themselves cast in their own true-life horror story.
17:1729-year-old Regina was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
17:21She had to undergo an immediate hysterectomy.
17:24Regina's brother, Carl Gelfand.
17:26I received a call there that Regina was in the hospital undergoing emergency surgery.
17:31And I drove right out there.
17:34She had, shortly before I got there, she had come out of emergency surgery.
17:39And they had removed a large encapsulated tumor.
17:45At the hospital, the director waited and prayed.
17:49Al would come to me and say, Linda, what can I do? He'd almost cry.
17:53Al was relieved when the doctors told him Regina's prognosis was good.
17:57Al Adamson vowed the couple would walk down the aisle as husband and wife.
18:02In 1972, Al and Regina married in a private ceremony in Los Angeles.
18:08But the couple's plan of starting a family was gone.
18:12They could never have their own children.
18:14And I guess they didn't prefer to do adopt, so they had dogs.
18:18Al said, the dogs are our children.
18:20As Regina regained her health, Al went back to work.
18:23In 1973, Sam found the team's next big hit.
18:27A titillating script called The Naughty Stewardesses.
18:31See, life to me is just one big orgasm.
18:35Fans were thrilled.
18:37We gave people what they wanted.
18:39Gave the horny kids what they wanted.
18:42According to co-star Marilyn Joy, Al also gave his actresses what they wanted.
18:48If the girl herself chose to play the part dumb, that was her choice.
18:53But his writing never made the female characters stupid.
18:56By 1970 standards, the picture was a box office hit.
19:00Naughty Stewardesses grossed more than $12 million.
19:04Author David Cano.
19:05I know that when they made The Naughty Stewardesses, they thought that was their crowning achievement.
19:10That was like Titanic or The Godfather for them.
19:15They were really scared to do a sequel because they were like, there's no way we can top this film.
19:19But they did.
19:20In 1975, the director wowed his fans with his follow-up movie, Blazing Stewardesses.
19:27Starring actress Yvonne DiCarlo from the 1960s TV series, The Munsters.
19:32Our motto is, you tease them, you please them, and I fleece them.
19:39Actor John Budd Cardos.
19:41He wasn't the type of guy that was trying to shoot for an Academy Award or any giant picture or anything like this.
19:48He enjoyed what he was doing, and at the time, not knowing that, he was becoming one of the kings of the independent.
19:56By 1976, Al Adamson and his partner Sam Sherman were big players in the world of low-budget drive-in films.
20:04That year, their company had 29 movies in distribution.
20:09Stay on top, Al kept an eye on the ever-changing market.
20:13During the mid-1970s, Adamson followed the movie industry's latest trend
20:17and directed a string of martial arts films starring African-American actors.
20:22Producer Sam Sherman.
20:24We started seeing an emerging audience for African-Americans wanting to see themselves reflected on the screen.
20:33We felt we should do that.
20:35By 1976, films like Murder Gang and Mean Mother were playing in drive-ins all over America.
20:44Al wasn't timid about testing racial boundaries, as in the 1976 film, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
20:51It isn't fair. Everyone should be equal. It shouldn't be the color barrier.
20:56Actor J.C. Wells.
20:58You had this beautiful blonde and a black dude, during that time, making love in the scene.
21:06That part was added, and that was something to provoke.
21:11He was into provocation.
21:14As the 1970s came to a close, Al Adamson and his partner Sam Sherman
21:19picked up on a new trend in the film industry, sexy fairy tales with music.
21:25Al's next picture was Cinderella 2000.
21:31Video critics Robert and Bruce Schaffner.
21:34That is the most insane disco space nudie movie I've ever seen.
21:39The 1977 film was based on the classic fairy tale of a beautiful girl looking for her prince charming.
21:45But Al and Sam added a few new twists.
21:48They set the film in the future, put in a lot of sex
21:52and introduced another storybook favorite.
21:55We know what you need, Snow White.
21:58He's breaking down the taboos of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
22:01When was the first time you could think of anybody even doing a Snow White
22:07in one of the dwarves in a sexual situation in anything?
22:11But Al wasn't too impressed with the final product.
22:14Number one, our sex wasn't sexy enough. It wasn't porno enough.
22:19Number two, our musical numbers were handicapped because of the fact we didn't have a lot of money.
22:25And it cost money, but the score is excellent.
22:34Al didn't let the setback of Cinderella 2000 upset him.
22:38The director started looking for his next project.
22:41Adamson wasn't bashful about borrowing ideas from hit movies.
22:46In 1978, after the success of the horror film Carrie,
22:50Al followed up with his own horror picture titled Nurse Sherry,
22:54about a nurse possessed by the devil.
