New Docuseries 'Buried' Dives Into The Controversial Repressed Memories Of A Woman Who Accused Her Father Of Murder

Repressed traumatic memories are at the heart of high profile murder case featured in Showtime's upcoming docuseries “Buried.”

The four-part documentary series dives into the case of Eileen Franklin, who accused her father of killing her childhood best friend 20 years after the the crime occurred. She said she had repressed the memory of the murder as a child. 

A trailer for “Buried,” which will hit Showtime on Oct. 10, begins with a snippet of a phone call Eileen’s husband made to the local district attorney’s office. In the 1989 call, he relayed that his wife “saw a murder” when she was 8-years-old.

Franklin claimed that while looking at her young daughter, she suddenly recalled a memory of her childhood best friend Susan Nason. She said she remembered in vivid detail how her father George Franklin allegedly raped and then killed her friend. The fantastic claim thrust the Franklin family into the spotlight and George was charged with Nason’s murder. It also “sparked a national debate about the power and limitations of memory in the court of law,” Showtime notes in a press release.

Eileen’s apparent repressed memories were the focal point of her father’s murder trial, which marked the very first time recovered memory was ever used in a criminal prosecution. But were her memories real? 

Ari Pines, one of the directors behind “Buried,” told Oxygen.com that this case “is the perfect story to see how difficult it is to tell the difference between a real memory and a false one.”

He noted that he and fellow director Yotam Guendelman structured the series in a way that also plays with the viewers’ perceptions.

“Our intent was to see if we could convince the viewers in time in a totally different narrative,” he said. “You can change your mind about twenty times when watching this series about what you think really happened.”

Repressed memory is a psychological concept that claims that if a memory is disturbing enough, it can remain dormant in someone's mind for years or even decades. Often, the memory involves sexual abuse, sometimes at the hand of a family member. However, experts are divided on the accuracy of such memories, particularly when they are induced by a therapist or hypnosis.

Pines told Oxygen.com that repressed memories are now referred to as dissociative amnesia, which is part of a family of dissociative disorders that also include the controversial dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder.

“Buried” will feature first-person testimonials of family, neighbors, memory experts, law enforcement, mental health professionals and others as they examine this case as well as the idea of buried memories as a whole.