Genre
Synopsis
Susan Walsh was a mother, a journalist and a sex worker. She danced at several clubs in New Jersey.
On July 16, 1996, she stepped out of her apartment in Nutley, New Jersey, which she shared with her 11-year old son, to run errands and make a call at a pay phone across the street, leaving her son in the care of her estranged husband Mark’s care, who, lived in the basement apartment below her. This was the last time she was seen. She left her wallet and pager at home.
Two days earlier, I interviewed her for my documentary, “Stripped.” She made references to having a “stalker,” to losing her sobriety, and to barely being able to hold on. She said she wanted to stop stripping, but she couldn’t, as she was the only one supporting her son.
The police did not begin investigating until five days after she went missing. I called them to find out what they were doing to find her. They said that because she was a dancer, she was probably “out partying.”
When the salaciousness of a missing sex worker became public fodder, there was an ongoing media frenzy churning out a variety theories of her demise – The Russian mafia killed her, she was kidnapped by a biker gang, vampires or a stalker murdered her.
Her disappearance has never stopped haunting me. I also danced in New Jersey. That’s how I met Susan. But when the dancing became dangerous to my well-being, I got out. I couldn’t help Susan then, but maybe I can now.
So far together we have taken the Nutley Police to court for the records and have received some of them.
As we pursue this investigation, we are using a hybrid approach to tell Susan’s story through her writings, archival footage and scene work. If I can’t solve the murder, I can certainly reclaim the narrative of a woman who was posthumously exploited -a tender mother who had slipped from sobriety and was fighting to reclaim her life.
Drawing upon my own past experience as a stripper, this series will encourage a deeper look at cultural assumptions about women and sex workers- while exploring how negative assumptions allow them to be overlooked, particularly in an ongoing way by police and the criminal justice system.
Bio
Jill is an award-winning screenwriter and a documentary filmmaker who focuses on gritty character-driven material and exposing the truth in a compelling unexpected way.
Her screenplays have been finalists for the Athena Lab, The Big Apple Screenplay Competition, The Metropolitan Screenplay Competition, Unique Voices, semi-finalists for Final Draft's Big Break Competition, Stowe Story Labs and gotten her fellowships to Hedgebrook, the Middlebury Screenwriting Lab , "See Jane Fight is currently being developed in Canada. Her award-winning feature doc, “Fight Like a Girl” played several festivals and won a special award from the World Boxing Council. The also "Award-winning "Squirrel Wars" sold to Journeyman Features., Her feature Stripped”won awards at festivals, ran theatrically in New York and LA, sold internationally and ran on the Sundance Channel. Other films played festivals such as, Hot Docs, Newport Beach FF, Aspen FF ,AFI, Santa Barbara Film Festival, The Sebastopol Documentary FF and the International San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.Morley wrote and performed the critically acclaimed play, "True Confessions of a Go-Go Girl" which was published in “The Best Women’s Plays of 1998,” ran Off Broadway for several years, was performed across the country, including the San was performed across the country, including the San Francisco’s “Solo Mio Fest