22:57The last reel of Nurse Sherry is one of the most scary,
23:02most exciting reels that you'll ever find in any kind of a horror film.
23:07I mean, it is scary as hell.
23:09And it's good and it works.
23:11It makes up for all the rest of the picture that doesn't work so well.
23:15By the time Nurse Sherry was released in 1978,
23:18Al Adamson's career was starting to wind down.
23:21Condos and mini malls were slowly replacing drive-ins.
23:25And the major studios' high-velocity action films were tough competition for Al's low-budget pictures.
23:32The era of the drive-in movie theater was ending.
23:35There was no need to keep turning out the same churn for theaters that were going out of business.
23:41We didn't want to do it. It was just too risky.
23:44Adamson decided to get out of the movie business.
23:47In 1980, Al and his wife Regina left California
23:51and bought a second home in Utah where the couple ran a motel.
23:55Regina was a homemaker and Al became successful in real estate.
23:59In 1982, Al wanted to make some quick money to buy another piece of property.
24:05So, he returned to directing.
24:07Adamson tackled a new genre, a family picture called Carnival Magic.
24:12It was about a trained monkey, actually a chimp, who could drive cars and do things.
24:17I was amazed at how well that film was done.
24:20Really, Al had this monkey driving the car and doing tricks.
24:24The film wasn't a success.
24:26And neither was Al's next project, the 1984 movie, Lost.
24:31But the director had more important things on his mind.
24:34In 1985, Regina's cancer returned.
24:38Al retired from the movies for a second time
24:41and decided to work on taking care of his most prized possession.
24:45He said, if we can keep her alive another year,
24:50maybe medical science will advance another year.
24:53Medical science didn't advance fast enough.
24:56Regina Carroll contracted spinal meningitis
24:59and the treatment she endured was as painful as the disease.
25:03Regina's brother, Carl Gelfand.
25:05They had actually drilled a hole in her head
25:08to treat her spine directly with chemotherapy.
25:13You know, it was that drastic, that severe.
25:16You know, they pulled out all the stops.
25:18But even that did no good.
25:20You know, it was the last desperate attempt, but even that failed.
25:23On November 4, 1992, Regina Carroll died.
25:28She was 49 years old.
25:30The last words she said were, Al, or she probably said Albert.
25:35She always said, Albert, I love you.
25:37She expired.
25:39That was a heavy thing to put on his shoulders.
25:43Without Regina, Al was lost.
25:46It threw Al into a period of where I don't know where I'm going to go from here.
25:50And he kind of became a nomad at that point.
25:53In 1992, Al was living by himself in St. George, Utah.
25:59The director's brother, Ken Adamson, tried to console the grieving widower.
26:03He invited me to come up and live with him, and so I did,
26:06because I sold my house here and took all my stuff up there.
26:10And, oh, I used to cook for him, and we'd go look at properties together.
26:18Despite Ken's companionship, Al was lonely.
26:22In December of 1992, 63-year-old Al Adamson decided to answer an ad
26:27in the personal section of a Las Vegas newspaper.
26:31The ad stated, woman looking for help with show business career.
26:35They said, well, Al, you know, you don't know who this is.
26:39Well, she's all right.
26:41I said, well, okay, you know, whatever's going to make you happy.
26:46The ad was placed by 33-year-old Stevie Ashlock.
26:49Stevie was a roller skating waitress at the Las Vegas branch of the Hooters restaurant chain.
26:54Al spoke with Stevie on the phone and decided to visit her.
26:58He went down four or five times to Las Vegas, where she lived,
27:02and was, you know, they were going out to dinner
27:05and talking about whatever they were going to talk about.
27:09And then he came home one day, and he said,
27:13well, he says, I'm going to move to Las Vegas,
27:16and I'm going to, you know, shoot the dice,
27:19and I'm going to move in with this lady.
27:22In 1993, Al bought a home in Las Vegas, and Stevie moved in.
27:27I said, well, you know, aren't you doing a little too much for the lady?
27:31And he said, well, you know, I didn't do an awful lot for Gina,
27:35so I feel I should do it for this lady.
27:37Though Al lavished money on Stevie,
27:40the director cut corners when it came to the work on his Las Vegas home.
27:44In 1993, Al hired a non-union contractor named Fred Fulford,
27:49a down-and-out handyman with a minor police record.
27:52Filmmaker Chad Cisneros.
27:55Al thought Fred had had some problems in the past,
27:59but thought he was past them.
28:02By 1994, Al had a different problem on his mind.
28:06His May-December romance with Stevie was starting to crumble.
28:10He kept hoping it would get better.
28:13And obviously it didn't get any better.
28:16It got worse, and then finally they just both threw it in.
