The Gifting Tables In 'Murder On Middle Beach' Are Even Wilder Than The Series Let On (2024)

• The latest true crime series Murder on Middle Beach just hit HBO.
• The documentary follows the murder of a Connecticut woman, Barbara Hamburg.
• Barbara was said to be involved in "gifting tables," an illegal pyramid scheme that some think could have played a role in her death.

This article contains spoilers for Murder On Middle Beach.

With every true crime series, you expect the unexpected. But Murder on Middle Beach, HBO's latest docuseries, has enough twists and turns to give you whiplash. If you've already watched the first episode, then you know that at the end of it, Barbara Hamburg's son, Madison Hamburg, the director of the docuseries, learns about his mother's involvement in an illegal pyramid scheme, known as "gifting tables."

As explained by Madison's father, Jeffrey Hamburg, during a phone call with Madison, it was Jill Platt, Madison's aunt who got Barbara involved in the tables. And that would lead to Platt's arrest, eventual wire fraud and false tax return charges, and a federal prison sentence of 54 months with three years of supervised release, per the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Before her death, Barbara was a gifting table leader, meaning she could have collected millions from other women in her community—and making her a potential target. But how exactly did the scheme work?

For starters, you had to be invited to the gifting table.

And once you were, you'd enter into a four-level pyramid with tiers named "Appetizers," "Soups and Salads," "Entrees," and "Dessert," per the DOJ. If you were a newbie, you'd join at the appetizer level and were required to bring in a "gift" of $5,000. Older members would move up the hierarchy as new members were recruited. The person at the top (the dessert level) would collect all of the new member's gifts. "When eight new participants joined a Gifting Table, each having made a $5,000 'gift' to the person occupying the Dessert position at the top of the pyramid, the Dessert left the Gifting Table and kept the $40,000 paid by the eight new participants," per the the DOJ. The two participants in the entree position would then split the gifting table and move up to the dessert level. The rest of the participants moved up a level—and then began recruiting more new women to add to the table.

Some people cycled through multiple rounds of the gifting table.

At the dessert level, you can earn $40,000 each time. (So if you wanted to earn more money, you just recruit another gifting table!) Jill Platt and the co-leader of her gifting table, Donna Bello, went through several table rounds. "The women claim more than 70 people made it to the 'dessert' level and that more than 20 of those women made it to the top more than six times, according to emails outlined in the indictment," NBC Connecticut reported. The two claimed to have exchanged $5 million (!!) within their group alone.

It was marketed as a sisterhood.

These meetings often took place inside a woman's home and each woman was treated as a new recruit. A 34-page handbook of guidelines was given to "Table Sisters" in one gifting table, per The Hartford Courant. "Our intention is to benefit women, period," the handbook states. There's also a poem titled, "Imagine a Women" included in the handbook. The poem encourages members to think of themselves as assertive, independent, and strong. They're told that they're someone who "refuses to color inside someone else's lines."

There were several Do's and Don't's.

All of which seem very sketchy. The women were told not to hold meetings in public places and never to wire money, per The Courant. They were also told to be careful who they spoke to about the tables and to use non-government-regulated mail services (think: FedEX or UPS) instead of U.S. Postal Service. "Gifts" were made only in the form of cash or a bank check.