Sierra Barter and Skye Borgman Explain Why They Still Don't Know The Truth About Jim — and Don't Care

Don't let the title fool you: There are no concrete answers to be found in The Truth About Jim. Directed by Skye Borgman (Abducted in Plain Sight), Max's four-part series follows amateur investigator Sierra Barter as she digs into her family's painful past and explores the possibility that her step-grandfather Jim Mordecai was a serial killer. In the years since Mordecai's death, Barter's mother Shannon and grandmother Judy have opened up about the horrific abuse they suffered at his hands, shedding new light on allegations that Mordecai, a high school teacher, groomed and raped young girls, including his stepdaughter Christi Probst.

Barter's investigation into Mordecai leads her to a series of unsolved homicides known as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders. From 1972 to 1973, the bodies of at least seven girls and young women were found off rural roads in Santa Rosa, California; the victims were all nude, and many had been hogtied and sexually assaulted. Mordecai's familiarity with the area — his family ranch was located just minutes outside Santa Rosa — and history of threatening to "hogtie" his stepdaughters if they misbehaved raise immediate red flags for Barter's family, and as the docuseries progresses, the connections only become more spine-chilling. After Mordecai's death, Shannon found a jewelry box of random 1970s earrings among his possessions, and though she ultimately threw it out, she recalls seeing "turquoise and orange beads," a description that matches the lone earring police found near one of the victims.

Barter also speaks with a witness named Mary whose friends, Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber, spoke to an older man at a local ice arena on the night of their disappearance. (Sterling and Weber's bodies were found months later, in December 1972.) Mary's recollection of the man matches Mordecai, and when Barter shows her a photo of him, an emotional Mary insists Mordecai "looks a lot like" the man who offered Sterling and Weber marijuana that night.

For Barter, things really clicked when Shannon relived one of her most harrowing experiences with Mordecai: the night he suddenly took a sharp turn while driving down a country road and became aggressive, leaving her afraid for her life. As she and Shannon retraced their route, Barter realized they were just steps from where the body of Kim Allen, a 19-year-old victim of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer, was found. "That was the first moment for me that I was like, 'This is really hitting too close to home,'" she tells Primetimer.

After months of investigating, Barter brings her findings — including circumstantial evidence, testimony from Mordecai's sexual assault victims, and his DNA profile — to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department, and they agree to look further into the case. But the docuseries leaves things there. A title card reveals authorities received Mordecai's DNA report in August 2022 and a cold case investigator is looking into him as a suspect, but that's the only update Borgman offers by show's end.

Is Jim Mordecai really the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer? Could he be the Zodiac Killer, another theory floated by Barter? The Truth About Jim declines to answer these questions, instead leaving viewers to speculate among themselves. In an in-depth conversation, Barter and Borgman break down The Truth About Jim's open-ended conclusion, discuss finding peace amid the uncertainty, and reveal where the investigation into Jim Mordecai stands now.

Sierra, you've harbored suspicions about Jim for years, but what prompted you to act on those theories and launch a full-blown investigation? And at what point did you come on board as a documentarian, Skye?

Barter: What prompted me was just going through my own healing of my assault that happened in 2018, and really looking back at my own family and my own patterns. Just doing a deep dive into myself and saying, "Okay, I've really got to focus on this part of my family that doesn't get talked about very often because there could be some answers there that I'm looking for." And the more I probed, the darker it got.

And I would talk to people about it, just, "This is what I'm doing, what I'm going through," whatever, and a lot of women would tell me, "I had someone in my family like this" or "Something like that happened to me." It became obvious to me that this was unfortunately something that a lot of people suffer at the hands of, and I thought that if I feel comfortable enough to share this, then it would probably mean a lot to people to know that they're not alone and that this, in fact, does happen.

Borgman: I feel like Sierra had been looking into this for a while before it actually became the idea of a four-part series. She had been talking to people, looking into Jim in a little more of a specific way, and then started talking about telling her story in a public way — that's when it started to become something different. The investigation got a little bit more granular, it got a little bit more intense. And we started looking at ways that we could tell a nuanced, layered story that wasn't about, "Is my step-grandfather a serial killer?" But it's more about, "Why are we asking this question? How did this question even pop into our minds? And what has he done and how has that affected all of us?" So really, asking the right question rather than going down this pathway of making up our minds beforehand and trying to prove that point.

Skye, as someone with a wealth of true-crime experience, what was your initial impression of Sierra's investigation?