28:19In November of 1994, within two years of the couple's first date,
28:2435-year-old Stevie Ashlott filed a palimony suit,
28:28asking for nearly a million dollars.
28:31With the lawsuit brewing, Al decided to move to his home in Indio, California,
28:36a small town in the desert east of Palm Springs.
28:39The house was in desperate need of repairs.
28:42Contractor Fred Fulford joined Adamson in the desert.
28:46I guess he gave Al this song and dance that he had no place to live, no place to go.
28:50Al said, well, I need a lot of work done in this Indio place.
28:54Would you want to come down there and live down there and help fix it up?
28:59Ken Adamson was worried.
29:02Fred told me that he was in the business to kill people.
29:06So I tell my brother, he says, oh, Fred's just talking off the top of his head.
29:10Despite Ken's warning, Al offered Fred room and board at his home.
29:14The two men developed a friendship,
29:16and together they both joined a service for overseas brides.
29:19Somehow or another they got involved in something where they can get a wife
29:23and you can get married and live happily ever after.
29:27But Al's life wasn't a fairy tale.
29:30Stevie was still pursuing her palimony suit.
29:33Al appeared upset to actor J.C. Wells.
29:36His mind was like somewhere else,
29:40like he'd left the planet or something.
29:43In 1994, Adamson began shooting what would be his last film,
29:47a docudrama about UFOs called Beyond This Earth.
29:51It was something to take his mind off himself and come back to doing film.
29:56According to Al's old friend Lucky Brown,
29:59the project seemed to rejuvenate Adamson.
30:02He really was interested in it,
30:04and the thought of people being abducted by aliens and experimented on intrigued him.
30:11With his career back on track,
30:13the director tried once again to salvage his relationship with Stevie,
30:17despite the ongoing lawsuit.
30:19Cinematographer Tom Raone.
30:22Al was very devoted to her.
30:24He's calling her constantly when we were going in between locations.
30:28But Stevie didn't drop the lawsuit.
30:30After filming completed, Al returned home to Indio.
30:33Adamson began having problems with contractor Fred Fulford.
30:37He says, you know, I gotta get rid of Fred.
30:39I said, I'll come, Al.
30:40I thought you and Fred were getting along.
30:42He's taking care of your place while you're over here and feeding the dogs.
30:46He says, no, Fred's been stealing from me.
30:49But Al didn't fire Fred.
30:51Instead, in April of 1995,
30:54Al asked the handyman to begin work on an indoor hot tub.
30:58He took me on a tour and showed me his huge upstairs bedroom.
31:01And he walked me around the house
31:04and showed me where the hot tub was going to go inside the house.
31:08Al Adamson had no idea he was about to become the unfortunate star
31:13of his own real-life chiller.
31:18When the E! True Hollywood story continues,
31:21Al Adamson's final days.
31:24He was supposed to call me, never spoke to him again.
31:29After director Al Adamson lost his beloved wife Regina to cancer,
31:35he embarked upon an ill-fated May-December romance with a waitress.
31:39After less than two years, the relationship floundered
31:43and Al was slapped with a million-dollar palimony suit.
31:47Wounded, Adamson retreated to his desert home.
31:51Al never suspected his days were numbered.
31:56I didn't want to hear about how they found my brother.
31:59I just don't want to hear those things.
32:07In June of 1995, while wrapping up his last film, Beyond This Earth,
32:12Adamson told his brother Ken he was having problems with his handyman,
32:16Fred Fulford.
32:18He ran up, I don't know, like $5,000 worth of bills on this credit card.
32:23And my brother said on the phone to me, he said,
32:26if Fred don't pay this, he's going to go to jail.
32:28And I said, well, Al, don't get all upset.
32:30I said, hold on, don't do anything, I'll be down there tomorrow.
32:34On June 19, 1995,
32:37Ken Adamson arrived at his brother's home to meet Al for lunch.
32:41I got down there and I said, where the heck is he, Fred?
32:44And he said, well, he got up early this morning and was going to look at a car.
32:48After waiting for a couple of hours,
32:51Ken asked Fred if he could use Al's bathroom.
32:54I said, I got to go, and he said, well, don't come in here.
32:57He said, I just done the floor here with this smelly stuff, terrible.
33:01He said, go around the other way and use the other bathroom.
33:04Ken Adamson left after waiting for Al for nearly five hours.
33:08Then I got in my car and drove on home,
33:11and then I called him again the next morning.
33:14And I said, let me talk to Al.
33:16And Fred says, well, he ain't here.
33:17And I said, what do you mean he ain't there?
33:19And he said, well, he went to Las Vegas.
33:23Ken Adamson couldn't find his brother in Las Vegas.
