The intersection of film, memory and justice is at the heart of My Brother’s Killer, a new documentary by filmmaker Rachel Mason. Known for the 2026 film Circus of Books, which explored her parents’ adult bookstore and its role in West Hollywood’s gay community, Mason turned from family portraiture to true crime after discovering an old article about a 1990 killing. That discovery launched a multi-year inquiry into the murder of Billy London, a performer in L.A.’s gay adult industry, and ultimately became the engine for a film that combined archival research, grassroots sleuthing and police cooperation.
Mason’s approach treats pornography not just as sensational material but as a cultural archive. She argues that before mainstream representation expanded in the 1980s, adult films often provided one of the rare visual records of gay lives. By mining those tapes and industry artifacts, Mason assembled a visual history that doubled as investigative material. The documentary documents how these artifacts—old reels, event recordings and personal footage—helped place people, faces and moments into a timeline the police could follow.
The origins of the investigation
While making Circus of Books, Mason was handed an article from a gay magazine that referenced the unsolved murder of Billy London, a case sometimes referred to in public discussion with the charged label gay Black Dahlia. Intrigued, Mason began to treat the story as both a cultural excavation and a criminal inquiry. She reached out to family members, friends and industry veterans to reconstruct Billy’s life and the context of the early 1990s gay adult scene in Los Angeles. That groundwork created the emotional core of the film—the human story behind the headlines—and it set the stage for the investigative work that followed.
Evidence from archives and collaboration with detectives
Mason’s research relied heavily on what she calls the visual record of an era. She worked with a trove of material that included footage from industry gatherings, promotional tapes and a preserved recording of a memorial award show that functioned as a time capsule. In that recording she identified a person who later became a suspect; the clip placed that individual at a particular industry event and provided corroborating context for investigators. Mason also partnered with cold-case detectives and welcomed contributions from amateur sleuths and community members who offered leads and recollections. This blend of formal and informal investigation helped transform archival fragments into actionable evidence.
From suspicion to identification
The film follows the process by which Mason and law enforcement narrowed in on a person of interest: a trans woman, identified in reporting as DarraLynn Madden, who allegedly committed the murder prior to transitioning. Mason’s correspondence and interviews played a role in confirming identity details that police needed to move forward. Among the most chilling moments the documentary presents is the archival clip from the early 1990s industry event, where the future suspect appears onstage—an image that anchors the investigation in a real place and time.
Interview, confession and the ethics of storytelling
Mason secured an interview with DarraLynn Madden in a maximum-security setting and captures a confession in the film. The encounter is presented in context: Mason describes seeing a charismatic, talkative person despite heavy restraints, and she and detectives alike noted how easily someone could be disarmed by charm. At the same time, Mason is careful about the broader implications for trans representation. With a trans partner herself, she was acutely aware of the risk that one criminal case could be misused to reinforce harmful stereotypes about transgender people. The documentary explicitly grapples with that tension, separating individual culpability from group-based narratives.
Closure for family and community
One of Mason’s stated goals was to foreground Billy London rather than sensationalize the killer. The film centers Billy’s life, relationships and the grief of survivors, including his partner Marc Rabins, who had lived with uncertainty for decades. After viewing the film, family members reported feeling a measure of closure that had eluded them since 1990. Mason says that restoring Billy’s story and giving relatives answers mattered more than cinematic notoriety; the film’s premiere at SXSW marked both a cultural turn and a chapter of accountability for a case once resigned to archives and rumor.
Broader implications
Beyond solving a crime, My Brother’s Killer raises questions about how societies preserve, interpret and act on marginalized histories. By treating the gay adult industry as a repository of lived experience and documentary evidence, Mason expands our sense of what archives can reveal. The film models a collaborative form of investigation that blends archival visual anthropology, community memory and police work—and in doing so, illustrates how storytelling can be a pathway to justice.