Borgman: What I really appreciated was that Sierra was asking a lot of questions, and she was going to be okay with whatever the answer was. She wasn't just trying to go out and say, "Yup, my grandfather was the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer," or "My grandfather was the Zodiac Killer." But she said, "There are these connections that I've been able to find. There might be more connections. This connection that I thought was here might not end up being a connection." She's completely open to just finding the answers and not going down the path of dictating what she wanted those answers to be.

She just wanted the truth. She just wanted to see if there's a possibility out there. I really respected that, and I knew that in terms of looking at the structure of the whole four-part series, that it was going to be a fact-finding, answer-solving mission the whole way through.

As Jim's step-granddaughter and a victim of sexual assault, your journey is deeply personal, Sierra. How did your close relationship to the subject matter impact your investigation?

Barter: It gave me this sense of really wanting to do it in the most ethical way possible. I think maybe if your family's not involved, you're not as worried about hurting people's feelings. I really, really, truly love these people. These are people that have raised me. So I never wanted to hurt them or anything. It made me really, really think and feel how this must have felt for all of them and approach this in the best way possible — in a way that would be reciprocal, hopefully; in a way that they would get something out of it, as well.

It's also, in that same way, extremely difficult because when you want to go home, these are the people that you go home to and you're like, "I need a minute." Because I'm also reeling from what you just told me. You don't want to make them feel guilt or shame for what they just told you, but it's so hard to hear people you love tell you these things that they went through.

That comes through in the moment when you're asking your mom, "Why did you throw away the jewelry box?" It's this tension between a mother and daughter who are so familiar with each other, and someone who's trying to be more removed.

Barter: For sure. I totally get it — I probably would throw it away, too. But it's also like, "Why?! Why would you do that, Mom?" It's this really interesting line because these personal relationships define how we interact with each other, and then I have this other thing that's intertwined with them, but it's also outside of them, as well.

Skye, how did you view your role as the shepherd of such a personal story? What was it like watching Sierra's journey and that of her family over the course of many months?

Borgman: It's such a huge responsibility, honestly, to be the one who's kind of holding all of this together. A lot of it, too, is letting it fall apart when it needs to fall apart. But trying as best I can, and sometimes I'm more successful than other times, to try and create a safe space. That's what I like to do — I like to keep communication pretty open to try to know when people are having a hard time or when people need a break, or when we need to shift gears and go into something else.

And look, it's one thing to be in person and filming in the field together, and then that responsibility shifts into that whole other thing once we get into post [production]. We were filming for roughly around a year; I think we were in post for another year after that. So to really not lose perspective, to really still keep these relationships intact, even though they don't really exist — I mean, it's between me and a computer screen — but to really try and protect things there. It can be a pretty intense thing that happens.

Your investigation relies primarily on circumstantial evidence, but the docuseries makes an incredibly compelling case that Jim was the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Killer. Sierra, was there a specific moment when you began to think, "Wow, I really have something here?"

Barter: For me, it was the drive with my mom. Having done that drive where Kim Allen was found, and then having my mom, without having mentioned anything to her, just drive the route. There's a tiny moment when I go like, "Agh!" in the car, because in the moment, I was like, "This is really too much." I knew it was in the general area, but I didn't know that it was that close. Really if you ever go back into that area of Santa Rosa, it's not somewhere I would go because I don't live there. It's really way out there and very specific.

That was the first moment I was like, "Whoa. Why would he be here? Why would he be acting that way? What purpose would this serve beside something nefarious? And why is it right here?" That was the first moment for me that I was like, "This is really hitting too close to home."

In each of your minds, is there one piece of evidence that you feel is the most damning against Jim?

Borgman: I don't think there's one piece, but I think it's the culmination of a lot. Like you said, it's circumstantial evidence that we hold right now — we don't necessarily know what law enforcement has. But I think it's this culmination of all of these different little bits that just create a pretty compelling coincidence, or not, right?

Barter: It's definitely enough to the point where if I didn't say something, I would feel pretty guilty about it. So that's how I feel about it.

At the end of Episode 2 when we hear from the woman whose friends were killed and she basically identifies Jim in a photo — there are a lot of really powerful moments in the docuseries, but to me, that one immediately stands out.

Borgman: We felt it, too. When it happened, we were all just like, "Ah! Oh my gosh! What's happening here?"

Barter: I think we both remember that I'd been like, "Who's trying to joke with me right now? This isn't funny at all." Because it really just rattled me. I didn't think that was going to happen. I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks that's going to happen with someone. I was like, "This cannot be my life." But it is.

