‘Brother’s Keeper’

On June 6, 1990, Bill Ward, an ailing dairy farmer from the central New York hamlet of Munnsville, was found dead in the bed he shared with his 59-year-old younger brother Delbert. What at first seemed like a case of death from natural causes soon became complicated. A confession by Delbert to the state police that he had suffocated Bill was later denied by him and his other sibling Lyman (pictured); he claimed police coerced him. There were suggestions brought up at Delbert’s subsequent trial of sexual involvement between the two brothers. Was Bill’s death a mercy killing, or a case of sex-gone-bad? Or was Delbert innocent altogether? This is the subject of this 1992 documentary, and it takes a little while before you realize that the filmmakers, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, are not out to shock you (KCET Friday at 10 p.m.).