UPDATE FOR ALL:
This Letter has been added to our petition and sent to Hulu's Legal team as well as the Producer, Sandrine Magloire, at Vice Media.
This letter is being written on behalf of the Preston family and friends of the late Brooke Preston with the intention of imploring Hulu, Vice Media and producer, Sandrine Magloire-Szlasa, to refrain from releasing a documentary tactlessly titled “Dead Asleep”, regarding Brooke’s heinous murder that occurred in March 2017. As we hope you could imagine, our family and small rural community suffered a shocking and tremendous loss that we have not and likely never will recover from. To lose our sweet and vivacious Brooke at just 21-years-old under such brutal circumstances; we find it abhorrent and quite frankly, immoral, that you would haphazardly create and release a tasteless documentary about this rather recent tragedy without our consent and as we still attempt to cope with this unfathomable bereavement. The profound trauma we’ve endured from her horrific murder, the daunting trial, media attention and now the ongoing appeals process; we feel we’ve suffered enough. And before you accuse us of bias, please note that it is not just we in Brooke’s family who wish to keep this distasteful documentary from ever airing. We feel this online petition we created, which received over 7,000 signatures (and growing) in just one day, is proof enough that your documentary is as unwanted as it is unethical. Apparently, the public perception that Hollywood elites only care about money and fame is true, while words like “sensitivity” and “compassion” don’t even enter into your vocabulary. Hulu evidently has an abysmal track record of green-lighting insensitive documentaries, as it was on the cusp of releasing another objectionable film about the Astroworld concert incident that left eight young people dead and hundreds more injured just LAST MONTH! The families barely had a chance to hold funerals for their loved ones before you were ready to exploit the tragedy for personal gain. Fortunately, the public came together to peacefully protest and keep you from airing that documentary. We intend to do the same for Brooke because she truly deserves so much better.
Randy Herman, Jr. is a murderous psychopath who was convicted in 2019 by a jury of his peers and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. The Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld that conviction in April 2021 despite his efforts to appeal on baseless accusations against the trial court. The judge and the jury that convicted him saw right through his ridiculous “sleepwalking” defense, and it was clear to them, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Brooke’s murder was premeditated, and the direct result of a decision Herman made on March 25, 2017. Why would you give his preposterous claims any merit? I suppose we already know the answers to that question: money and fame. You want to give him an additional 15 minutes of undeserved fame so you can profit from it and inexplicably try to put doubts in people’s minds about whether he’s somehow innocent of repeatedly stabbing a 21-year-old girl over 20 times. You are all despicable for even considering the development of this documentary, and to release it despite the significant public backlash, is nothing short of repugnant. If you had taken the time to come to visit our small, rural town in Pennsylvania where Brooke and our family are from, following her murder, you would have witnessed the profound impact it had on the community at large and the despair it created. Those wounds have yet to heal, but here you are, ready and willing to pour salt in them. Shame on you all. If you have any conscience or integrity, whatsoever, you will never air this insensitive film. PLEASE RECONSIDER ITS RELEASE and let us all grieve in peace.