Overland Park filmmaker launches new CBS series delving into ‘Pink Collar Crimes’

The mother drove her red minivan to drop off her five kids at school. Then she put on a disguise, walked into her neighborhood bank and robbed it.

“Robbing banks is like an addiction,” she says in the premiere episode of “Pink Collar Crimes,” a new CBS series co-created by Overland Park filmmaker Sharon Liese. It debuts at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 28.

The title plays off the typical white-collar or blue-collar crimes, but these are all perpetrated by women.

“We’ve found a new twist on true crime,” Liese says. “Typically in true crime, the thing that hooks people is the murder. Who did it? Why did it happen? We’re really excited to do a series about crimes that don’t turn violent. … The big thing connecting them is they’re committed by women. They’re also kind of absurd.”

In her previous work, Liese often turned her lens on Kansas City-area subjects: teen girls at Blue Valley Northwest, the mysterious gnome homes along an Overland Park nature trail. In “Pink Collar Crimes,” an upcoming episode will focus on a Country Club Plaza murder-for-hire scheme.

The series’ first episode focuses on Roxanne Pennock of San Diego, who in 2009 was struggling with mounting debt and a dependence on prescription pain pills when she resorted to robbing banks.

The episode, titled “Minivan Mom Bank Robber,” represents what the whole series is about.

“We looked at the psychology of crime while we were doing the show. It seems men tend to do these crimes for greed, and women do it for different reasons. For Roxanne, she was trying to save her family,” Liese says.

The challenge was giving the subjects a reason to reveal their stories. For some it could be cathartic; for others enlightening.

“People have a lot of remorse about what they’ve done, even though we definitely lean into the irreverence,” she says. “These are cautionary tales. People feel empowered to tell their stories so others can learn from their antics.”

The initial eight shows include interviews with the real people involved — perpetrators, victims, detectives and attorneys — mixed with docudrama re-creations. The subjects range from a PTA embezzler to a coupon counterfeiter to a “She-Wolf of Wall Street.”

Each episode features commentary by Marcia Clark, the former O.J. Simpson prosecutor.

“Marcia heard about the show and basically said, ‘I’m in,’” Liese recalls. “Since she does a lot of serious stuff, she really liked the flavor of what we’re doing, and that it was women and absurd crimes.”

The Kansas City episode, titled “Clash of the Carriages,” revisits the infamous 1998 case of a Plaza horse carriage owner who recruited a man to kill her competitors. The murder-for-hire plot ended up costing the owner, M.J. L’Donna, nearly a decade in prison. (She has always maintained her innocence.)

“You may have some doubt (regarding her guilt) once you see the episode,” says Liese, who conducts most of the on-camera interviews.

It’s slated to air as the fourth or fifth episode of the season.

Liese and her longtime filmmaking partner, Jon Kroll, began developing “Pink Collar Crimes” at CBS Studios with the intention of shopping it to other networks. But CBS “scooped it up right away,” according to Liese, before they got a chance to pitch it elsewhere.

“One of the reasons Sharon and I work so well together is that we have different superpowers,” the L.A.-based Kroll explains.

“Not like Batman and Robin, because we are equal partners — more like Batman and Wonder Woman. She has the uncanny ability to get people to tell her their deepest, darkest secrets by using her probing interview skills, much like Wonder Woman uses her Lasso of Truth. And much like Batman, I have extensive contacts and resources, which allows me to put together a team that can edit those interviews into compelling visual storytelling.”

The pair first collaborated on “High School Confidential,” Liese’s 2008 documentary series that followed a dozen teenage girls at Blue Valley Northwest High School as they dealt with intimate and pivotal conflicts. The series eventually aired on the WE (Women’s Entertainment) channel.

While Kroll continued to work on a number of high-profile programs (which included earning an Emmy as co-executive producer of “The Amazing Race”), Liese dedicated much of the interim to directing “The Gnomist.” The 2015 documentary short centered on mysterious little houses that began popping up along Tomahawk Creek Trail. The award-winning project was bought by CNN Films. She is hoping to turn this true story into a feature film.

“Not many people can have a successful career as a TV producer 1,600 miles from Hollywood, but Sharon has managed to do it by being the most tenacious person I know,” Kroll says. “She doesn’t care if I’m developing other projects. She politely insists that our collaborations take precedence. I’m shooting another show in the middle of a jungle somewhere, and somehow she will track me down and say, ‘Where are your notes on the latest draft of our new project?’”

Liese confesses that people working in the industry always ask her how she’s able to still live in Kansas.

“They’ll say, ‘I want to move to Sante Fe’ or ‘I want to move back to Michigan.’ I just don’t think it’s that hard. Obviously, because we have internet and cell phones, that makes it easy. And when you’re working with partners, you can make it happen. For me, I did a fair amount of travel for all eight episodes we shot, and then (Kroll) would stay in L.A. I would oversee field and he would oversee post,” she says.

“But I’m not gonna lie,” she adds. “I do spend a lot of time in L.A. Although part of that is because my daughter (Justine) lives there.”

While Liese declares she has never committed a pink-collar crime herself, the program has given her a fresh perspective on lawbreaking.

“I learned really smart people can get swindled. That was eye-opening,” says Liese, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., before relocating to the Kansas City area decades ago.

“And I learned it could happen to any of us.”

Kroll adds, “Producing ‘Pink Collar Crimes’ has taught me that criminals don’t always look like street hooligans with face tattoos. Sometimes they look like Florence Henderson. And also that first-time criminals tend to make really goofy mistakes. I think viewers will watch some of the choices our pink-collar criminals make and start yelling at their television, ‘Nooooooooo! Don’t do it!’”

This story was originally published July 24, 2018 at 10:11 AM with the headline "Overland Park filmmaker launches new CBS series delving into ‘Pink Collar Crimes’."