33:26Ken began to worry.
33:28We started phoning and calling and calling friends all over the world
33:32to try to see where he was, and we were largely unsuccessful.
33:36After five weeks, Adamson filed a missing persons report with the Indio police
33:41and spoke with Sergeant Jack Anderson.
33:43He had a real strong feeling that Mr. Adamson could very well have met Al Pley somewhere,
33:48either by accident or by another person.
33:50The police questioned Fred Fulford, who stuck by his story.
33:54Al took off for Vegas and never returned.
33:57Investigators were suspicious and spoke with Al's housekeeper,
34:01who informed them that Al's hot tub had been removed and tiled over.
34:05Information received from the caretaker and other people,
34:10which led us to believe that there would be no reason for him to want the jacuzzi removed.
34:15On August 2, 1995, nearly two months after Al Adamson disappeared,
34:21Indio police arrived at the director's home
34:24and started removing the tile where the jacuzzi once sat.
34:32After 18 hours, police detected a peculiar smell.
34:37The indicators that we found that there was a body was, of course, the odor, a decomposition.
34:42The body of Al Adamson was discovered wrapped in a white sheet,
34:46under cinder blocks and inches of dirt.
34:49The official cause of death? Blunt force trauma to the head.
34:54But the police had no murder weapon and no eyewitnesses.
34:58So investigators relied on some old-fashioned, grinded-out police work.
35:02In talking to people that had known Mr. Adamson,
35:06people that had worked with him, the caretaker,
35:09and other people that had been around the property,
35:11began focusing on one individual, Mr. Fred Fulford.
35:14Police learned that within days of the director's disappearance,
35:17Fred Fulford was doing some unplanned work at Adamson's home.
35:21Mr. Fulford had hired some individuals to do the physical labor of removing the spa
35:28and then doing the grunt work, for lack of a better word,
35:32of quill-bearing the cement in and things like that.
35:35But other clues did arouse suspicion.
35:38Within weeks of the director's death,
35:40Fred Fulford left California with many of Adamson's cars.
35:44We did get information that Mr. Fulford had taken or had shipped cars back to Florida,
35:52which also led us to believe that that was where he was going.
35:56And there was more.
35:58About the same time, we did start getting some charges
36:02against some of those credit cards that belonged to Mr. Adamson,
36:05and we began tracking those.
36:07And they also led to Florida.
36:09On August 7, 1995, at a motel in St. Petersburg, Florida,
36:14police arrested Fred Fulford for the murder of Al Adamson.
36:18Fulford fought extradition, but three months later,
36:21the handyman was returned to California to stand trial.
36:24For Al Adamson's friends and family, the arrest was no consolation.
36:29I still can't believe he's dead.
36:32I just, you know, have a hard time accepting it.
36:36In 1998, a Las Vegas court closed a painful chapter on Al Adamson's personal life.
36:42That year, Stevie Ashlock failed to prove her palimony case,
36:46but there was still the matter of the director's grisly death.
36:50In October of 1999, Fred Fulford stood trial for the murder of Al Adamson.
36:56Prosecutor Paul Weingrad laid out his case,
36:59arguing Fulford murdered the director for financial gain.
37:07Defense attorney Robert Hurley was quick to remind jurors
37:10there was little direct evidence to support the state's case.
37:14No eyewitness and no murder weapon.
37:17On November 17, 1999, after deliberating for nearly two hours,
37:22jurors returned with their verdict.
37:25Fred Fulford was found guilty of first-degree murder.
37:28He was sentenced 25 years to life.
37:31The verdict closed a painful ordeal for friends and family of Al Adamson,
37:36but the decision did little to ease their pain.
37:39I have a hard time accepting it.
37:42I just think he's off making another movie or off somewhere, you know, doing his thing,
37:47but it's very difficult for me to accept the fact that he's dead.
37:52Al Adamson's zest for moviemaking and his can-do attitude won't be forgotten.
37:58He kept going and he fought them and he made them.
38:01I think that's the way he's going to be remembered.
38:04If there was a star for an independent maker, he'd be on Hollywood Boulevard.
38:09For young filmmakers, there is something Al leaves,
38:12the lore that you can do it too, and that's his legacy.
38:17Al Adamson's pictures didn't win any big awards,
38:20but the director believed he had a more important goal in mind.
38:25We're not shooting for Academy Awards when we make pictures.
38:28We're shooting to entertain the audiences, and I think we did that.
38:31They're waiting for you. They're longing for your blood.
38:34Aurora of the blood monsters!
38:38Their bodies are cold and dead.
38:41Dracula versus Frankenstein.
38:44Their rotten bodies are mine!