Some of the early reviews for Clint Eastwood’s new film Changeling have noted that it is hard to believe the film’s claim that the events depicted in J. Michael Straczynski’s screenplay are based on a true story. Indeed, the story of a mother, Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) who suspects that the child returned to her by the police is not the one kidnapped from her, is a rather strange tangent spinning off from the infamous Wineville Chicken Murders of the late 1920s in Los Angeles. To reinforce the reality of the story, Straczynski included within the pages of his script copies of public records and contemporary newspaper accounts he used as research when writing.
The LA Times has now opened up its archives to present ten articles that ran in its pages covering the Collins case. You can check them out here. Of course, they will contain spoilers for the movie, so you may want to wait until after you see the film when it is released on October 31, before digging into the background.
