Sumith Prasad
Apple TV+’s crime series ‘Black Bird’ follows the enthralling true story of Chicago-based James “Jimmy” Keene, who gets arrested for drug trafficking. Jimmy pleads guilty to the charges for a reduced sentence, following the instructions of federal prosecutor Edmund Beaumont, only to get sentenced to ten years in prison. Beaumont returns to Jimmy’s life to offer him freedom in return for suspected serial killer Larry DeWayne Hall’s confession to the alleged murder of Tricia Reitler, along with the location of her suspected dead body. Since the show depicts the significance of Beaumont in Jimmy’s life, the viewers may want to know whether he is based on a real prosecutor. Let us share the answer!
Edmund Beaumont: A Fictionalized Version of Lawrence Beaumont
Yes, prosecutor Edmund Beaumont is allegedly based on a real prosecutor. The character seems to be a fictionalized version of real-life federal prosecutor Lawrence Beaumont AKA Larry Beaumont. The prosecutor represented the United States in the cases of both Jimmy and Larry Hall. After Jimmy was sentenced to ten years in prison in Milan, Michigan, Beaumont met him to find out whether he could be used to connect Larry Hall to the suspected murder of Tricia.
“All I knew was that Jimmy Keene was a smart, wily kid who wasn’t happy with the sentence we gave him. I figured he would jump at the opportunity to get out early,” the prosecutor said about picking Jimmy for the undercover mission, as per the source text of the show, ‘In with the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption,’ written by Jimmy Keene and Hillel Levin. Jimmy eventually struck a deal with Beaumont, who believed that Larry is “responsible for more than twenty other killings.”
After three months of efforts, Beaumont garnered the necessary approval from the Bureau of Prisons and Department of Justice to transfer Jimmy to Larry’s prison in Springfield, Missouri. At the time, the prosecutor was fearing whether Larry’s defense would succeed in overturning his conviction. After collaborating with Gary Miller, the chief investigator of Larry’s case, Beaumont apparently couldn’t even think about Larry walking free. The success of Jimmy’s undercover operation became a necessity for Beaumont to win his case against Larry.
Larry, the suspected killer, reportedly hated Beaumont. “Have you ever heard of this guy named Beaumont? That fucking guy, he was after me no matter what. Man, he was crazy,” Larry told Jimmy, as per the source text. According to ‘In with the Devil,’ Jimmy managed to make Larry confess that he buried Tricia’s dead body. However, he failed to find the exact location. “Without Tricia Reitler’s body, I did not complete my mission, and I didn’t know what Beaumont was going to do about that,” Jimmy said about the same, as per the source text.
Still, Beaumont helped Jimmy to get out of prison as a free man. “Well, we didn’t find the body, and the goal of this investigation was to find the body. In fact, I had told Jim that unless we found the body, he ain’t getting jack for it. But once he passed the polygraph about the statements he heard from Hall, I still had to ask the judge to give him credit. It was the only fair thing we could do because, after all, he did sit in the nuthouse with this guy,” Beaumont said about paving the way for Jimmy’s release from prison.
Prosecutor Beaumont Retired in 2006
Lawrence Beaumont retired from the Department of Justice in 2006. In 2010, at the time of the publication of the source text, Beaumont was practicing law privately. As per sources, he is currently based in Chicago, Illinois. He has also chosen to keep his personal life private. Beaumont really believed that Larry killed Tricia. “We were pretty sure [Hall] did Reitler, and there was kind of a fight between us and Marion [police] because they were so convinced that he didn’t do it,” Beaumont said about Larry’s possible connection in Tricia’s case. However, his attempts to prove Larry killed Tricia came to an end with the conclusion of Jimmy’s mission.
Read More: Was Jimmy Keene a Real Football Player? Was He a Real Drug Dealer?