On the flip side, particularly for you, Skye, were there any turns in the investigation you were more skeptical of?

Borgman: I don't think I was skeptical because I don't think we'd ever set it up that we were trying to prove this. It was always like, let's go down this path and see what happens. And even talking to some of the experts that we talked to, it was really an information and fact-finding mission for us, rather than trying to prove anything.

That definitely comes across in the Zodiac Killer segment. It's a valid theory: There was a lot going on in the San Francisco Bay Area around that time, and Jim doesn't look great.

Borgman: There was a lot [happening]. A lot of serial killers in that area.

There are a few recent documentaries about amateur detectives, but what sets The Truth About Jim apart is your willingness to acknowledge that you don't have all the answers, and likely never will. Now that you're some time removed from filming, have you been able to make peace with that fact?

Barter: Yeah, for sure. I'm completely at peace. For me, my goal was always to be listened to. So, when we went to the Sonoma Police Department and they let us talk to them, that was my goal, and I did it, and the information is out there.

We were just speaking about skepticism — I think out of everybody, I'm the biggest skeptic when it comes to all this. That's what guides me. I am not a person who wants this kind of thing for my life. I don't want to know a murderer. I don't want pictures of me being cuddled by a murderer. I don't want that. So I'm always trying to be like, "No, no, no, no, no," because it's already traumatic enough; I don't need to pile on the trauma. But I also think that there were things that I couldn't look away from.

But at the same time, I am just at peace with, "It is what it is. It will be what it is." I hope through this docuseries that there will be more light shone on the Santa Rosa case because those girls deserve that. I think they have been made invisible for a long time, and they deserve that light. To me, if two things come out of it — if survivors know they're not alone, I've done my job, and if those girls get the light they deserve, then I've done my job.

Skye, as a documentarian, is it difficult to leave viewers with open-ended questions? As viewers, we naturally have the desire for a neat and tidy ending, which obviously is not the case with so many of these murder cases.

Borgman: It's not difficult at all for me to leave people with an open end [laughs]. I actually really like it, especially if there isn't an answer.

What is really great for me is to put everything out there, to get the story, and then to have the conversation continue after the last episode is finished. To have people talk about whatever it is — if they have information; if they were alive during the time and have information about a friend of theirs or an acquaintance that may have gone missing in or around the Bay Area at that certain time. If they've got a trauma that they would like to talk about and feel like they haven't been able to, and so it gives them an opportunity to do that. If they've got friends who they just feel like they want to check in with. The conversation continues after.

And I usually find that by leaving a few things open for people to continue talking about, that's the best way I know of to keep that story going beyond the time that the TV gets turned off.

In that vein, I have to ask: Have there been any updates in the case since you turned over Jim's DNA profile to the authorities? Have you heard back from anyone?

Borgman: We're still in contact with Sonoma [County Sheriff's Office], and the investigation is still active. But we have not heard anything at this moment in time.

But look, that's also what this series is about, right? To get people to come forward, to get people to talk. We're going to reach a lot more people after this week, so we'll see what happens.

The docuseries ends on a beautiful note of catharsis for your family, Sierra, and that's just as important as the question of whether Jim is a serial killer. How has this experience altered your relationship with your family since wrapping filming?

Barter: It's been a lot of different steps of healing. It's a lot of, "Okay, wow, this is going to be on TV for a lot of people to see." There's that. But then also I think they're very proud of themselves, which they should be. This is an incredibly hard thing to do, so they should be totally proud of what they've done.

And then also, I think we've gotten to know each other as people outside of Jim, which has been really, really nice. If the only thing I got out of it was that I gained my family back, then that's awesome. And that's what happened. I had this family that was super fractured my whole life, and is now a family unit.

And that's no small feat.

Barter: No, especially when I've never really known that. I mean, it's been like, "Wow, this could've been happening for years had [Jim] not been here." And prior to filming the show, I think we would've been like, "That will never happen."

Skye, what do you hope viewers take away from that moment?

Borgman: I really want people to know that there is light. No matter the darkness, know that there is light. And there is the opportunity to tell their story. It doesn't have to be on such a massive platform like Sierra and the rest of her family have done, but you can talk to a friend. You can talk and it's not going to kill you; it's not going to devastate you. Or if it does devastate you, you can continue moving forward. If people feel like they have the space and the room to talk, then that's a good thing.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.