What would Netflix be nowadays without its thrilling true-crime documentary series? Many true crime subjects weren’t always desirable topics in the past and have somewhat been considered taboo until now. Over the past few years, the true crime genre has become increasingly popular among Netflix viewers, not just in the United States or Canada but worldwide.
What motivates someone to commit such a crime? What were they thinking? How did they pull it off? These are just some of the questions we want to know when we hear stories of such unthinkable acts. Shows like The Puppet Master: The Ultimate Conman toJimmy Savile: A British Horror Story make up some of the best true-crime series of the year.
‘Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields’
Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields follows the case of the gruesome murders of more than 30 women that took place between the 1970s and the 1990s. In April 1984, a man and his dog walked across a field on Calder Road between Houston and Galveston, Texas. Initially, the owner thought that his dog had found a ball and was carrying it back to him until he realized it was a human skull.
Two years later, two more bodies were found in the same field. And the more they dug, the more bodies they found. Victims Laura Miller, Laura Smither, Kelli Ann Cox, Heidi Fye, and over thirty other women and girls between 12 and 25 years old were killed and buried in what became known as the Texas Killing Fields. Although investigators narrowed it down to two main suspects, many of the murders remain unsolved.
‘Indian Predator: Murder in a Courtroom’
As its title suggest, the Netflix docuseries reveals the strange story of how a murder took place in a courtroom in India. Bharat Kalicharan, or Akku Yadav, represents everything evil in the world; he is a gangster, a robber, a home invader, a kidnapper, an extortionist, a serial rapist, and a serial killer.
Akku Yadav had a bail hearing on August 13th, 2004, in the Nagpur District Court. Before the hearing, word had spread through the nearby neighborhoods that the court might release him despite his crimes. Upon learning this, hundreds of women, among whom were his victims, marched to the courthouse bringing cooking knives and chili powder and took front-row seats. The women could not stand Yadav, who walked into the courtroom with confidence and no remorse. Soon, an unprecedented event unfolded as he was stabbed approximately 70 times, and his ears and genitals were sliced off by the raging women present in the courtroom. As said by an activist, “It was not a murder; it was an act of social justice.“.
‘Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes’
Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer notoriously known to have murdered and dismembered 17 boys and men from 1978 up to 1991. Following the success of the dramatized series DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, where Evan Peters played the role of Jeffrey Dahmer, Netflix has released a separate, and this time documentary series, Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes.
The docuseries unveils over 30 hours of unreleased and never-heard-before recordings of the conversations between Jeffrey Dahmer and his lawyer, Wendy Patrickus. The tapes involved Dahmer’s accounts of the gruesome acts that he committed and the preparations for Dahmer’s court appearances.
‘Sins of Our Mother’
Sins of Our Mother tells the shocking story centered around a woman and mother, Lori Vallow, who later became known as the “Doomsday mom.” Around 2015, Vallow started reading the works of religious preacher Chad Daybell, who believed the apocalypse was coming. A few years later, Vallow meets Daybell for the first time at a Preparing The People event in Arizona, where the pair formed an immediate connection. Soon, Vallow’s behavior changed as she grew distant from her children and family.
A few months later, a series of strange events, such as the murder of Vallow’s previous and fourth husband, Charles; the disappearance of her two children, J.J. and Tylee; and the mysterious death of Daybell’s wife, Tammy (Tamara), raised many eyebrows. While these unfortunate situations unfolded, Daybell and Vallow flew to Hawaii and got married instead. Since then, it became apparent that the pair were involved in the murders.
‘The Most Hated Man on the Internet’
The Most Hated Man on the Internet covers the story of Hunter Moore and the revenge porn website he launched in 2010, Is Anyone Up?. It started as a platform where Moore would share photos of his party lifestyle. However, as the website proved unsuccessful, he had the idea to share the nudes of “a bitch who broke his heart” on isanyoneup.com with a friend. In return, the friend also started sharing some photos back, and soon they were collecting and sharing unsolicited nude pictures of women on the site.
The site started to grow and became increasingly popular among men. As Moore earned lots of money through ad revenues, he decided not to take the website down. In the series, Charlotte Laws shares her stories as a mother who started a campaign to take down the site because her daughter’s nude photos were among those posted on isanyoneup.com.
‘Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey’
Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey focuses on the religious cult of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a branch of Mormonism, and the rise and fall of its supposed leader and prophet, Warren Jeffs. Despite many FLDS members still maintaining Jeffs’ innocence, some survivors were brave enough to share their stories.
The four-part documentary series showed that Jeffs manipulated, married, and sexually abused many underage girls who were members of the Church. One of the girls, Elissa Wall, who was a minor and was forced to marry him at 14 years old, shared the harrowing stories of the extensive mental and sexual abuse she and other girls suffered under Warren Jeffs.
‘Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story’
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story shares the life story of the eccentric Jimmy Savile. He began his radio career as a DJ in the late 1950s and had become one of Britain’s most popular DJs by the late 60s. Besides DJing, Savile also presented Top of the Pops, a BBC music chart television program, for 20 years. He became an influential British figure who knew all kinds of famous and powerful people, such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and members of the Royal Family, such as Prince Charles, for whom he acted as an unofficial adviser.
Despite having raised an estimated £40 million for charities, particularly for children’s hospitals, Savile’s image drastically flipped when sexual assault allegations against him became public knowledge. He was accused of sexually abusing hundreds of people, most of them children, but some were as old as 75. The docuseries unfolds just how twisted Savile was and how long he managed to get away with his crimes.
‘Worst Roommate Ever’
Worst Roommate Ever features four separate stories of people who share their experiences of living with horrendous roommates. Their former roommates ranged from squatters to violent criminals and even killers. For instance, the first episode is about, who, at first glance, seemed like just a harmless elderly woman, but who turned out to be a serial killer.
Unlike most existing true-crime documentary series, Worst Roommate Ever gives a different angle to the genre, as the personal encounters shared by those who lived with the likes of a serial killer will be sure to send chills down your spine.
‘Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.’
Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. is a four-part documentary series told through the perspective of Sarma Melngailis, the former owner and restaurateur of a renowned vegan restaurant, Pure Food and Wine, in Manhattan. When Sarma met the mysterious Anthony Strangis online, who she eventually got married to, their relationship and marriage seemed questionable to those around her.
Anthony’s behavior became increasingly bizarre as he convinced Sarma that he had magical powers, such as promising immortality for her and her dog. He told her that if she didn’t do as she was told, she would lose everything and everyone in her life. Over two years, Sarma was “under his spell” and was coerced into stealing and wiring him millions of dollars from her successful vegan restaurant. In this first-hand interview with Sarma Melngailis, she shares the shocking stories of how the twisted tale of love turned them into convicted criminals.
‘The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman’
The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman dives into the shocking and bizarre stories of how people were conned and manipulated by Robert Hendy-Freegard. When the boyfriend of a woman named Sarah Smith met a man who claimed to be an undercover MI5 agent, their lives changed forever. The M15 agent had told them that one of their friends had been arrested by the IRA and that they were now in great danger. Not only that, Rob convinced them to go on the run and assured them they would be safe under his protection. Sarah Smith did not return home for a decade.
In 2012, siblings Jake and Sophie Clifton became increasingly worried about the well-being of their mother, Sandra Clifton, because of her troubled boyfriend, David. As it turns out, “Rob” and “David” was the same person. Sandra was manipulated by a man who had been publicly outed as a masterful deceiver. If only the Clifton siblings had known what to type in on Google, they could’ve saved their mother from years of living under Rob/David’s coercive control and brought him down for good.